Bruce Bay Beach Bums

Once we reached out to the West Coast, we stopped at one of the long beaches to take a few photos. This is not far from Bruce Bay.




It was so windy and beautiful, and the beach seemed to continue forever.












The kids amused themselves for a while jumping around on the beach, and throwing small rocks in the water.












Then we found "the guest book"..!






So of course we had to leave our own little mark as well:

Glacier Country

Oaw, what a day we've had! We've been in the car for nearly 10 hours, and the kids have handled it so, so well. Consider that our kids really aren't that used to long trips in the car, the can do long flights without any problems - but car trips are not quite the same.
At many places the road got really winding, and at one point poor Lucas let us know he wasn't feeling well... We stopped so he could get some air before it all went bad, but he got quite startled. He didn't really know what happened to him I think, he's never been car sick before. Lucky it didn't get any worse!

The best bit of today must have been between Wanaka and Haast. So beautiful! Endless mountains, blue, blue lakes and an amazingly colorful landscape. I read somewhere that this part is considered by many being the most scenic journey in New Zealand. I could believe that.

We covered quite a bit of our itinerary already today, actually only did a few stops. First for lunch in, a very odd, restaurant in Haast; then for a quick photo shoot at the beach once we reached out to the coast at Bruce Bay and finally at both the two big glaciers, the Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier.
Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, so there was no point doing the extra detour to Lake Mathesen (famous for it's mirrored view of Mount Cook). We still saw Mount Cook later in the day though, from the glaciers.

Tonight we have now reached Greymouth, the biggest town on the West Coast, and a lovely motel. Time for some rest before we continue our road trip tomorrow!

Road tripping

Today, Monday, was our last day here in Queenstown, tonight we will be packing up and and tomorrow really early we start our journey up the West Coast. We are anticipating quite a few hours in the car over the next few days, before our plan to reach Nelson at the latest on Thursday.
Not only is it quite a long trip, but there are also many stops we would like to do along the way; the blue pools of Haast Pass; the views at the Fox Glacier, Lake Matheson and the Franz Josef National Park; the Punakaiki limestone formations and blowholes; the fur seal colony at Cape Foulwind and Brewery in Greymouth. I hope we will have time for most of this!

I'm so looking forward to taking in some incredible sceneries and nature as beautiful as I've never experienced it before. Really looking forward to this trip!!!

Dining ducks

We had some leftover bread from our in-the-room breakfasts and Lucas came up with the idea of feeding it to the ducks down the harbour beach.
I did warn the kids that once they brought out the bread and the first ducks got wind of the food, they might arrive in big numbers, and get rather in-your-face.
Well, it only took about 10 seconds, and the nice little feeding session...





... turned into a kamikaze feeding! Lucas applied the "throw-it-far-away-really-fast"-method, whereas Linnea used the slightly more aggressive "roar-really-loudly"-method, at any duck that came up too close...









The ducks were indeed fearless. I guess in a place like is they are really used to people.



A nice ending to the afternoon though! (And then we had ice cream!)

Bungy Jumping

Even though Linnea thought it was a great idea to send Mummy bungy jumping, and Lucas was keen and really disappointed you had to be at least 10 years old to do it - we left the bungy jumping off the mountain for the slightly more brave...
The kids got to try one version of it though, check this out:






And a Spiderman pose!











And then they got to do "The Rocket", where they guy put som extra bungys on them, pull them downwards and - released..! They went really high!






Linnea said she wanted to stay there all day! They did get a huge jump though since it was towards the end of the day, and no one else was there. Good fun!

Quintessential Queenstown

We have had an absolutely FANTASTIC day today!
The beautiful weather returned and the whole day have just been AWESOME!

We started with breakfast at our 'local', (well, we have been there three times..!)', the very cool Joe's Garage. Yummy food and nice people. Then it was time to attack Bob's Peak - you can't say you've been to Queenstown before you've been on the Gondola and the Luge!


Before we ascended, we visited the 'Kiwi Birdlife Park' at the bottom of the mountain. Linnea had never seen a real kiwi bird before, and Lucas was just one and a bit last time he saw one, so we thought it would be part of their Kiwi education!





I really like going to parks and such here, because they are so well maintained and the animals are always looked after in the best way.
This park had a free audio-tour that we listened to all through the park.



Thanks to that and the map, we had a fab visit. All those big trees made me think of Sweden.






Greenstone:








After the park, it was time for the Gondola!












Amazing views from up the top, just as expected of course! We could see some people doing the bungy jumping, some doing paragliding down the lake and we could see the Luge tracks we were heading for too.















We learned that the motors powering the Gondola, are Swedish! :)





The TSS Earnslaw, cruising the Lake Wakatipu.


Since we did the Luge in Singapore a couple of weeks ago, we wanted to try this one too. I must say, this one was a lot better - both a lot longer, it had tunnels and lots of turns, but also the view here is unbeatable!


















We did two rides down the Luge, and we could easily have done ten more, it was just so enjoyable!






After the Luge, and some by then well-needed lunch it was time to go down the mountain again, and return to the 'Kiwi Birdlife Park' for their daily 'Conservation Bird Show'.
We saw a few different birds, a possum and a Tuatara - a very special lizard. It was a really good and informative show, learnt a lot of interesting facts that I'll share with you on a later occasion.



The kids mostly liked that the birds flew really close to us, so close we could feel their wings brush us!











And outside the park, this very cool car was parked: