"When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses." ~Joyce Brothers

They made it!  After around 24 hours of travel, cancelled reservations, uncancelled reservations, and a stroll down the tarmac, my family arrived for a 12 day tour around The South Island.  We spent the first 2 nights in Queenstown where slowly yet surely the jet lag wore off (sort of... and also it turns out jet lag is contagious).  One of the highlights of QTN was definitely taking the gondola up to Skyline  to check out the views and ride the luge, where you zip down the hill Mario Cart-style in a little plastic cart.  It wasn't a competition, so I won't bother to mention that I won 2 out of 3 races.  We also got to watch the nutters do bungy jumps, which was a blast.

End of the luge track

Bungy!!!

Diving into a Ferg Burger.  A Big Al, no less!

Jet lag!

Quick stop in Arrowtown, an old gold mining town

The Shotover River

Next stop: Te Anau, gateway to Milford Sound.  We had some terrible weather so we were forced to stay in our comfy, cozy rental house with a fire, adult beverages, salty snacks, and our fave game Farkel for both evenings.  Darn!  However we did rally to go to dinner at Red Cliff and the food was amazing!  (However Kathy and Angela you will be sad to know that Dreamy was NOT there.)  The next day we got an early start and drove out to Milford Sound.  Luckily it rained overnight, so we got to enjoy the waterfalls in full force, but it wasn't raining for the actual cruise so our timing was perfect.

Wine tasting at Red Cliff

Drive out to Milford Sound

Oh to have the life of a seal...

Last man standing

Come on in, little kea

After Te Anau, we drove 3 hours to Wanaka.  The town itself was uneventful, other than feeding the eels and jumbo rainbow trout and an awesome Mexican dinner at 3 Amigos, but it was a nice restful stop.  The drive there however was action packed and included a stop in a seemingly charming pottery shop which turned out to be owned by a man who painted images of the prophecies Jesus showed him.  Yikes.

Teehehehe

Road to Wanaka

Duck, rainbow trout, and EELS in Lake Wanaka

The creeper prepares and...

Attacks!

Cocktails and farkel while we wait for dinner reservations?  Don't mind if I do!

So dear.  "1, 2, 3, 4, 5...4."  Not a straight.

Dinner at Three Amigos

We headed next to New Zealand's famous glaciers: Fox and Franz Josef.  The tour where you can gear up and hike on the glacier was full, but we really enjoyed the hikes we did instead.  We started with a hike to view Fox glacier from afar, then did one that took you closer to the "snout" (the end at the bottom).  We then drove 30 minutes to Franz Josef and hiked to the snout and saw some beautiful waterfalls along the way.  Both were gorgeous, but I think we preferred Fox which had more blue ice exposed.  We grabbed dinner and went for a soak in some hot pools which were very relaxing after hiking all day.  At around 10 we rolled up to our accommodation at Perivale Farm Cottage, which is a cottage on a working farm, so we had fun checking out the animals in the morning, although to my dismay, none of the sheep ran and jumped into my arms for cuddling.  Still cute though.

"Yawn!"

SO sweet!

Fox glacier

Close up of hikers on the glacier

Snagged a chunk of ice floating by

"His lips were like warm velvet!"

Wood pigeon being majestic

Fantail (aka "flycatcher" according to Dad)

Franz Josef glacier

New Zealand robin- so cute!

Top of Franz Josef Glacier

Peeping wood pigeon

Home sweet home down on the farm

Sweet 'fro, bro!

Franz Jo to Nelson was our longest drive, but one of the most beautiful.  This is easy for me to say since I made Brad drive all 10 hours of winding roads while I gawked at the scenery and napped.  Teehe.  Part of the reason it took us so long was because we did make a few stops, most notably Punakaiki Pancake Rocks.  You walk around all sorts of pathways at high tide to see the waves crash up on the rocks and hear the noises... aka Lost monster which took several years off mine and my mother's lives (but was hilarious to watch I'm sure).

We got to Nelson late, then spent our second day checking out the town and doing a tasting at Stoke brewery.  The beer was just okay, but their honey lemon cider was fabulous and Brad caught a cicada to amuse us.  We went and explored the beaches and played on the death-defying playground (i.e. puke inducer) before heading home for, you guessed it, dinner and drinks.

On our last day in Nelson we drove a few hours out to Abel Tasman National Park, known for its gorgeous beach hikes and turquoise waters.  Naturally we had rancid weather and genuinely feared the roads washing out from below our tires.  We pushed on though and enjoyed a couple of hikes.  The first one was at The Grove which was short, but full of jungle-y vines and nice outlooks.   The second to Wainui Falls which included crossing a swing bridge.  4 hours of so in the rain and cold and we had had enough.  Time to succumb to cocktail hour.

Quirky house on the way to Nelson

Pancake Rocks

Before the waves come...

... and during the waves!

A sweet, curious weka in the parking lot!

The weka's natural food source is, in fact, vanilla soft serve. 

Arriving to our rental home in Nelson with a gorgeous sunset over the beach

Oh that?  That's just Carol the Creeper Mannequin who, from the moment we crossed the threshold of
this house, was destined to end up lurking in the bathroom.

World's smallest flounder lost in a shallow side stream

Flounder rescue squad!

Little sea bird chilling on the side of the road

Mental note: don't send your breakables with mainfreight.

Tarzan at The Grove hike

Playing with my color accent setting

Look at wild thing!

Wainui Falls

Beehives

We left behind the garbage weather and headed to sunny Blenheim, one of the wine regions in NZ knows for its Sauvignon Blanc.  We started at Seresin winery, which is owned by the cinematographer of Harry Potter, and uses biodynamic methods to naturally grow the grapes.  Some of it was interesting, some of it was a little hard to swallow (even for the employee) i.e. adding crystals to the fertilizer for "energy."  Whatever they were doing though, they were doing right because the wines were delicious.  Next we went to Cloudy Bay winery which was also great, and then Allen Scott winery whose wines were okay, but lunch was fabulous.  

Seresin Winery

Cloudy Bay winery

Allen Scott winery (and lunch stop)

Bad D.D!

I think she likes it!  (Brownie points for Brad- he's telling me not to post this... but I can't be stopped!)

Aftermath of green lipped mussels

Poor D.D. just got beat in tic tac toe!

Poor, tired D.D.

Our final stop was to my fave town in NZ, Kaikoura.  Our grand plans to swim with dolphins and do a helicopter tour on our second day were squashed by the rainy weather (are you noticing a pattern?) so were spent the day checking out the quaint town, going to a sheep sheering show, and... twist our arms... drinking wine while staring at the seal colony.  We weren't able to reschedule the dolphin swim, but we had amazing luck on our final day and did our helicopter whale watch in a 45 minutes pocket of crystal clear weather.  We saw a pod of 500+ dolphins and were able to see a gorgeous sperm whale in its entirety from about 500 feet up.  It was absolutely gorgeous and riding in the helicopter was really cool, especially when we took off straight up from the platform by the pilot simply pulling back on a lever.  They were small choppers, so we took 2 with 3 of us in each.  Best birthday ever :)

...AND HERE COME THE SEALS!!!

A gentle reminder that these guys could mess you up

Mommy and baby

Turf war

Babies smooching!

My favorite one with his little bed of seaweed

Probably getting a little too close...

"Unhand me Sir!"

Look out for that rock monster!

Thought this was a trilobite fossil until it started moving.

Before...

...halfway there...

...all sheered!  Here's Brooke feeling the lanolin oil on her skin.

"Jed... over!"

Stop at a lavender garden

Ted you sly dog!

Woke up to snow on the mountains!

Getting our choppah safety briefing and putting on our life vest belts.

View of Kaikoura Peninsula

Incredible dolphin pod

Mom, Brooke, and Dave's choppah

 It was really a magical way to end the trip, and an extra special birthday.  We drove the final 2.5 hours to Christchurch for our flights home and talked almost the whole way about how amazing the whale watch was.  I miss them already! 

Farkels take New Zealand 2012   <3