Picton, NZ We are now making our way back up north, so we decided to take the Tranzcoastal train up to the North part of the South island today. The train started in Christchurch and made its way up to Picton. It was a fun (and cheap – about $25US) way to get there. Along [...]
Christchurch, NZ Our next destination was Christchurch. We ended up making it a pretty quick trip (mainly because it’s a big city that seems a lot like any other big city). Despite it’s name, “Christchurch,” the city is really more about shopping, bars, and nightlife which isn’t really our thing. We visited the cathedral in [...]
Oops . . . We found some more pictures of Queenstown that we wanted to add to the blog. So, here you go: Watching the sun rise with coffee in hand at our Queenstown hotel. The day is just dawning in Queenstown. Look at those colors! We watched the sun rise in Queenstown. Dan enjoys [...]
While in Queenstown we took a day trip to Milford Sound with Mitre Peak tours. It was a really long day as we left at 6:20 in the morning and didn’t return until 7:00 at night, but it was well worth it. Milford Sound isn’t too far if you go as the crow flies, but [...]
Queenstown, NZ We spent a few days in Queenstown and couldn’t get enough of the views of “The Remarkables” snow-capped mountain range. We had amazing views from our hotel too! One of the highlights of visiting Queenstown was visiting with Carmen and KJ (Dan and Carmen used to work together). They treated us to a [...]
Invercargill, NZ We rented (or as the locals say, “hired”) a car today and ventured out to Te Anau. It was a bit disconcerting driving on the other side of the road, but it wasn’t too bad since we were on rural roads that didn’t have much traffic. It took us a few hours to [...]
Invercargill, NZ This morning we went to church at Invercargill Central Baptist Church. The church service was nice and we enjoyed worshiping with local Kiwis. After the service we talked with some of the church members and they were kind enough to invite us to their house for lunch. We enjoyed a delicious lunch at [...]
Bluff, NZ We took a day trip down to the Bluff Oyster Festival today. It reminded us of a small town fair and we defintely didn’t feel like tourists here (since it was a very “local” event). It was a bit chilly and a little rainy, but that didn’t stop a few thousand locals from [...]
Invercargill, NZ We’ve taken several days to enjoy our next location of choice: Invercargill. Invercargill is at the southern tip of the south island and is known as the friendliest town in New Zealand. We’ve certainly found that claim to fame to be true so far. It’s not that other New Zealanders haven’t been friendly, [...]
Dunedin, NZ We checked out of our hotel in Dunedin this morning, but had several hours to kill until our bus (which turned out to be a shuttle van) left this afternoon. The hotel was kind enough to let us leave our bags with them while we explored Dunedin for the last time. We wanted [...]