New Zealand

Hello!  I am now in New Zealand!!!  Home of the Maori people and land of the Kiwi bird.  New Zealand has every type of climate except desert.  My special edition coverage of New Zealand starts on the South Island during our ten day family vacation from the program.  We flew from Brisbane airport in Australia to Auckland, New Zealand. Then we took another plane from Auckland to Christchurch.  Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand and Christchurch is the biggest city in the South Island.

Our last minutes in Australia

We took the sixth-best train ride in the world from Christchurch to Gerymouth.  The train goes over a mountain range that people call the "southern Alps" through Arthur's Pass.  The mountains were covered in snow, that looked like powdered sugar to me.

At the train station in Christchurch

East side of the mountains

High alpine river

Our first view of the snow on the mountains

Looking back from the open observation car

lots of snow

Sheep took over this playground

From Greymouth we took a two hour car ride to Franz Joseph glacier and stayed in a little cottage.  Franz Joseph glacier is the one of only three glaciers in the world descending into a temperate rainforest.  You know the phrase, "you are moving at a glacial pace"?  Well, I was looking at photos of the glacier from 2010 and 2013 and I saw a giant change.  For a piece of ice that I estimate to weigh 60,000 tons and moves up the mountain at speeds of up to nine feet a day, I think it is pretty fast.  How do glaciers move?  What happens is that it snows on the top of the glacier thus building up the front and melting at the back so it is kind of moving.

This is the cottage we stayed in

Franz Joseph village

My family hiking to the glacier

Franz Joseph glacier

Glacier 2013

Glacier 2010                                                 

We left glacier country and went along the west coast to a quick stop at Pancake Rocks, which are giant rock formations made out of sediment that look like stacks of pancakes.  The rock is limestone.

We are a long way form home!!!






 When we were there we saw the Weka bird.  It is a flightless bird.  Wekas used to be able to fly, but if they got to islands with no predators, they evolved to be flightless.    They still have wings but are very small, the size of an iPhone.







We moved on to Westport, a small rundown shipping town.  We stayed in this enormous house called the Archer House.  We spent the night but had to leave in the morning.  The man who owns the Archer House travels around the world and when he finds artifacts he puts them in the house, so it was like a museum.

The next car trip was to wine country .  Mom and dad went wine tasting and we went fudge tasting!

Putting champagne in bottles

 Next, we drove to Picton, to catch a ferry to the Bay of Many Coves Resort, in the Marlborough sounds. On our way we stopped in a discovery park and got to walk over a swing bridge suspended above rapids and took a zip line back to the other side. When we got to Picton we took a water-taxi to the resort.  The ride was really bumpy because it was raining and windy.  The ride was fun.

At the resort, we took a hike to a waterfall, went kayaking, paddle boarding, and big hike to the world-famous Queen Charlotte hiking track.  The weather was fabulous. 

 The last day of our ten-day vacation, we took a ferry to Picton then a giant car ferry to Wellington on the North Island.  Can you believe all that amazing stuff was only the South Island?

Fun fact:  New Zealand and Australia were part of a super-continent called Gondwana about 180 million years ago.  New Zealand broke away from Gondwana about 85 million years ago.