Manapouri

On the road from St Bathans we encountered some aliens crossing. luckily, they were very friendly and we passed safely.

We stayed at a funky campsite in Manapouri. It had lots of old Morris Minors lined up and chalets to stay in which looked like doll`s houses. It also had an old tractor to play on which Em was rather taken with.

This was our last night with Rob and Tracy, they were going to walk the Milford Track and we were heading back up the west coast.

So we had to divide the bottle of whisky up. This was a very precise operation and as you can see, it took 3 people to make sure it was fair!

We have added a picture of me making a cuppa near Lake Wanaka, just to prove that I do use the cooker too!

Queenstown White Water Rafting

This was great fun. We travelled on a precarious dirt road up to the head of the Shotover River, classed as a grade 3-4+. Our guide was really nice and made Em feel safe by making her sit next to him. We practised our instructions on the first part of the journey when it was relatively calm and then hit the rapids!

After the initial surprise of the boat filling up with water and luckily self bailing, we all relaxed more and enjoyed the ride

I would definately say the safety procedures are much more tight than when I did it last 20+years ago in the States.

We would all happily do it again.

St Bathans

This entry is mainly for Tim and Ali.

We all stayed here 20+ years ago and I wanted to go and visit it again. It`s still a lovely little place and, I found out later, of historical importance because they have discovered fossils of great significance here.

Pauline and John Bellamy, (whose house I am standing looking in), said we could stay here all those years ago which we did and we also stayed with them in Dunedin not long after their son Manu was born.

I talked to the landlord of the pub and he told me about the family.

Pauline still owns the house in St Bathans and she is quite a well known artist in NZ. John manages their art gallery in Otago Peninsular. Max, (Pauline`s eldest child) and Manu are also artists in their own right.

It brought back a lot of good memories and also made me feel old!

Anyway, hope you like the pictures.

Black Stilt

When we were near Twizel, we saw the rarest wading bird IN THE WORLD! IN THE WILD! Steve managed to get some great pictures of it and this is one of them. Rob and Tracy are keen bird watchers and they have introduced us to lots of wildlife.Rob has been waiting to see one of these stilts for 10 years and he was very excited. It was great for us too.

Oamaru, Dunedin and RAIN!

We stayed at Oamaru 2 nights and it rained all day and night. we did brave the cold and wet to look at the rare yellow eyed penguin. We saw one close to the cliff where we were standing,and one near the shore but we didn`t see the 30 or so who normally waddle up the beach at 7.30pm! We did stick it out for over an hour though.
We travelled to Dunedin in the rain on 22nd Feb. It rained for solidly for 3 more days and nights! We are developing webbed feet!

Twizel to Oamaru

18th Feb travelled to Twizel, stayed for 2 nights then onto Oamaru. It rained all the way. We stopped to see the Clay Cliffs near Omarama. These were formed after 2 million years of erosion on layers of silt and gravel. They are a very strange landscape, but we didn`t hang round too long as it was eroding as we stood there!
We also stopped at Elephant Rocks which are giant boulders which began as sand, buried 25 million years ago and have hardened into limestone. This setting was used as the backdrop for Aslan`s camp in the films `Narnia` and `The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe`.

Tasman glacier

18th Feb We walked to the Tasman glacier. This was an experience not to be missed. This glacier has in recent decades been melting from the top down and exposed rocks, boulders and lots of dirty stuff so it`s not as pretty as Fox of Franz joseph. It is however, still said to be over 600m thick in some places.
We saw some boats cruising around the floating iceburgs and they looked like ants.It`s strange to think some of that ice is thousands of years old.