Chateau Blanc Suites Christchurch

... awesome' !!!

We then stayed on outskirts of Arthur's Pass, which is the mountainous alpine road which crosses the spine of the country. We woke (as we had at the glaciers) to 360 degree views of show capped mountains around the van - simply stunning. The drive through them was even better - this country really has some amazing scenery and hopefully you can get a feel of it from the pictures. Sorry to those of you (many of you) who have been here before to whom I ...

... flight to Queenstown.
We were informed in the terminal that there was a difficulty with weather in Queenstown. Mid flight we were informed that the plane was diverting to Invercargill. So we had an unexpected bus trip for 2 hours from Invercargill to Queenstown. The trip began in sunny circumstances then we found that overcast and wet weather was the way the journey would end. Some great views ...

... hostel for the evening.

We're getting ready for our tour to start in the morning. We found the Holiday Inn where they will pick us up at 10:30 tomorrow morning. This will likely be our last post for a few days as it sounds like we will be out in the wilderness for the next couple of days. We will post again when we are in Queenstown (Thursday) and look forward to sharing our tramping stories.

Cheers!

... allied Turks. Despite knowing the battle was lost at an early stage, their troops were not pulled out until some 60,000 men were lost. The first point of interest along the Great Ocean Road was to see kangaroos in the wild. This can be done not in the outback but on the putting greens of Anglesea golf club. We saw over a hundred roos grazing on the green which the apparently gather at late in summer for the rich grass on the course. Members still ...

... vineyards and fruit orchards were everywhere and I decided to stop for fruit. All that cheese 'n bikkies we'd had and I was bound tighter than Madam Lash's boyfriend. Gave the big supermaket-looking barn a miss and hauled into a small roadside stall displaying apples. Apples! An apple a day, you know what they say. Excellent Johnagold apples as big as grapefruit. They were so juicy and they cracked like a whip when bitten. Nezt stop was at a "gold camp", accessed from across the ...

... 7:00-Breakfast 7:30-Work Duties (Chores) 8:00-Personal Devotions (Time with God) 8:50-Announcements 9:00-Intercession 10:00-Lecture 1 11:15-Morning Tea 11:30-Lecture 2 1:00-Lunch 3:00-Study Time 6:00-Dinner 7:30-Worship Night Wednesday: 7:00-Breakfast 7:30-Work Duties (Chores) 8:00-Personal Devotions (Time with God) 8:50-Announcements 9:00-Bible ...

... we went and watched the "Slumdog Millionaire". If you haven't seen it, you should! It was fantastic.... tragic but beautiful at the same time. Tomorrow we are heading across to the west coast of the island, through Arthurs Pass. Apparently its supposed to be a beautiful drive. Then eventually heading up to the Tasman Sea, to Nelson. Wes has some friends who are working up there in a orchard, so we are hoping to get on there for a few weeks. We will see!

... a box of goon (cheap nasty wine in a box) and got ready to go on a night on the tiles. While drinking we met Ioan, a welsh boy who was on his own so we invited him out with us for the night. We hit a few pubs, danced alot, lost Laura and Ioan for most of the night, went to World bar, danced on a few tables then went for a world famous Fergburger around 1am, where we were reunited with Laura and co. The next day while Laura went on a tour me and Nicola went and got fed up ...

... clearly done her no harm. Me ragging the engine to within an inch of its life might have, of course, but that's a horse of a different colour. Anyway, I left Queenstown at just after 9am and arrived at my motel a little before 3pm, after enjoying an oh-so-healthy on the road lunch of half a bag of Maltesers. (It had become a curiosity, to see how fast I could do the drive, so stopping at a roadside cafe was out of the ...