It was Time for a Break

We're just home from a wonderful two week holiday where we did a loop of the South Island of New Zealand.  We traveled down the beautiful wild West Coast, passing through Nikau Forests in the sub tropical north.  We stopped at the pancake rocks at Punakaiki...

where the sea was disappointingly calm so the blowholes were quiet...

but the cheeky wekas were busily begging from the tourists...

This wee fellow almost got into the car!  There was a gang of three working the car park like rather hardened operators!

We stayed a night with family at Moana on beautiful Lake Brunner and went bushwalking there.  The peace and quality of stillness there is exquisite.

This collection of old English cars at Dobson is so typically old West Coast!  The Toy Boy is a bit of an old petrol head, so we had to have a "scenic" shot here!

The drive from Moana to Queenstown was long but very diverse and beautiful - from poor pasturelands and stony beaches, through dense rainforest, past the glaciers and into the dry, rocky interior.

The purpose of the trip was a visit with Number One Son and his partner MM.  They live on the shores of Lake Wakitipu in the very busy year round tourist town of Queenstown.  

It's quite a place, with the picturesque old town nestled on the side of the lake in amongst towering mountains.  We had a little flash of snow on the tops while we were there, but in a few weeks the whole town will be focussed on magnificent world-class skifields.  

Number One Son has always been a mad keen fisherman (check out queenstownfisher.com )

and he took us for a drive up the lake to Glenorchy and the Dart River.  We stopped off so he could have a quick fish, and lo and behold he caught a lovely brown trout!  There was great excitement as the fish was landed and safely returned to its home!

The Toy Boy and I bade a reluctant farewell to the kids and headed off towards Moeraki on the East Coast (the place where those beautiful boulders are born).

 

I love the look of the dry, brown-cloaked hills of the inland country.

Our road trip was topped off with a couple of nights at Hanmer Springs and a day soaking ourselves wrinkly in the hot pools, then quietly home.

It was a lovely break, and it's good to be home!