South Island New Zealand

We flew from Rotarora to Christchurch to move from the North Island the land formed by Volcano's to the South Island, the land shaped by glaciers.

We loaded ourselves into the coach with our new driver John and headed south to the Mount Cook National Park named after New Zealand's highest peak and the location where Sir Edmond Hillary learned to climb mountains prior to his accent to the summit of Mt Everest and his adventures to Antarctica. It was a long but beautiful drive and the weather was exceptionally nice.  The fact is that most people who come to Mt Cook do not get to see it because of cloud cover. We were very fortunate indeed!

So after the long drive we were looking forward to the ride out to the Tasman glacier fields the next morning. When we woke up it was windy, rainy and cold so instead of the open four wheel drive vehicle we were planning on we drove out in a enclosed van. The ride was bumpy and windy but our guide was a total pleasure.  He was a Sherpa from Nepal and had scaled Mt Everest two times as well as Mt Cook. He was friends with Sir Edmond Hillary and had two kids; a son named Edmond and a daughter named Hillary.

We got pretty wet but it was worth the trip. Before leaving Mount Cook area we viewed a film that did a good job of educating us on The life of Sir Edmond Hillary and saw a display of his tractors that made the expedition to Antarctica.

Pictures of the drive from Mount Cook to Queenstown 

Arriving in Queenstown we toured the active tourist town and found a great pub for supper before heading back to our hotel to prepare for our cruise on Milford Sound through the Homer Tunnel out to the Tassman Sea where we spotted seals and dolphins and were showered by waterfalls tumbling down from majestic cliffs. The views were spectacular !

We got WET getting close to this one!

Wow the time is flying and the wifi connection has been non existent !  At the Queenstown airport ready to embark on our last adventure. AUSTRAILIA !

Spent the last of our NZ$ on a sandwich and bottle of water only to find we couldn't take the water (back to rules of international flight) so into the dumpster.