monkey time in Christchurch!

Welcome to a big city!! after all the small towns, this was a bit of a culture shock, only stayed in the city center for a few hours- we went to Cathederal Square looking for the wizard - don't think he is there anymore. There were lots of chess games being played instead.
Even a huge sized game . the kids sat and watched and Kyle tried to figure out the moves. We wondered around the beautiful garden park. This city is known as the garden city and its easy to see why! beautiful!





































sitting by the garden having a rest! it has been a long drive - loving the gardens, Sandra you'd love them!
After the big city experience we left to the outskirts of Christchurch to a place called Spencer Park. We stayed in the rest area close to the Adrenalin Forest. It wasn't a real campsite, but it sure was beautiful and it beat paying $50 a night! There was a fantastic park to play in and all of us kids had a blast playing in it that night.
our home for the night, it was wonderful here. a nice walk in the grass lands and park across the street. lots of birdies!
playing in the park at sunset. fun fun fun
the next morning we were ready to do the challenge - "Adrenalin Forest is quite the body work out. I am proud to say that Steve, Kyle and Maya all finished the whole 6 challenge course! Emma because of her height could only do the first 2 but she did them 3 times! I finished 2 and took pictures! arms not as strong as my legs and this was definetly an arm event! it was a series of cables between tree tops and all kinds of bridges and lots of flying foxes zip line! lots of fun and they even got as high as 22 meters!look closely! thats Kyle in one corner, Maya in another and Steve off in the distance!Kyle is the real monkey, he did all the hard parts of the challenge and even had to hang on a rope swing while Steve untangled the line that pulled the rope swing to the platform, seems in the excitement Kyle got it tangled and stopped in the middle of the trees. quite high up I might add. Steve had to sort of hurry across the tight wire thing, even made him nervous. Maya got a little scared on some of the challenges but got through it! quite proud she was!!
this girl has no fear! look at those splits - she has great balance!
this is the practise platform. lots of fun and the rain even held of for us. it took almost 3 hours to complete the whole thing!

Timaru and the road to it.

on the road again......... stopping along the way............... lots of sweetpeas growing......................lots of sheep a chew'n................maori drawings ..........kids a flying on our next destination of Timaru
I think we found some kin!! they look Tremblays or is that Robb's? Kurow is the town


Oh my lovely sweetpeas! everywhere on this road
More MacLeods- Don and Joan on our hike around the pond to the ocean in Timaru
Dinner in the caravan once again only Don and Joan joined us!
They have bunnies and the girls loved them. they where training them to be
oh the way to have fun!
we met Joan's cousin Jack, who built and collected all 9 old cars. Here Steve is telling him what to do with the steering on the 14 model T. He also has an Austin super 7 boat tail speedster from around the '30'sYep he's at it again, fixing this time planes. Steve had fun helping Jack get the microlite ready for airtime!



Flying time for the kids! this is the plane that Maya and Emma got to go for a flight in.


And Kyle got this one! He even got to fly !! very happy boy that day! this was a very unexpected treat! the kids loved it. this is a microlight and Jack is the main teacher . look at that smile!! He was in his element for sure!and yet another plane. this one is Jack's own plane. no flying in it that day just gave the engine a warm up. He hasn't been able to fly for a year, do to operations. but he enjoyed flying with kyle that day!
this is a replica of the plane Richard Pearse built. He was the first man to fly just ahead of the Wright Brothers. read below
and then to top it all of! We went for a walk on the beach and found this guy! our first penguin in the wild!
This little guy was so cute! look how close they got to him, off we went to leave him be, what a great way to end the day. certainly packed full for sure! We spent 3 days and nights there and even helped Joan and Don with the house they are working on for a couple of hours. the kids even got paid! they were excited to say the least

Queenstown jetboating! Arrowtown and Bungy jumping!

No mom, I didn't do it again! Kyle wanted to but the bank account was a little low! spent it on the jet boat.
Oh the memories! This the original AJ Hacket site and where I did my jump 17 years ago!

TheKawarua River! isn't it gorgeous, love the colours
Arrowntown is a nice little cute gold town- The Arrow River is said to have been one of the riches sources of alluvial gold in the world. we toured the museum here and the kids even tried to pan for some gold. no luck!
yep we found the sweet shop!
Maya using the old switchboard phone.
Maya ! did you strike it rich?!
School time for the kids, in the old school house of Arrowtown
What a blast! We had fun , can you tell. they did 360* spins, through the gorge , getting real close! thought we'd hit a few times. Steve and Kyle were up in front and Steve talked the guys ear off with questions ect. even got the driver to go faster! Maya got soaked in the back!! this was well worth the money, we spent about 40-45 minutes on the Shotover river up and down , through the gorge.


Little trivia for ya, the Shotover River was the second largest gold producing river in the world per km yeilding 12oz of gold per yard of gravel. do you know what the largest one was? Right in our back yard...... I'll let you figure it out.
The famous Moa- this bird was here in NZ, now extinct- bummer
TSS Earnslaw built in 1906 was originally used to transport sheep and cattle across the lake, now it does tours on lake Wakatipu- by the way this lake rises and falls up 12 cm every 5 minuteshanging out in Queenstown !

Continuing on the south island land tour!

Lake Matheson 6km NW of Fox Glacier

this lake is famous for its mirror-like reflections of Mount Cook ( Aoraki in Moari)- unfortunately there was a little wind , so ripples made it not so reflective and cloudy so we couldn't get a view of Mount Cook. I did by a postcard for me to keep of it though. and we saw Mount Cook along the highway after Fox Glacier, I just thought I'd get a picture later. dumb me!! oh well.On another swing bridge to lake matheson! Bridge number 2just cause I like vegetation. look at all the fungi!

Headed to Haas - what a beautiful coastline! we were right on the edge of the Tasman sea! lots of stops on the way to collect beautiful stones... and take gorgeous pictures. We hiked through the swamp ( they had a lovely wood path). and loved the view of the Tasman Sea again! The kids did great in the car!
Knights Point , West Coast South Island
Do you think it gets windy here on the West Coast? look at those trees! This is across the road from the beach below!
Came across this rock sculpture ! done by the backpackers (I think) waiting for a ride while hitchhiking! Emma even joined in and built one
Steve and the girls collecting opal white stones from the beach. (Bruce Bay) it was loaded ! That's the Tasman Sea rolling in!
Ships Creek swap! oh so pretty,
more of Ships Creek Swamp, this was a very lovely walk! lots of green for me and lots of birds singing. There were lots of kahikatea trees - these are the tallest native trees in New Zealand.

We made it to Haas expecting to find a good place to shop for food.. but......... this town is so small!! it has nothing and on the map it looks to be a decent size place! so we kept on going.
Steve found us a nice looking place to camp for the night - this great long green lawn ! ( turns out is was a runway!!) lucky for us - no planes that night - however , there were so many sand flies! oh my god, we were getting eaten alive. we had to do the sandfly dance just to get into the caravan and then we starred out the window in amazement of how many sandflies where on the windows just waiting to get us!!! we left early and fast the next morning!! The first day of no sun and some rain, didn't mind a bit. could smell all the trees!Next stop was at the Blue Pools, nice little walk through the forest and over another swing bridge! they have heaps of them around here! this makes number 3aren't they blue! and full of trout too. the blue comes from the icy cold glacier water and the refection of the sky. it was cloudy and rainy that day and they still were blue!I even went in! very cold!!!! glacier fed!! Very refreshing on the sandfly bites!
Lake Hawea on the way to Wanaka, - there are 3 big lakes in this area from Haas to Queenstown, Hawea, Wanaka and Wakatipu

We drove to Wanaka to check out the puzzle world. Mom and Auntie Sandy ,you would love this place!! Hey , Nathaniel have you been there? I know this is the town Nathaniel ( my cousin for all of you who don't know him) wants to live in New Zealand. very pretty town! nice lake.Puzzle world and yes they are standing straight! lots of illusions on the eyesa
don't you love the bathrooms! they were so cool. this is one fabulous mural!all the toilets were neat hear, all you gamblers will appreciate this one! I do have a collection of them all. wait til I get home for the slide show- ha ha Oh Emma is so strong! look at her hold up the building!

Kyle has a very strong back also!
Go Maya go!!and then they all did it. that's Steve at the bottom pushing it over and the kids are trying to hold it up.
Look closely , what do you see?
Me and my children!
Lake Wanake- lots of sailing that day!
Dinner in the caravan at Lake Wanaka- then we left for Queenstown.............

Next we were off to Queenstown- first we came down the Crown Range- by accident mind you, it is very steep and full of switch backs ( we did not leave that way later!!!) beautiful view of the area!the crown range.............. sorry no switchback photos cause I was a little scared! so close to the edge and a long way down...
and the peak!!