New Zealand Days 6&7 - Te Anau

Our next destination after Wanaka was Te Anau. It was about a three hour drive, but we made a day of it.

We stopped when we wanted to stop... just to stretch our legs and enjoy the sunshine.

You have to take some time to appreciate the views, you know.

We also went through the Central Otago wine region, known for it's pinot noir.

Naturally, we had to stop and do some tastings. 

Appetizers at Carrick Winery.

Do all wineries have a box of toys and a blanket that they will set out near your table so your child can play while you drink wine and eat mussels and lamb? No? Well, they should. Because Katelyn loved it.

She also liked the garlic bread. Or at least she liked smearing it around the high chair and on her face.

We spent the night in Te Anau, and woke up early the next morning to drive to Milford Sound. It's about an hour and a half drive, but everybody says to allow much more time than that, just to enjoy the views. It's pretty spectacular.

One of many viewpoints.

Chris spent most of the drive craning his neck to try to see the tops of the mountains.  

The road is pretty decent. Except when it's covered with avalanche debris.

The one-lane Homer Tunnel makes the drive to Milford Sound possible. There's some pretty cool history behind the tunnel if you're interested in Googling it. This was us waiting to proceed through the tunnel.

On the other side of the tunnel, the views get even more spectacular.

The famous Milford Sound on a rare sunny day.

Ready for our Milford Sound Cruise!

Scarfing down a quick lunch so we could get up to the top deck for all the awesome views.

We spotted some seals or sea lions. I'm not sure which. But the boat captain sure did get us in there for a close picture! 

Penguins! I'm pretty sure this is the only time I'll see penguins in the wild.

The cruise took us out to the Tasman Sea and back. This is looking in at the Milford Sound from the ocean side.

At the end of the cruise we took a short detour to an underwater observatory.

We even saw some super rare black coral. Yes, I know. It's white. But it's called black coral because I guess it turns black when it dies.

We finished off a great day with a stroll along Lake Te Anau and a picnic of local wine and cheese. I really wish it didn't cost so much to ship NZ wine to Japan, because Mt. Difficulty Pinot Gris is AMAZING!

New Zealand Days 4&5 - Wanaka

After Mt. Cook, we travelled south to Wanaka. We liked Wanaka so much we spent a couple of days there. The first day we drove a looong gravel road, which included several places were we had to ford streams, to get to the Rob Roy Glacier Valley Trail.

The hike was definitely worth the long drive.

Trailhead - It started, as many hikes in NZ started, in a sheep pasture.

The trail was an out-and-back to an awesome open view of mountains, glaciers, and glacier waterfalls. It's difficult to appreciate the scale of this place from a photo, but this is a 1,000ft waterfall in the distance.

Katelyn refueling with a granola bar after a long hike:).

The return hike back through the sheep pasture was stunning.

Gorgeous mountains, glacier blue streams, beautiful weather...

And that looong gravel road with the river fording? Well, the next morning we realized we were missing a chunk of our grey water pipe. We spent the next morning getting it fixed. 

Well, I guess we didn't really have to do anything... we went for a walk through the town and enjoyed a nice lunch outside while our van was getting repaired.

Thanks to some great customer service, full coverage insurance, and speedy van maintenance, we still had time to do some rock climbing that afternoon.

Chris, rappelling after a fun afternoon of climbing.

New Zealand Days 2&3 - Mt Cook

We set up camp at White Horse Hill, near Mt. Cook, and headed out for a short hike on the Hooker Valley Track. 

Unfortunately, the clouds started rolling in and obscured some of our views. But it was still a pretty pleasant hike.

This is a piece of glacier floating in the lake at the end of the track. What you can't see in this picture is how crazy the weather turned on us. Really strong winds (they actually blew us off the walking path a couple times) and driving rain/mist made for a pretty brutal walk back. 

Apparently strong winds, rain, and cold temperatures make for the perfect napping environment. I think it's safe to say she was comfortable in her backpack carrier.

Roughin' it.

Way easier than cooking on a camp stove... as long as I didn't trip over Katelyn.

We did a little bit of rock climbing in the Mt. Cook area.

Home sweet home... wherever we left it.

Family picture with Mt. Cook in the background. Don't be fooled by the amount of daylight you see... it was already past Katelyn's bedtime.

Katelyn enjoys some last views of the Mt. Cook area before we pack up to go to Wanaka.

New Zealand Day 1 - Lake Tekapo

New Zealand is absolutely adjective-defying. I read that somewhere in a travel book, and it's completely true. Chris, Katelyn and I left for New Zealand the day after Thanksgiving, and spent two amazing weeks there traveling around the South Island. We probably took over a thousand pictures, but we narrowed them down a lot. It'll still be tough to choose which ones go on the blog, but I'll do my best to keep it to a minimum. You're welcome.

We arrived in Christchurch after twenty-some hours of traveling exhausted, but anxious to get to the mountains. We picked up our campervan, unpacked the suitcases, bought some groceries for the trip, and began driving towards Lake Tekapo.

We loved our campervan. It was a great way to see the country. No reservations required, no checking in every evening and checking out each morning... and we could stay in the mountains, instead of navigating to a city to try to find a hotel.

It was a great van... Wilderness Motorhomes, in case you're interested.

Night one - We were so excited to arrive at Lake Tekapo!

To be quite honest, night one was pretty miserable. We didn't get to Lake Tekapo until after 9pm. The campsite we had planned on staying in was closed, and we didn't know where else to go. We hadn't yet had dinner. Oh, and we were pretty tired since we had each had about an hour of sleep on the 10 hour flight from Japan. We finally found an open business where we asked for directions to another campsite. We stayed at Lake McGregor, just a few minutes from Lake Tekapo. It was a great little campsite. Quiet, good views, not very many people...

The next day was much better. Katelyn woke up happy...

The sun was shining brightly...

And Lake Tekapo was more beautiful than we could have imagined.

It was such a beautiful day that we decided to drive on to Mt. Cook while the weather was clear.

The drive to Mt. Cook on a clear day is one of the most scenic drives in the country. This is Mt Cook with Lake Pukaki in the foreground.

Day 2 was already off to a MUCH better start!