Lake Brunner Country Motel Complex Moana

... 1489;מספר נקודו 14;, להנות מן המפלי 01; המרשי 02;ים או לטפס אל אחד מאתרי הסקי שעל ההרים.
Arthur's Pass National Park, South Island, New Zealand sivana

Woke up and saw a huge tree branch had fallen 50m from where we camped... Sewed my NZ patch and fixed my kite in the morning. Headed south along 1 of lonely planets top 10 drives in the world. AMAZING!!!! Quite similar to the oregon coast, but with huge waves crashing onto shore. Stopped at a couple of lookouts for photos and saw a mountian goat(wild?). Very ...

... keepy uppy with it when the girls had enough of catch!

We then got showered but ran out of water when Lauren went in so had to drive to the tap and refill the tank whilst Lauren sat in the back of the van wrapped in her towel covered in shampoo! It wasn’t easy as the tap was not the same size as our hose connection but we managed to get just enough water for her to finish off her shower!

... see how frozen it was. We stopped for lunch surrounded by mountains and fir trees, and discussed how much we didn't want to leave New Zealand. Just before Arthur's Pass we stopped at the Otira Viaduct for fabulous views of the steep sides of the pass and the road on the viaduct running through the gorge. There was even a chute used to divert a waterfall away from the road. We admired the view and a few curious kea came to say hello. They ...

... glaciers. The reality was, however, slightly different. Anyway, along the way we pulled over at some lookout points, so the day wasn't that boring. To Franz Josef Glacier we arrived in the afternoon and as the first thing we booked for the following day a half day guided walk on the ice. The village was much more lively than Arthur's Pass. Also accommodation competition was quite strong. We stayed in a nice backpackers.

We drove to Lake Brunner on the 12th and by midday had arrived. We decided to stay here rather than rush through Arthurs Pass and it meant Tom could spend the afternoon fishing - he really wanted to catch a brown trout and I really wanted to eat one! No luck today even though the kids further down caught 3! What did I do? Exciting things like darn holes in socks and read about South America...we'll be there in a few days time!

... flight in honour of Dave! He went in true superman flight mode! Will have to upload the pics for you to see! After our trip across the gorge we headed down to Lake Brunner in Moana via Westport. Westport is a little port town on the west coast of the south island but was very quiet today as it is Anzac day. Anzac Day is like our Rememberance Day but is to remember the day that many New Zealand soldiers ...

... to be making our knifes out of. First we stuck one end in the fire until it was red hot and then banged the **** out of it with a mallet on an anvil over and over again to make the "pointy bit" and thin out the sharp side of the blade. Zachary managed to make a very hard blade accidentally by putting the blade in the forge for just long enough (read almost too long) for lots of carbon to get into the steel. Then we sawed off the extra bit of steel ...

... the craigieburn range from a friend. It is easy to access since you can get to it from the ski field clubs. You can pay the clubs $5 to use their lift once and then go backcountry. Ski fields are an absolutely amazing thing. They are ski fields based in areas of good skiing, are owned by a volunteer comity, membership is really cheap, and only the very basics for skiing exist there. It definitely makes skiing more interesting, more ...

... two handfuls and stuffed them into my coat pockets, sure that the stash would last for the rest of the trip. They more than did that, while packing my coat when moving house a month after this holiday was over I found I still had two left.

The morning driving stint from the Canterbury Plains and up one side of the Southern Alps to Arthur’s Pass had been nothing short of spectacular and travelling down the other side to the wild west coast was equally so, running in ...