Time Flies....

Time flies way too fast. I'm now sat in the airport at Auckland waiting for my flight back to Honolulu (via LAX.....ug....). We gave back the van this morning, tootled around the galleries and museum of Christchurch and then I wandered in the early afternoon. We were even brave enough to have another curry lunch, I hope Stian is doing okay this afternoon. He's cut his time in NZ short to look at properties in CA, but i'm lucky enough that he's coming via Hawaii and will spend a week around xmas with me starting on sunday. Yay. 

The trip has been good, to be honest it has not been great, but it has been good and has been punctuated by great moments. We've been mired with a host a little annoyances, like food poisoning, low energy days, excess rain and excess sand flies amongst the few, and to be honest just a lot of driving in a van that didn't want to go more than 30KPH uphills, so made the going somewhat slower than it should have been on an already tight schedule. But overall, it's been great to see NZ. Here are a dump of South Island photo highlights......

A curious Kea in our first campsite. These are native parrots that are so cute, though Stian was not impressed. This little fellow kept coming up to the van and looked for a while like he would jump right on in......

Not a highlight, but a sicky Stian in the van all tucked up shortly before transferring to a motel for the day/night....

One of the stops on the way to the motel, Arthurs Pass, just beautiful. And the picture of Robbie Williams on our van.....

The view from the motel room, a good view to recouperate with....

Feeling somewhat better we did a low key rainy day and went to the Shantytown tourist area on the other side of Arthurs pass (I'll update with the town name once I have a map in front of me!). We did a train ride, went through old miners villages, museums and panned for gold. Here is Stian panning away. 

Me and Stian with our gold vials....got a lot didn't we.....:0)

On the coast road just down from the Fox Glacier. We ended up spending a second night in a motel just in case (which luckily was not needed), but it was a cute town and I got to see the glacier in the rain....:0)

Pancake rocks in the rain....now these were neat. All my geologist friends.....just how were these formed?? The signs at the park were not conclusive, basically saying no-one knows.....

Buller Gorge in the rain (guessing a theme here?). Our first night back in the van and a free campsite overlooking the gorge. Lots of sand flies, so we stayed locked in the van as much as possible, got a few crosswords done.......:0)

They're not all that rare....here we saw a Giant Kiwi....

The top of a TeePee made from washed up wood in the Abel Tasmin National Park. Just beautiful there, and it was dry enough for a walk on the 'Great Walk", all be it a short one. Yay! 

Stian on Dale the Clydesdale on the Abel Tasmin National Park, with our weird guide. As much as I loved my horse, I was totally jealous of Stian getting to ride a Clydesdale, so beautiful. 

On the short walk around the PuPu Springs.....a total random stop that turned out to be fabulous! 

A Sealion looks on at the Farewell Spit, the most northerly point on the South Island. This was a fun walk over farm land to look at some fossil rocks. Reminded me of hiking in the UK........cow pats all around.....:0)

And some cows on the hill at the Farewell Spit. I liked the clouds...