More reviews

I know I am going to lose momentum/interest in this idea now I am home and busy again - so here is some thoughts about the other accommodation we stayed in during our NZ travels. After Tekapo we headed to Dunedin. There we stayed in our best value accommodation of the trip, Living Spaces, although I was shocked at first by how small the room was. However, we got to appreciate that we had everything we needed and it was very well designed to maximise the lack of space. The bathroom, built in a big glass cylinder, had fantastic water pressure, which redeemed the room when I was initially feeling a bit claustrophobic, compared to our wonderful large unit in Lake Tekapo. We didn't make use of them, but there was a range of shared facilities, like a 'theatre' you could book to watch DVDs and a shared kitchen. Overall, for the price, quite good value and I'd stay there again. Although, looking at their website, we payed quite a bit more than the advertised rate - (so much for bargains on wotif) but I guess it was peak period....

I can't remember where we stayed in Akaroa at the moment. I'll look it up at some stage :) but next stop after that was Hanmer Springs. The main draw card there of course is the hot springs, so a motel in walking distance to the centre of town is very handy. We stayed at Aspen Lodge Motel, and since it was our wedding anniversary, splurged on a spa room (in hindsight, a bit redundant in a spa town, LOL) and had a beautiful suite, with a separate lounge and its own balcony. The home made baked goods delivered when the room was cleaned were a lovely touch. And while you are in Hanmer Springs, make sure you try the Tapas at the Rustic Cafe - such good food, we ate there both nights (we needed 2 visits to try the full range of Tapas). While on the subject of dining, we discovered a fantastic restaurant in Dunedin, very reasonably priced, called Nova Cafe. It's right next door to the cinema, in the Octagon. You have to try the slow cooked lamb... and the caramelised banana creme brulee was amazing.

Last stop of the trip was Kaikoura and ironically (we stayed there the longest), our most modest accommodation (although not the cheapest). The Bella Vista was a perfectly acceptable motel, with really nice service in the office (they let me on their computer to check in and print our boarding passes) but overcrowded rooms and very expensive Internet. We were tripping over the suitcases for 4 days. The motel was also quite a way out of the centre of town, so for the first time, we had to drive in every time we wanted a meal. Luckily, there is so much to do in Kaikoura, we didn't need to spend a lot of time sitting around our tiny room. And that's where I'll leave things for now - I'll review the attractions next post.

A fun few days.

Last Wednesday we spent quite a bit of time at the Otago Museum in Dunedin, where they have a great Butterfly house (pictured above). It was quite cold in Dunedin today, and I wasn't really dressed for it, so the warmth in the Butterfly house was quite welcome!

The Catlins

Yesterday we spent the day on a self driving tour the of The Catlins - the coastal area at the very tip of south island. It's a beautiful area, and we were lucky enough to get up close and personal with a couple of rare Yellow Eyed Penguins, and some sea lions (or fur seals - not 100% sure which). It was exhausting, and we missed a site or two that could only be viewed at low tide (Cathedral caves will have to be on the agenda next time) but it was a fantastic day.

The view at Curio Bay, our first stop, where many of the rocks are actually fossilised trees!

A view of the fossilised forest - that diagonal line in the foreground is a fallen log.

A Yellow Eyed Penguin (the rarest in the world) on the rocks at Curio Bay

A Sealion on the beach at Surat Bay.

Purakaunui Falls

Nugget Point

Berry Heaven!

We drove to Dunedin today. The weather isn't great - it rained lightly most of the day, but it was a beautiful drive. Along the way we stopped at a U-pick berry place and picked berries and had some wicked desserts for morning tea - Rasberry Crumble for Jason and Mixed Berry Shortcake for me!!

When we got to Dunedin we checked out the steepest street in the world - it was easier to walk up than I expected, but my muscles didn't stop quivering for ages afterwards! :)

Last day at Lake Tekapo

Today we drove up to Mt Johns, where the Observatory is. We have been trying to do the skygazer tour the last 2 nights, but mother nature has not co-operated, and the cloud cover was too heavy. That will have to be something we do on another trip I guess, but today we at least got to experience the amazing view from the summit. The weather was not great - very windy and overcast, but still definitely worth a look. And tonight I had fun playing with the photo stitching software within PhotoShop and made some photo montage panoramas....

2011 in New Zealand!

2011 is off to a fantastic start, as we are travelling in New Zealand and having a wonderful time. While we did fly into Auckland, the holiday didn't really start till we flew down to Christchurch on Friday, in the South island. We have been in Lake Tekapo for a couple of days, and the scenery is amazing. Today we went on a tour from Mount Cook with 'Glacier Explorers', which was fantastic - a boat trip onto Lake Tasman, at the head of the Tasman Glacier, on which float numerous Icebergs. It's mindblowing to think that 90% is below the water, and some of them have run aground, in over 200m of water at the 'shallow end' of the lake. We have another day or so here, then we move on to see other parts of South Island!

Almost time...

...to think about heading home. It's been an awesome trip, and we only have a couple of days to go. We drove to Te Anua the day before yesterday, and it was a fairly easy drive, with some nice scenery on the way. Its funny how the bar gets higher - it's really a lovely drive, but the scenery when we drove out to Glenorchy at the end of the lake the day before was so amazing, everything else looks ho-hum by comparison. :)

Yesterday we wen to Milford Sound. It was very cloudy in the morning, but fined up to be quite a nice day. It was very disappointing, as we were on a dive trip for DH, and he discovered once geared up and in the water that he was not fully recovered and couldn't dove after all. We still had a great day, but it's pretty rough to be that close and miss out - especially when he had to watch everyone else diving. :( Unfortunately the dive company couldn't offer any type of refund at all, so it made for an expensive cruise. Hopefully I can work something out with travel insurance when we get home.

We saw the funniest thing at the spot above in the last photo - tiny little fish in the rock pool under the waterfall, that climb the cliff face. I didn't believe it at first, but they are seriously wiggling their way up the sheer rock face. Most bizarre thing I have ever seen. No pics though - didn't want to get the camera wet, so you will just have to take my word for it!

On top of the world

We have had a great couple of days here in Queenstown so far. Yesterday we took it fairly easy and organised a 'Deer safari' through the Deer park and to see some LOTR locations. It was a very enjoyable trip, but as is often the case with these tourists jaunts, we found out we could have saved our $150 and driven ourselves to the Deer Park for $20 per car. *sigh* Oh well, then we wouldn't have had the commentary, or seen the movie scenes in the bus, and it was interesting to see the scene, then look out the window at where it was shot. Very weird to see a dilapidated Korean Fort on a NZ hillside though (or a Middle Earth hillside for that matter). Apparently it was used for a Disney movie, 'The Rescue' in the 90's.

We did see a great range of wildlife up close and personal - Pigs, Donkeys, Miniature Horses, Red Deer, Elk, Llama, Alpaca, Bison and Yak and it was a lot of fun photographing and feeding them, with some amazing scenery to boot....

Today we had a lovely sleep-in, then headed off to go white-water rafting on the Shotover River. It was an awesome trip, although at only a couple of hours on the water, it felt a lot shorter than the full day trips we have done in the past. Probably more manageable in the middle of a busy trip like ours, as it can be pretty exhausting.

After rafting, we had a pizza by the lake and watched a street performer, which was highly entertaining dinner theatre :) .

A Bad Combination....

I felt so ill when I woke up this morning that I was actually hoping for bad weather so our jetboat trip would be cancelled. A few hours later, some panadol and anti-inflammatories later, I felt almost human, and able to stick it out if I had to, but I have to admit, I was relieved when the river levels were too high for the particular trip we were booked on, and we were able to obtain a refund.

We decided to stop at Puzzle World on the way out of Wanaka. Its well worth a stop, lots of interesting stuff to see, and the Great Maze was a lot of fun. But, unfortunately, the combination of running a temperature, the weird perspective in the illusion rooms, and a very curvy drive through the highest mountain pass in New Zealand caused me to experience motion sickness the likes of which I haven't felt in years. The last time I can remember feeling this queasy was from a ride at the Royal Melbourne Show a number of years ago. It took hours to get over, and I'm still not feeling 100%.

Despite lousy weather (it rained most of the way), it was still a spectacular drive, and I got some lovely photos of the wild lupins by the road. Now we have 4 days in Queenstown to enjoy - it is a very busy place - not like the other places we have been so far, which have been fairly quiet. We are also lucky enough to have an outstanding view from our hotel room (see below).