Hackles Family

We had a good trip and have plenty of photos (I'm serious, Mum and I each took around 800) and postcards and souvenirs to remember our trip by.

Now its back to work and school and uni for everyone but despite all that, it really is a good feeling to be back home

From their we checked into the motel and unloaded all our stuff, delighted to have a night in real bed. We drove to the airport and visited the Anartic Centre. This is where NZ, USA and Italy base their expeditions for Antartica and there is a lot of information and some cool exhibits. Everyone but me (still sick) experienced an Antartic Storm where the temperature in a large room (with snow) is dropped to -20 degrees and the winds are increased. It certainly made a change from mountains and lakes which we have seen enough of to last us for a while.

While we were in there Dad left for a while and took the campervan back and when we were done looking at everything and watching the cute penguin videos we walked back to the motel, though it was further than we thought.

We tried to have an early night since we had to get up early but couldn't resist a bit of tv.

Today we headed north of Christchurch up to Hanmer Springs.

When we got there everyone but me decided to have a swim in the hot thermal pools, it was a bit crowded being NZ school holidays, so mum decided to pay the little bit extra to get a private pool.

It was raining when everyone got out and there wasn't much else in Hamner to do so we headed back in the direction of Christchurch.

We stopped at a cool rocky beach that was made up from 'river' stones and pulled over for the night in a rest area 40kms north of Christchurch.

Oh, and the alpaca (not llama, sorry) bear received the name Geraldine, or Al for short.

From the coast we headed inland to take a U shaped drive up to Christchurch.

Stopping in a cute little town (and I mean little, the hardware store was also the video store and it sold toys and stationary...) called Twizel we had what is likely to be our last encouter with snow.

Heading north we stopped at both Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo which amazingly look better in real life than they do on the postcards I bought, and the weather wasn't even at its best. Each of the lakes can display a variety of colours (from deep blues to clear aquamarines) and is set with a backdrop of snow covered mountains. Even in Summer you are likely to see snow on these mountains as behind Lake Tekapo is Mount Cook, NZ's highest mountain.

Leaving the lakes behind we drove through more little towns, choosing to stop in Geraldine for a break and some retail therapy. Managed to convince Mum to buy an adorable teddy bear made from Llama fur - despite its slightly hefty price tag - well its not my fault, she kept raving about it after we first left the store...

We arrived early evening in Christchurch and got settled in a different caravan park to last time. Because of its expensive internet charges, and because it was (is) still early over here, Dad, Tiff, Court and I caught a bus into the city centre to have a bit of a wander.

And so our holiday is rapidly coming to a close. We were faster than we thought we would be on the South Island and have arrived back in Christchurch earlier than we though. Tomorrow we might go up to Hamner Springs (which we missed the first time) or might just spend the day around the city. Saturday we have a motel booked and plan on visiting the Antartic Centre here before our very early flight out on Sunday morning (6am NZ time).

Its been a good holiday though

We drove into Dunedin (pronounced Dune-din not Dun-e-din like we thought) where Tiffany got to live out her dreams with a visit to Cadbury World (NZs Cadbury Factory). Mum and I have previously visited the Oz one in Tasmania so we gave it a miss while Dad and the other 3 headed in for the tour.

Mum and I wandered the town which is famous for its heritage buildings (we liked the train station) and went to an old fashioned fudge shop.

On leaving Dunedin we drove around to find Baldwin Street to take photos of it. Its famous because it is the steepest street in the world (for those of you interested in transport eng, you know who you are, it has a 38% gradient - http://www.ourshop.co.nz/baldwinstreet.htm).

We hit the coast and saw the Moeraki Boulders which can't really be described but I will try. They are massive spherical rocks which look like they have washed up on the shore but are actually prehistoric and have been left behind by the eroded shoreline. Some have broken apart to reveal almost turtleshell type patterns...I will have to show you photos...

From there we headed north to Oamaru where Mum held hopes of seeing the rare Yellow Eyed Penguin. We considered booking a dusk spot to view the NZ Blue Penguin before realising they were AUS Fairy Penguins (and we saw them at Philip Island in 2003). Turns out in winter you can see the Yellow-Eyed ones for free since there aren't many around. We headed around to Bushey Beach to the designated viewing spot and waited. After a while we were rewarded with a fur seal sighting as it played in the shallows and waves. Almost giving up hope of seeing a penguin, a couple with binoculars nearby pointed out the first one of the evening waddling up the beach. Tiff missed it because she had gone back to the campervan to get the video camera to tape the seal...

After almost giving up on a second sighting (Tiff and Dad had given up) we headed back to the campervan, but Mum spotted another one heading up the shore. That was enough for her, she had seen her Yellow-Eyed Penguin and we could get out of the cold. Not that you will see much from our photos, they are a bit distant...Lucky I bought a postcard...