Our Long Trip through South Island Part 1

The two panoramic pics are my pics. These others will be in the slideshows, but are borrowed from the web since the shots we got looked nothing like this due to the inclement weather :-) This is our view of Wanaka.

Milford Sound

Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo Starlight Reserve

Aoraki (Mt Cook) = The cloud cutter in Maori

Our View of Queenstown

Since we are leaving New Zealand we tried to cram it all in!! It also works out because most of these locations are about 1-2 hours from each other. We just had to make an 8 hour drive down on the first day! I had memories of being stuck in the car all summer for our family vacations and I don't know how my parents did it day after day! Tyler is a great traveler….its Erik and I who get wiped out :-)! We stayed in Te Anau and then drove 3 hours south west into Milford Sound. It was POURING RAIN, so we luckily did not have to deal with the horrible sand flies that inhabit the national park, but it did make for a funny day walking in puddles, and some temporary streams! The shot I took of the grey clouds is where the most iconic photos of New Zealand are taken. I have included what it looks like on a perfect day for comparison…pretty funny! But I was still happy because no sand flies!! (PS Because I lost our other camera the color contrast of this one is not that great, plus I have been having problems with the iPhoto slideshows so sorry about the quality…hopefully you can at least get a taste of our fantastic adventure!)

The next morning was Christmas morning! It was a little hard for me because it was the first time since Tyler is born he didn't walk down the steps at our house in Las Vegas to the Christmas tree :-( But the day quickly evolved into so much fun….I am glad we broke our traditions and tried something new! We went to a place called Puzzling World and there was a maze that we ended up walking around for an hour before we found our way out….Tyler and Daddy loved it! I was game until about 45 minutes in! They had all sorts of displays and stuff indoors also including a room built on a huge slant…so Tyler seemingly riding the chair uphill is in that room. I could barely keep from falling over!! Vertigo. Tyler loved it! Then we went on two different hikes, one overseeing the Wanaka valley and then out to a set of waterfalls. We had Christmas dinner at Bombay Palace :-)

The next day was Queenstown, which prides itself on being the adrenaline capital of the world! By 2pm I had overloaded on stress just from watching people! Not my city, but the boys were thrilled with their day! Started by riding the Gondola up to the top of the mountain and Erik doing his 154 ft Bungy jump. It was cold and there was a rainy breeze blowing upwards from the valley floor, but Tyler and I hung out to watch the whole thing, along with a bunch of others doing a rope swing they also had set up. Then all three of us went up higher on the mountain to do the luge. I don't know what I was expecting, and it really wasn't that bad, but for a control freak….letting your kid go down a paved hill in a sled 3 inches off the ground….not really my thing! I would have survived fine had he not got going too fast, gone up on one side, almost rolled, didn't and then lost control and crashed into me and my sled, while I was brainlessly trying to stop mine with my feet and was SUPER LUCKY I didn't break anything! The rest of the ride was uneventful, but as soon as I was off I burst into tears having the 30 seconds of Tyler's out of control sled running replays in my head. I was such a dork walking on this incredibly packed sidewalk in tears and having a panic attack! Crazy!! This is why the boys do this stuff without mom!!! Then off to a quick lunch which while walking to I saw a suicidal instructor doing flips on his paraglider with only 200 feet until he had to land. I almost puked on the sidewalk, still jumped up from my panic attack. Then I shipped the boys off on a speed boat to go do 360's and drive cm's away from bridges etc. Luckily I didn't walk them down to the dock, because I was afraid I would cause a scene or burst into tears there again….but good thing cause when I picked them up I found out the boat had no seat belts, just life vests…INSANE!! But they had a blast and Tyler LOVED IT and wanted to go again! We found a park with a Christmas tree up and got one picture with a tree for this December :) We found a place that had "crispy" chicken wings so we had to go for dinner, because Tyler had been craving them. Here the skin is not crispy just soggy and sauce is usually horrible. But we lucked out and Tyler was adorable enjoying his meal!

These videos are to give you an idea of what we were up to :-)

The guy I saw paragliding that freaked me out so bad was definitely the guide, who was along on that jump for photos and then took the last few minutes for "fun".