Wellington & South Island: Teaser with pictures
This is a teaser of what I've done so far in New Zealand, here at roughly my halfway point. Full report comes later!
I've spent a week around Wellington, seeing the Wellington sights and spending a lot of time with Tom & his family. That was great fun and Wellington is a fine fine city.
Just tonight I got back from a week long trip with just Tom (his poor/kind family stayed behind to defend the fort). We spent a lot of time touring much (but far from all) of the South Island. A rental car took us all about, including Picton, Christchurch, Mt. Cook, Wanaka, Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford Sound, back up to Wanaka, Haast, Fox & Franz Joseph Glaciers, and around Arthur's Pass back to Christchurch. It was fantastic.
Some brief highlights (from memory, so place names may be misspelled):
I've spent a week around Wellington, seeing the Wellington sights and spending a lot of time with Tom & his family. That was great fun and Wellington is a fine fine city.
Just tonight I got back from a week long trip with just Tom (his poor/kind family stayed behind to defend the fort). We spent a lot of time touring much (but far from all) of the South Island. A rental car took us all about, including Picton, Christchurch, Mt. Cook, Wanaka, Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford Sound, back up to Wanaka, Haast, Fox & Franz Joseph Glaciers, and around Arthur's Pass back to Christchurch. It was fantastic.
Some brief highlights (from memory, so place names may be misspelled):
- many short "nature walks" (anywhere from five minute to hour+ long treks to "somewhere pretty")
- Mountains, Lakes, etc.
- colony of Seals, off Kaikoura coast
- Tom's ancestral homestead where he first crashed a car
- 2+ hour climb of Mt. Cook to a lake with icebergs
- accidentally driving past the town of Twizel
- hunting for a place to sleep in Wanaka
- cruising through Milford Sound
- giving directions (correctly) in Haast to tourists
- Glaciers!
- the ocean attacking us