Category — Family

Monday morning was travel day for Dean and Judy and us.
Dean and Judy left very early and were flying from Adelaide to the Sunshine Coast area; specifically Coolum Beach.
We got up later, went for a morning walk, had breakfast and then headed to the airport. We were flying from Adelaide into Sydney and the staying in the Bondi Beach area.
The flight was excellent and the Chief Customer Service rep was very generous with the wine and snacks. In fact when she found out that Brenda had a peanut allergy she checked the ingredients list of the small snack packages and gave each of us a small bag of them and a small bottle of sparkling wine. Lucky us!
We are staying at The Adina which is an apartment style hotel property in the Bondi area. Once we arrived we dumped our luggage and headed off to see the beach. The beach was very busy as it was sunny and very warm, even though it was near to 5:00 pm.
Below are a few random pictures.

On Sunday we were off on a day long wine tour. The region we were visiting was McLaren Vale, which is south of Glenelg.
On today’s wine tour we signed on with a private Company that does small group tours. The benefit is that we can all sample the wine and don’t have to worry about consumption and driving.

We visited 4 very different boutique wineries and a sidebar photo stop at a Salvador Dali inspired winery called d’Arenberg Winery.
Each winery gave us a lot of different Red’s, White’s and Rose’s to sample and one even gave us a taste of their Port Wine.
At the third winery we were given a Charcuterie Board for 2 to be shared. Each board had a sampling of cheeses, meats, pickles, crackers and even beet chutney. It was all Yummy!
Here’s a sampling of some of the day’s pictures.

The region is quite concerned about a disease organism going through the wine industry. So you are not allowed to walk through the vineyards or touch the vines, henceforth the Grumpy Vine sign.
All in all it was a great day.

We arrived in Melbourne from Christchurch around 7pm and went to a local pub for dinner.

In the morning we caught the local free tram to the Queen Victoria Market.

The market is made up of 2 huge buildings/warehouses. The first building is just seafood and meats of every kind. The next building was massive and was full of fruits, vegetables, material, electronics, fishing equipment, clothes and anything else you could think of.

After that we caught the tram back to near our hotel and then headed to the Queen Victoria Gardens which included the Shrine of Remembrance and the Royal Botanical Gardens. So much to see and a lot of walking on a rainy day. It was a +20,000 step day.

On Sunday we went on a tour to the Koala & Animal Wildlife Park and to the Philip Island Woolamai Beach for the Parade of Penguins.
We toured the Koala sanctuary first and saw many Koala’s both sleeping and awake. The parks is amazing as it provides a safe place for Koala’s to thrive.

We saw tons of Wallabies in the grasses before reaching the penguin site.
Then we were off to the Penguin Parade. The adult little blue penguins return to land and their burrows at dusk.

They seem to come out in small groups all over the beach. We were told between 700-1000 per night is the average. It was fun to watch the babies come out of their underground nests, scurry around and wait for their parent(s) to return with food. It wa a long day and we did not get back to our hotel until 12 midnight.

February 17 , we started our trip to Adelaide along the Great Coastal Road. It was a sunny day so the views were spectacular.

Along the way we had heard of a road to take to view Koalas and Kangaroos in the wild. We did a short hike and another group of tourists somehow spotted a lone Koala asleep at the top of a distant tree.
We ended our day at a 2 bedroom motel at Apollo Bay

Feb 18 was cloudy and chilly and was the day we saw lots of beaches and sand and limestone creations on the beach and surrounding cliffs, etc. Some of these included, Loch Ard Gorge, London Bridge, London Arch, the Twelve Apostles, The Bay of Martyrs and The Grotto.

On one of the hikes we saw an Echidna (kind of like a large hedgehog) in the wild.

Tonight we are in Port Fairy at the Seacombe House Motor Inn. It is a lovely older property.

Today is Thursday and this is the last leg in our Campervan in New Zealand. After emptying the holding tanks and fueling up we headed to Christchurch to return the Campervan.

When we arrived Dean and Judy were waiting for us. After answering a few questions and the Wilderness folks checking everything, we were on our way to downtown Christchurch. 

We used Uber (our first time using Uber) to get downtown. The experience went smoothly and Uber seems to have their systems worked out pretty well, even down to letting you add a tip for the driver to the cost of the ride afterwards. 
Once in downtown Christchurch we checked into the hotel and the headed out to explore the city. Christchurch had major earthquake in 2019 and even today rebuilding and reconstruction is ongoing.

They are trying to return the buildings to their original glory and at the same time build them robust enough for future earthquakes. 
We headed for the Botanical Gardens and had a great walk through a small part of the Gardens. 

On the way back to the hotel we did some shopping and walking through some local markets. Look at the selection of candy ropes from one of the shops and also the Valentines sweet treats.

After shopping we went to an Irish Pub for dinner.

Christchurch is a beautiful city and we enjoyed our short time here.

After taking the ferry from the north island to the South Island we ended up in Picton for the night. The Campervan Park was nice but a little noisy as it was right on the main highway.

The next morning Dean and Judy headed off to Nelson and the west coast on NZ and we headed towards Kaikoura on the east coast. On the way we stopped for a couple hikes and since we were right on the ocean we saw lots of Seals and nursing Pups plus a pod of Dolphins. Kaikoura is also known as a place to see lots of whales.
Kaikoura is a cool little seaside village and we did a long walk along the water front before hitting the road for the day
We made the holiday park reservation while travelling and got the last spot as today was the start of a national holiday. ??????

From Kaikoura we headed towards Rakaia to stay at a river side holiday park.
For the first part we drove along the coast and the scenery was amazing.

Rakaia was another holiday park where we got the last spot. We went for a walk to the river and just about got there before hitting a muddle puddle that was trail wide and you could see where the Quads had chewed if up pretty good. This was definitely a family oriented camping park and lots of activities going on.

From Rakaia we drove to Geraldine on our way to Lake Tekapo. The Geraldine information centre lady was very helpful after getting loaded up with many things to do we arrived in Lake Tekapo. It was another campground that was full, but we had pre booked, so no problems getting a spot over looking the lake.
Lake Tekapo has a great beach walk and pedestrian bridge which makes getting around really easy.

We are into the last few days of being on the north island of New Zealand and are currently sitting in the Islander Ferry Terminal line up.

Below are a few of the pictures and sites we’ve seen over the last few days.

We are starting to get into sheep country, lots of fields with lots of sheep.

This is also where we have started to see lots of wind power energy generation in windmills

Foxton Beach holiday park, where we camped just off the Tasman Sea and the sand dunes were amazing. It was very windy so you can just imagine how much the sand dunes drift over time.

Our last stop before crossing on the ferry was in Wellington. Here we are having lunch on the Seaside boardwalk and waterfront

This morning we had a local bird visit us during breakfast

and here are some pictures from the ferry lineup waiting to board headed for the South Island and the town of Picton.

The following pictures are a few of our highlights so far.

Katikati Bird Sanctuary

Arapuni Suspension Bridge from 1925 used by works to get to construction site building hydro power station

Orakei Korako thermal hot springs that we had to take a ferry for the 2 hr hike

Opepe Bush Historic Reserve with huge trees and an amazing trail through the forest

Clifton Road Preservation Area – Freedom Camping on the beach

Well we have been busy exploring New Zealand the last few days and haven’t had much time to give more complete updates, but here’s a short summary.

Since the last update we have met up with Dean and Judy, took a tour down into a Glow Worm cave and saw our first stalactites and stalagmites, we watched a logging truck hit the ditch, flip over and spill its load block the highway and through all this we made it to Rotorua where there are thermal mud pits and the smell of sulphur.

The logging truck incident was the most exciting, thank heavens no one was killed and the driver escaped with minor injuries. It was a pretty surreal event we rounded the corner and the trailer and recto wheels were still spinning. The truck was on its side, driver cab on the high side. Electrical lines were on the ground and the way the truck ended up you couldn’t get to it. Fortunately there was another truck approaching from the other side and they obviously helped the driver out.

However the road we were travelling to our next location was blocked and it required us to take a 3 hr detour. We arrived into Rotorua much later than planned.
Once in Rotorua we took an extra day to see the city, walk around Sulphur Point and go out for dinner on Eat Street

Today we visited two geothermal sites.The first site was Waiotapu which had a 90 min hike through the geothermal fields, it was hot and pretty smelly. The lakes the run off created were spectacular hues of green.

The second site we visited was Orakei Korako. It was another geothermal site but this one was about the various limestone pits and the multicoloured formations. Plus it was extra hot and humid from the bubbling mud and boiling water

Tonight we are in Taupo and off to Napier tomorrow.

While in Auckland we walked the waterfront, stopped in some stores for shopping and got in a harbour tour cruise? Auckland was very busy with at least 1 Cruiseship in harbour and on the last day there were 2 large Cruiseships in town.
But after a couple days to adjust our body clocks it was time to get this Campervan Adventure going.

We picked up our Campervan from Wilderness Campervan.
Here’s a picture as we were just getting ready to leave the Wilderness base.

Driving on the left hand side of the road is a bit of a challenge at the start, especially on the very narrow secondary roads we were taking out of Auckland. But in the end we made it safely to our planned camping spot in Miranda.
Tomorrow will be a whole new adventure and I am sure we will get more comfortable driving on New Zealand roads.
It was great to have such a good navigator to get us from point A to point B and I only scared her a few times with the wheels in the ditch.

Well we’ve made it to 2025 and trust us the next three months are going to be exciting.
We are headed to New Zealand and Australia from January 20th and returning on to Kamloops on March 10th.
We fly to Vancouver a couple days early and meet up with Dean and Judy then board Air New Zealand for the 14 hr flight
Once in New Zealand we have a couple of days together and then we pick up up our Campervan and head off towards the east coast? Meanwhile Dean and Judy are renting a car and head north of Auckland to a wine district.
We hope to provide regular updates, so stay tuned.

We flew to Vancouver a couple of days early as a safety precaution with the winter weather. Once there we met up with our travel companions Dean and Judy
Monday we headed to the airport and now the adventure really begins

Well we finally made it to Auckland? The flight was actually not too bad.
After the plane took off they gave you a drink, then served dinner and a bit later they shut all the lights off.
No fooling around here, it’s time for bed. Then about 3 hrs before landing they feed you breakfast and before you know it your landing.
Here we are at 5:30am waiting for the shuttle bus to downtown Auckland

Here’s photo proof we made it to Auckland