Trip to Rotorua

Anne & Grant took a mountain biking trip to Rotovegas!!
It was great fun! A bit muddy at places. Look at me crossing the stream! Grant's looking cool...
Then we went to see the bubbling mud.
Smelly!

Christmas holiday

Anne & Grant's trip to South Island for the Christmas holidays


Driving down to Wellington for 8h to catch the ferry on Christmas eve was something different from your usual Christmas celebrations.

Arrived to sunny Picton.

...ferry on the background

We spent Christmas day on the little beaches on Queen Charlotte sound.
Lovely!

G needs some sun

Had breakfast by the beach...

Continued up to Abel Tasman national park where sea kayaked in the pouring rain and then continued by foot for the next couple of days.

Me soaking wet...

All the people came to the beaches to get away from the rain.
...then the sun came out!

Beautiful sandy beaches and amazing scenery!!

The great Spirit of New Zealand sailing boat had come down from Auckland

Then we continued up to the north end of south island...

...and went for a walk on the fairwell spit sand dunes

It was soooo windy!!!
but we had fun!

Stayed in a lovely B&B in Golden bay.

Went for a waterfall hike

before taking the ferry back we stayed in Picton and did a full day's hike on the 71km long Queen Charlotte track.

Views were amazing...


... but Anne thought the wekas were the bet thing on that trip.


They came to eat straight from your hand.

Wekas are native NZ birds and relatives to the kiwi and look a lot like kiwis.