Home at Last

We arrived home on Sunday, after over 30 hours of elapsed travel time from New Zealand (Christchurch to Sydney to Vancouver to Toronto).  We arrived home to -8 degrees and with lots of snow on the ground (see picture of our house below). We have been going through major jet lag with "foggy brains" and it will take us a few days to recover.  However, it was worth it. The trip to Australia and New Zealand was fabulous. We enjoyed every day of it. The people were so friendly. Sydney was such a great city to visit and the scenery in New Zealand was beautiful - mountains everywhere. We will have many fond memories of this trip for a long time.

 Snow piled up everywhere. Uuugh!

Christchurch

On Saturday, we left Mount Cook and endured our longest journey yet (4 ½ hours) to Christchurch. The weather was overcast, with a few showers (the first we've had in New Zealand, so we can't complain).  We spent the afternoon in downtown Christchurch viewing the devastation from the earthquake.  Most of the downtown area remains closed and there are lots of empty spaces where buildings used to stand.

This parking lot used to contain a city block of buildings.

That's what's left of Christchurch Cathedral.

 This is what the cathedral used to look like before the earthquake.

There are many buildings with steel support scaffolding holding them up.

The city is trying to regroup and rebuild itself, although there is lots of political debate and disagreement over what to do and how to do it.  They have created a “temporary downtown” area out of cargo containers that they call container city.  It's a start and is clearly a morale booster.

The containers were stacked like cubes to make this "new town" centre mall.

The people are trying to use this space as a gathering place for the future

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Aoraki Mount Cook

On Friday, we drove to Aoraki Mount Cook National Park. Aoraki is the Maori name for the sacred mountain. The drive was across some wide open grass lands into the mountains.   Of course there were sheep everywhere, as far as the eye can see.

The rolling hills and grass lands were very expansive.

There were so many sheep (40million+ in New Zealand)

We stayed at the famous Hermitage Hotel, which is the Banff Springs of New Zealand.   The park area is very rustic and picturesque with skyscraper mountains, turquoise coloured lakes and ancient glaciers. 

The turquoise colour comes from minerals in the glacial water

The long drive into the park was very majestic.

There are several glaciers and snow covered mountains.

 This is the famous Hermitage Hotel

We took two hikes to view the Mueller and Tasman glaciers.  From the Mueller glacier, we had a great view of Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain.

We hiked about 3km to get to the viewing area. This path was easy to walk.

The grey mounds are actually ice covered with gravel

 This is us with Mount Cook in the background

The Tasman glacier was mesmerizing and over 20km long and 300 metres thick.The climb up to view it was an extremely steep and challenging climb, at times over piles of rocks.  Charlotte was a real trooper to complete the climb, especially with her broken ankle history. The Tasman glacier had had a major calving last week and there were giant ice bergs floating in the lake at the toe of the glacier.  

 This is the Tasman valley which used to be filled with the glacier thousands of years ago

 Climbing the very difficult trail

 Pausing for a rest, but not looking down

 This is what looking up looks like. Impossible!

Reaching the peak in one piece.

 We made it!

 The icebergs floating in the lake

In the evening , we had a memorable dinner in the main dining room of the hotel (our last chance to formally celebrate our fantastic holiday).

On our flight out of Christchurch home, we were able to take a few pictures of the mountains from the airplane. They were sticking out above the cloud cover and were very beautiful.

Wanaka

On Wednesday, we spent a leisurely day driving to Wanaka (rhymes with Hanukah or Monica) on the wine trail.  Wanaka is a smaller town than Queenstown, but is also very quaint. It's on a big lake and nestled between beautiful mountains.  On the way, we stopped at the famous bungee jumping bridge over the Kawarau River Gorge, to watch people take the plunge. While I contemplated doing it, I came to my senses in time to chicken out. But it was fun to watch.

Most people jump in silence. There were no "Geronimo" screams

It's a long way down to the river bed.

However, there was a rescue boat waiting to pick up the jumpers after their jump.

 One of the adventure tours was a leisurely float down the river. Looks like fun!

We started driving up the very windy Crown Ridge road (over the mountain top) to Wanaka, but turned back after almost reaching 2/3 of the way up the mountain. However, we got a spectacular view of the area from there.

The switch-back road was fun to drive, but there were lots of hair-pin turns.

Standing on top of this ridge, we wanted to burst into song - "Climb Every Mountain"
or "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music", but restrained ourselves.

That's the Gibbston Valley Winery down below.

We stopped to tour & taste some wines at the Gibbston Valley Wines and had a great outdoor lunch at the Waitiri Winery. This area is known for its Pinot Noir, which is excellent, but very expensive. We did buy one bottle to bring home.

 They had an amazing cave cut into the rock mountain, where they barrel aged their wine.

We tasted several Pinot Noir wines, with different ages. Their reserve label was $100/bottle.

 They also had a wonderful cheese shop

The old church was over 100 years old and was moved to the Waitiri Winery from the Dunedin area.

They had an outdoor wood burning pizza oven to make fantastic pizzas.

Lunch was in an idyllic location.

We arrived in Wanaka to another fantastic accommodation, Beaconfield B&B.  It was situated on 1 acre of land and had its own private vineyard. The view out of our window was of majestic mountains. Our hosts were Carla and Mike Rackley.  You can check out their B&B at www.beaconfieldbandb.on.nz

 This is the front entrance through rose bushes

 Their vines were covered in netting to prevent the birds from eating the grapes

 Enjoying a glass of Pinot outside our room.

Sharing breakfast with Jon and Mika from Holland.

The early morning sunrise on the mountains painted them with an orange glow that was beautiful.

On Thursday, we were supposed to take the Eco Adventure tour to an island bird sanctuary, but it got canceled due to boat engine malfunction, so we ended up touring the surrounding hillside, visiting the Rippon winery and hiking along the Clutha river. 

The Ripppn Winery had a spectaular vista over the lake.

The wine consultant was very friendly and had visited Canada.

 Hiking along the Clutha river. It was very hot (31 degrees C).