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.