Just Back from New Zealand

The summer break just flew by; filled with holidays, family visits, sightseeing, and our wonderful trip to Kiwi Land. The kids are back to school as of Wednesday. It's hard to believe they were out of school for 7 and a half weeks. Zoe returned to her junior class with the same teacher, Jonah started 5th grade (he skipped 4th), and Lucas started the 3rd grade with his mates.

We were lucky to have Mike's parents come for a visit for the holidays (they return this Saturday to the cold winter weather in Indiana), and his sister, Helen, came for a couple weeks for Christmas and New Year's. We made sure to show them all the sights in Brisbane, to include the koalas, kangaroos, downtown, the Gold Coast beaches, Tropical Fruit World, and SeaWorld. But I think above all else, they enjoyed our pool and spending time with the kids! Christmas didn't quite feel like Christmas with the tropical weather, swimming daily in our pool, and our tans. (But we were glad about it after we heard about all the crazy, cold weather in the U.S.)

Our family of 7 traveled to the South Island of New Zealand from January 14th through the 24th. It was the first trip of this kind with the kids. I wasn't too sure how they would do with all the scenic attractions and all the driving. The worry was unnecessary because they were great. The whole trip was fantastic! We all had a great time! We were all sad to leave the beautiful country. The pictures don't do the scenery justice. It's something one must behold to fully understand and "feel" it. The scenery changed quite frequently as we traveled, and looped around the island. But what remained constant was how clean it all was and how natural the landscape seemed.

We flew in and out of Christchurch (on the upper East Coast of South Island), traveled west through a mountain range to the opposite coast to Franz Josef (to see its famous glacier), then southeast to Queenstown (Lake Wakatipu, The Remarkables mountains), back to the west coast to Milford Sound, a 1 night stop at Te Anau, and then to Dunedin before heading back up the east coast back to Christchurch. The pictures included with this blog are from Christchurch. The rest will follow.

In Christchurch, we walked through the city and cathedral square, rode a gondola up to a mountaintop for a bird's eye view of the city and it's harbour, rode the tram through Christchurch, and also punted (a boat ride with a guy paddling standing up at the back of the boat) on the Avon river.

The landscape pictures were taken as we were driving out of Christchurch through Arthur's Pass toward Franz Josef. The picture of the bird was also taken on Arthur's Pass. It was our first sighting of the Alpine parrot, or Kea, another of NZ's protected animals.