Christchurch and beyond!

This is a slightly abbreviated version of the end of the South Island because I want to catch up to the present time!! ( I'm only a year behind!!) The journey from Queenstown to Christchurch was phenomenal with Mt Cook as a backdrop how could it not be?! We really enjoyed our last few days in the South Island. We stayed at this luxury B and B as it was Rosie's birthday and enjoyed the very English feeling Christchurch (even the B and B was owned by an English chap)
Rich and myself took the long route home to bring back the cars while Rosie and Kath enjoyed a flight back to Auckland with the children.

All I can say is...the South Island is completely AMAZING...I hope we come back some time!

Milford Sound

A "must see" of the South Island but we were pleased to only go for a day trip from Queenstown. We went on an overcast day which probably did not do the place justice but we were mildly disappointed. I think we built up this trip and our expectations were perhaps too high. Nevertheless it was really impressive but there are so many amazing places in New Zealand that this did not necessarily out do any of the others. Still... we managed to see some more dolphins which was brilliant!

Throwing stones in Queenstown!

Queenstown

Moving on from the very cold to the "Remarkable" Queenstown (quite literally). The Journey via the Haast pass was amazing. The sights were incredibly stunning on the journey and even the pictures don't really do it justice. Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand. It is famous for Jet Boating and other equally dangerous pursuits. We loved it!
One of the highlights of our time was going to a farm park on the opposite side of the lake to Queenstown and feeding deer. Unfortunately, Matilda was not overly impressed when she got kicked over by one of the larger deers!! Amazingly she did not get hurt but it certainly added a bit of drama to an otherwise brilliant afternoon!

The Glaciers (Franz Josef and Fox)

We moved down the West Coast down to the Glaciers. Unfortunately it wasn't the best weather when we arrived...and it didn't really pick up either. We thought about the possibility of taking a helicopter to the Glaciers but because of the weather it wasn't worth it. They were still quite impressive as well as the reflections of Lake Matheson. It was definitely worth the stop over.