Need I say more.....
Well we just got back from our 10 day tour of what I call God's greatest work on this earth. If you only can afford to go to one place In your entire life, that place needs to be the south island of New Zealand.
We left little old Tasmania on a Monday afternoon, and arrived in Christchurch at about 11 pm. It was 12am by the time we cleared customs and got our bags and got to the hotel. We spent the next day just walking and touring the city of Christchurch. It is a very nice city, there are only 4 million people in all of New Zealand. About 3.5 million of those live on the north island. Christchurch is the biggest city on the south island with about 300,000. It's a relatively big city with alot of tourist shops and things to see.
We left Christchurch via a wonderful passenger train that went to the west coast of the island. The trip took about 4 hours and went through some on the most breath-taking view you could ever imagine. We ended up in a little town called Greymouth. We did stay there long, we basically picked up the rental car and drove about 3 hours south to Frans Joseph.
Frans Joseph is part of New Zealands Glacier region. And man is it stunning. We took about a 1 hour hike to get as close as we were allowed to get the glacier with out having to pay a guide to go on the actual glacier. ( which if we had been kidless we would have done.)
Next we drove drove to a town called Queenstown. This a little city towards the southern end of the island. It was a really nice little town, but it's a huge tourist destination, so there were just to many people around. But we went on a little boat ride there over to a farm. Where we watched a sheep farmer do his thing, by gathering all the sheep and sheering them. After we watched him sheer the sheep, Kai decided he wanted a haircut. But we wouldn't let him.
Then it was off to Milford Sound, or the Fiord lands of New Zealand. Not knowing what Fiord's where myself, they are bays of water that we craves through mountains by ice. There we went on a 3 hour boat ride through the Sound. To me this was to me the most beautiful spot that I have ever seen on earth.
We left there and went to Mt Cook. I think that it is the highest point on the island. But what was so incredible is that it was like 75 degrees out side, but you stepped outside your room door and there was this mountain full of snow. Mt. Cook is the picture at the top of the blog, and yes all the lakes, rivers, streams and ocean that we saw really are that blue. You can see right through the water and depending on how deep things are you can see the bottom. Almost all the water is some of the purest in the world.
Then it was back to Christchurch for a day to relax and walk around and get ready to leave.
This trip has made Jana and I start to seriously contemplate moving there. New Zealand just seems to have some of the most untouched places on this earth. There were countless places that we saw that there was no public access. The only way in was to hike, no roads and no real trails either.
I hope you enjoy the pictures, and have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Kaleo
