Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

After the bus brought us back from the Milford Sound cruise to Te Anau on Monday morning, we had lunch and drove to Queenstown. This is a city that is known as an adventure playground and, while we didn't bungee jump or skydive, we did have a good time. At the top of the gondola ride is a spectacular view of the valley below Then there's the jelly bean art And our highlight was the alpine slide (sorry, too scary to take a picture in motion) In the afternoon we took one of those jetboat tours. Elise and I got soaked!

If you visit Milford Sound on a sunny day, as we did, you'll see this This land has seen many battles. This is where Gandolf and Suaron collide. But even more pitched is the battle between the thrusting of tectonic uplift and the onslaught of erosion. On a sheer mountainside several thousand meters high, a crevice might be the work of the waterfall or the tearing of an active fault. We have arrived in Milford Sound, the number one destination on our South Island itinerary. A coach bus brought us from the gateway town of Te Anau, where we spent two nights at the foot of an alpine lake. We have boarded an overnight cruise. Remarkably, the sun is shining. The guide points out that we can see clouds forming on the hillsides as the moisture from the warm surface of the lake rises to meet colder mountain air. The boat moors and the passengers are offered a choice of water activities: kayaking, dinghy ride, swimming. Elise and I enjoy some quiet on the kayak ride while the others...

Probably the southernmost site on our trip: Slope Point, New Zealand Everybody was right: the distances in New Zealand are very deceiving. It takes a really long time to go anywhere. I'd guess our typical travel speed has been 45 miles per hour. One funny thing about this is that the national default speed limit is 100 kph (62 mph), which our navigation displays no matter where we are, including this gravel road. Going 42kph in a 100 zone; out the windshield you can see the gravel and in the nav you can see the curves! Anyway, we left Dunedin mid-morning on Wednesday and took about an hour to reach Balclutha on the motorway. We found a lovely municipal park with a picnic table, a great playground and a weird, small zoo. Then it was on to the Nugget Point Lighthouse, where we enjoyed a short hike hoping to see Penguins (no) but got rewarded with some baby sparrows in their nest (in the blind from which we hoped to spot the penguins!) Hoping to see some Yellow-Eyed Pengu...

Recap: On Sunday we flew to Christchurch (easy taxi ride at 6:15 am) and got a shuttle to our remarkably lovely hotel (Commodore). On Monday, we obtained our RVs, ate lunch and got on the road around 1:30; after a 4+ hour drive we arrived at our campground in Dunedin on the southeast coast. On Tuesday afternoon we toured 150 year old Larnach Castle. We also went for a moderate hike down to (and back up from) Tunnel Beach. On Wednesday morning, Elise took Ali, Cate and Henry for a walk along the beach while Liz, Wally and Lily toured the Otago History Museum. Meanwhile, Jon replaced a dead laptop. On Wednesday afternoon we drove out to the tip of the Otago Peninsula to visit the Royal Albatross Centre. We're a long way from everywhere but at least this sign mentions places we've been (New York, Santiago, Public Toilets) and others we haven't (and won't), like the South Pole. Observation #1: Emirates is a really, really, really nice airline. Our Qantas flight was a ...