Our 2010 Summer Holiday

Paul and I just had (our last) two week holiday around NZ. It was amazing, exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. It begain with a four day hike (tramp) on the Milford Track. Being out of shape added to the physical challenge of hiking and carrying your own gear, but the dramatic and pristine scenery made up for it. It was just amazing.

On New Years Eve we took an overnight boat cruise on Doubtful sound and I got to have my first encounter with Dolphins in the wild. A pod of bottlenose Dolphins swam alongside side us, jumping in and out of the water.

Next stop (so to speak) was Wanaka. We hung out there resting up and enjoying the rain on our first day off. We sat in the car next to the tent and read our books for hours. Truly relaxing...

But the physical challenges had just begun and it was time to head over to Fox Glacier and do an all day walk on the glacier. Again, the walking part wasn't so hard, it was learning to use the crampons and really pushing your feet into the ice so you don't slip that took a bit of finess and fitness. But no-slips later we were on our way to take pictures of Franz Joseph glacier and head to Hokitika for the night.

With the weather continuing in our favour, we found an Indian restuarant open at 9pm, grabbed the food to go and sat at a picnic table at that beach and ate dinner. It was all quite exhuisite.

The next day we were able to catch high-tide at the blow holes of the pancake rocks and then a super smooth sailing from Picton back to Welly. On the boat we ran into our friend Andy and got to tour the Bridge!

And to end this fabulous holiday we headed north and completed the Tongariro Crossing. A breeze after the Milford track but oh boy were my feet sore. All in all it was a spectacular vacation. We ran into people we knew (from work, soccer and through friends) throughout the trip, reminding us how small and wonderful New Zealand can be.

Here are the pictures from our adventures. I tried my best to reduce the photos but couldn't get the albums under 80 photos (we took about a 1000 between the two cameras so I figure 80 isn't so bad). I've split them into two albums - Enjoy!

The first album is of our different adventures and includes photos of us:

South and North Island 2010-2011

The second album is just nature. We took a lot of pictures of really beautiful scenery. There is some overlap between the two albums but overall they are fairly different.

Nature - South Island Summer 2010-2011