Darlene and I joined her sister Shel and Diane, Regina, Rochelle, Lori, Brianna and Rachel on a trip to New Zealand this past month.  Darlene and I had both visited New Zealand before but individually, before we met.  Rachel, Darlene and I flew out to meet the others in the South Island, in Christchurch and Rachel got her first experience on electric scooters.  From there we drove to Akaroa for a boat cruise looking for dolphins and other wildlife.  We continued down the Otago coast hitting up the very cool Elephant Rocks near Oamaru and the Moeraki Boulders on our way to Dunedin.  We stayed several nights in Dunedin, visiting sights like Tunnel Beach, Larnach Castle and Toitu Otago Settlers Museum.  We also did a bit of hiking, saw the glowworms at Nicols Creek, visited the Royal Albatross Centre and got to spy on both the Yellow Eyed and little Blue penguins in the wild.

We continued on to Queenstown, where we enjoyed a steamship cruise to Walter Peak sheep farm for a BBQ dinner and sheep shearing demo.  We took in the views via the gondola to Bob’s Peak and had a blast riding the wheeled toboggans down the Queenstown Luge.  We visited an ice bar (and lots of shops) in town, I spent a day biking around Lake Wakatipu while everyone else went zip-lining in Glenorchy.

At this point, we split up with some of the group heading home and others continuing on to the west coast.  Darlene and I stayed a couple more days in Queenstown doing some hiking before heading south to Te Anau.  Some late winter weather closed the road to Milford Sound for a day or two but luckily the weather cleared up again and we were able to make a day trip from Te Anau with lots of stops to enjoy all the waterfalls and snow-covered mountain views both along the road as well as in Milford Sound on an afternoon boat cruise. The day was only marred by an attack of Kea birds damaging our rental car while we waited our turn to pass through the tunnel.

After Te Anau, we continued our road trip to the south coast and the Catlins region, stopping off at Gemstone Beach (we came away empty-handed) and lost the afternoon in Invercargill dealing with a damaged tire (unrelated to the Kea birds) and swapping out our car rental.  As a result, we arrived after sunset at our somewhat remote accommodation (Mohua Park, lots of dirt roads to get there but oh so worth it) and we were still blown away by the gorgeous setting in the hills, surrounded by a sheep farm.  As nice as the location was though, we spent our two days there out exploring and hiking along the Catlins coast.

From there we headed back north, all the way to Aoraki and Mt. Cook Village where we spent a couple of days enjoying fantastic hikes both below and partway up the surrounding mountains.  We also managed to book a helicopter sightseeing tour when we saw the weather was likely going to clear – it was a spectacular flight on a gorgeous day, soaring among the peaks of the “Southern Alps” and landing on one of the glaciers.

After a long drive back to Christchurch, we took an evening flight to reach Auckland on the North Island.  From Auckland, we set out for the Hobbiton Movie Set near Matamata, stopping off at a surprisingly creative and captivating botanical garden, the Hamilton Gardens.  The Hobbiton afternoon tour, dinner banquet and night walk was all really great and we were incredibly impressed by everything they’ve done and how well it’s maintained and presented.

We filled the following day with a couple of cave tours in Waitomo to see cool cave formations and more of the famous New Zealand “glow worms” as well as a visit to a bird sanctuary where we could see nocturnal kiwis among other native New Zealand birds, albeit in captivity.  With our last day and a half in Auckland, we enjoyed the Weta Workshop tour, went up the Sky Tower, rode scooters out to Mount Eden for the city view, tried our hand at a couple of escape rooms and explored an amusing “sensory maze” experience.  But then it was time to fly home again… until next time!

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