South Island, New Zealand

I had to break up the post for the South Island, it was getting way too long. So I split it up in the "almost" two weeks we spent here. This write up starts with our visit to Fiorland, we had significantly better weather this part of the trip. Beautiful views.

Day Eight:

Today we'll drive all along Fiordland hiking along, and heading to Milford Sound.

We hit more snow, the kids love it of course, the temperatures continue to drop and drop, down to -2 C (28 F).

Map of our day and adventures along Milford Sound.

Mirror Lakes. Not really a hike as advertised, but a fabulous viewpoint of relfections of the snow capped mountains along small lakes.

Panoramic view of Mirror Lakes

Conner flattering me for a picture.

SNOW. We get excited when we find snow. It is July afterall.

Keas, we found keas. These birds are a riot... They climbed all over our car pecking at the roof.

Hey! Another kea. This little guy enjoyed being in our pictures.

Views from a walk to the visitor center.

These views are everywhere, I think I captured this one from the car park, yup, that's what the locals call the parking lot.

The Milford Sound lookout. We hiked up to get this view. Short little hike.

Icy brigde, pedestrian bridge. We have a thing for bridges. Stop, let's get out, I see a bridge.

Another gorgeous view, just wondering around near the visitor center.

Ok, now a real hike. It's getting really cold now, we hustle down this hike, jog, and make it through in 20 minutes! A record, but the views are beautiful...

The Lake Gunn Nature Walk....a mossy one, really, I've never seen anything like it and my parents live in a rainforest! The moss grows up 10 feet up the trees. I guess it really is true, this is one of the wettest places on earth!

Aiden found a path to Lake Gunn and it's bliss. So pretty!

Check out this view... Ahh...

Heading out. Good bye Milford Sound...

We enjoyed a family walk along Lake Te Anua. Aiden had his boomerang that he purchased in Australia and we "tried" to get it to return. I'm just happy we didn't lose it in the lake.

I managed to capture a good picture of the boys. This is my favorite of the dozen I took to get here. They certainly fight and bicker a lot, but they do play well together too and of course without other friends around, they certainly keep each other company. There are only so many mom lectures that they will tolerate. Hee, hee...but they do know their geography much better now!

Ended with a night of fort building. Like we never left home... Back in Atlanta this is called Tuesday, implying that any ole day is a good day for fort building according to the boys.

Day Nine:

Today we hike the Keppler Trail. Hike, and see the Fiordland Bird Santuary...then chill. Boys want a chill day.

We stopped at the Fiordland Bird Sanctuary in Te Anua. Hey, look, they have tekates! I've been curious about this bird. He's big. Bigger and stockier than a chicken and a bright blue. They are flightless and critically endangered.

They two are eating together, almost look a snuggled up.

A duck feeding, gone crazy! The ducks were flying out of their enclosures for food. Not all of them, made me wonder if they flyers were just visitors and didn't really live in the santuary. So we fed the non-flyers best.

Off to the Keppler Track. I like to take a picture of a map when I see it, you don't always get hard copies or even have them handy when you need them. A picture I can reference back to and read important details that I didn't retain on the first glance of a map.

A swinging bridge is the introduction to the Keppler Track. Nice start.

We decided on the Control Gates route.

I've already told you this is one of the wettest places on earth. So much cool moss and different variety of mushrooms.

Check out the variety of moss here!

We've made Te Anua home, with a tired crew we decide on taco night and we're off on our nightly walk to the grocery store.

Taco Night! It's a winner.

Aiden talked me into baking cookies. Don't worry we didn't go crazy, we found a New Zealand brand of boxed cookie mix. Not terribly unhealthy...

Day Ten:

Saying good bye to Te Anua, one of my favorite cities that we visited on this trip.

Driving to Dunedin today. Wow oh wow, did we hit winter. While we've seen frost and certainly snow in Milford Sound, it was a whole new experience to hit winter along the road where everthing was frozen. No snow, but continous frost on the trees, homes, grass, it was pretty magical looking.

Arrived. Dunedin. We decided to check out Tunnel Beach, save the intown attractions for tomorrow. It was a solid walk down hill, down, down, steps, more steps, I started growing concerned of how long the hike back up was going to be...but down we went. I assumed the "tunnel" reference came from the arch rock structure into the ocean, but there's a sincere tunnel leading you to the beach. Amazing. A hard carved tunnel into the rock that takes you all the way down to the water. Holy cow, well done New Zealand.

Presenting the tunnel...it's gets dark and here and narrow and not good for the closterphobic, but don't worry, it's not terribly long...

On the beach, really more like a rocky surface on the water, so cool.

The view from the bottom of the tunnel out at Tunnel Beach.

Back at the top, this fearless bunch has no fear of heights. They climb up to the top...careful, not too close to the edge please...

Checked into our room. It's a consistent theme throughout New Zealand and Australia that for a booking of four, you get these family rooms and I LOVE IT. Many of them are two bedrooms, and the space is so nice when you've been traveling as much as we have. In this unit we get two bedrooms, a living room and full kitchen. Nice job Woodlands Motel. Roomy space with a reading nook. The Kindles were a great purchase, the boys have read a good bunch without lugging big piles of books with us. Plus I downloaded a bunch of travel books that are nice to read when I can't get wifi access for researching what to do next.

I forgot to mention that Woodlands Motel gave us a TWO story unit. Nice.

Day Eleven:

We have a jam packed day of activities today in Dunedin. We will visit the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, walk up the steepest street in the world and check out Otago Penninsula.

Top of Aiden's list of things to do...Cadbury Chocolate Factory visit. Um, of course.

Chocolate! The boys are thrilled. The tour was well done. I had read a lot of negative reviews, so I wasn't expecting much, but Cadbury surprised me. There's a scent room which is fun trying to differentiate the differences. Tasting chocolate kept the boys completely engaged and the history is pretty neat.

Diagram of chocolate making at Cadbury. We learned that the "Jaffa Balls" a round orange chocolate candy is only made in New Zealand...good gifts!?! And these Jaffa balls are used in large quantities once a year in the annual "Jaffa Race", they are rolled down the hill of the steepest residential street in the World! We will walk up this steep street later and I have a feeling that Aiden will be chucking Jaffa Balls down the street...Just you wait.

The Railroad Station. I keep calling it a train station, but that's not the term the locals use.

The Railroad Station is made from local limestone and volcanic rock giving it a cool contrast of black and white. On Saturdays there's a farmers market in the parking lot. We got lucky and visited on a Saturday and enjoyed local eats and wines. Got a taste of Manuka Honey, which is only made in New Zealand. It's a grainy sweet honey, darker in color and thicker. Yummy. The boys love the meat pies, got some locally made here too of course.

LUNCH. By now, even with the eats at the Farmer's Market. We walked to Octogon Center, it's cool how the whole city is built around an Octogon. It has a very European feel to me, all of Dunedin. Stuart St Pub came with great food and a couple of cold beers for Mom and Dad.

See?!? Check out this old church, very European, reminds me of being in Paris.

Ok, World's Steepest Street...here we come. We're going to walk up, slow and steady. At least I go slow and steady, the boys are both sprinting up. Show offs!

Stairs, lots of stairs. The other side of the street is level, and you can walk up the street too.

Aiden at the top of Baldwin Street, with his Jaffa Balls, rolling them down one by one. It's not a graceful roll, they tend to bump the sides of the street and stop.

The boys walking in front of a very cleverly built home. What!?!? What's wacky, the street or the boys. It's the house! It's built to be level, but the street is so steep, it really shows you the angle that it's at. A fun walk up Baldwin Street.

Me on Baldwin Street. I couldn't help myself, I needed a pose too.

That afternoon we drove to the Otago Penninsula, which is about 30 minutes from Dunedin. We found Sandfly Bay for a visit to the sand dunes.

Hoping to see some wildlife at Sandfly Bay. The sea lions come to the beaches to rest from long days of fishing. Yellow-eyed penguins have burrows along this beach, it would be great to see them.

Success we found a few New Zealand sea lions. They are big and lazy, but we've been warned to not get too close. So we enjoy from a distance. It's super windy and cold and we're bundled up. The kids love the dunes, they are big and impressive and fun to jog across.

Well hello there sea lion.

Zoomed in as much as a possible. We found a few females and one male sea lion.

Sheep. Really loving all the sheep. These guys have a great view.

Sunset! While in New Zealand, we're one of the first to experience the sunset and of course the sun rise. It's wild the time difference. We're about a day ahead and that's hard to get used to when trying to call or write to folks back home.

Day Eleven:

We have a jam packed day of activities today in Dunedin. We will visit the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, walk up the steepest street in the world and check out Otago Penninsula.

A visit to the Otago Museum. This is a Moa bird, it's been extinct for about 200 years. Lousy. It was hunted to extinction. So massive, imagine running into one of these?

This tree, a local tree, I can't remember the name. I know it starts with a K! And it's massive. This one when cut down, such a shame, a long time ago. it was older than the Americas have even been discovered.

Aiden checking out a crocodile. I really don't want to be surprised by one of these. I know they will be in the northern parts of Australia that we'll visit later in the trip.

Leopard seal. Yikes, this is not a friendly animal. The kids read a lot about how sea lions were hunted and clubbed by humans.

Off to Signal Hill. We're running out of town before we need to return our large, comfy SUV car rental, so we drive up to Signal Hill and enjoy a bit of the hike from the top. So nice to see color, these yellow flowers are blooming like crazy.

The view from the top. You can really see the drive we did to Otago Penninsula from here, plus the beaches and bay. We fly to Auckland this afternoon and check out the north island