Peggy & Pat's Sailing Adventures
On March 12, after seeing Ray & Mary off at the Christchurch airport, we picked up a rental car and drove to Hanmer Springs, about 2 hours northwest. Hanmer Springs is a cute little town built around a set of great thermal springs. With about a thousand permanent residents, the town receives over 500,000 tourists each year! The hot springs
March 8, on the road again! This is one of our longest drives at 355 km and over 5 hours, from Queenstown to Franz Josef, a small town on the west coast. It is known for the Franz Josef Glacier. The glaciers in NZ have generally been retreating due to global warming, but this one is a bit special because
On March 2, we said goodbye to my son Bryan and hello to our good friends Ray & Mary. I have known Ray since we were both on the same dorm floor at UC Berkeley in 1976. They flew down from Auckland, having been vacationing there for a bit with Ray’s son Mike and his wife and child. Our first
Feb26 we drove from Queenstown to Te Anau, a little over two hours. Lake Te Anau is at the edge of Fjordland, a huge, pristine national park covering the southwest corner of the South Island. We checked into a VRBO property for the first time on this trip. It was an older home, but we had lots of space and
Feb23 started with an early ferry ride from Stewart Island to Bluff and a long drive to Queenstown to pickup my son, Bryan, at the airport! 🙂 He had just flown in from California and we were looking forward to sharing NZ with him. We spent some time walking around in downtown QT on a very nice warm summer day.
Feb20, a 3.5 hr drive through beautiful farmland from Dunedin to Bluff to get the ferry to Stewart Island. By lunchtime we were in Bluff and drove up to the top of the promontory where there is a nice park with great views. After lunch at the park we went to Oyster Cove Cafe, a really nice place with huge
In the evening of Feb18 we went on a “Blue Penguin Experience”. Danielle picked us up in a van with other tourists and drove us out to Otago Peninsula. On the way she pointed out many of the local birds that could be seen feeding along the shore. She was a wealth of knowledge about the history, geology and wildlife
Feb15, after saying goodbye to Robby and Ryan, we drove ~3hrs north to Lake Tekapo and checked in at a hotel about a block from the water. The lakes in this region are an unusual color due to the water being mostly glacial runoff. The ‘Church Of The Good Shepherd’ was built on the shore of Lake Tekapo as an
Feb13 – After our spectacular Glow Worm Caves adventure, it was time to leave Lake Te Anau. In less than 3 hours, we were back in Queenstown at the Blue Peaks Hotel where we had a 3 bedroom place with a large upstairs sitting room and full kitchen. Great to have all that space! We walked down to the waterfront
Feb11 we flew from Wellington to Queenstown, rented a car and drove 3+ hours to Lake Te Anau. Queenstown is roughly in the center of the map below. The blue line shows our driving trip from QT to Lake Te Anau and to Milford Sound. Te Anau is a long, thin mountain lake and it is the largest lake, by