Good-bye New Zealand/ hello Australia

We are both very sad to be leaving New Zealand. This is a fantastic place for a holiday. The weather has been brilliant and there is so much to see and do. Lots of walks and uncrowded beaches and bays to swim in. The two months we have been here have just flown by.

Last night in New Zealand, very sad.

"....for we have promises to keep

And miles to go before we sleep."

Traffic jam New Zealand style.

Passing through sheep country.

Taraneki falls

Mt. Ngauruhoe

Scrambling back down.

View from the ridge.

Took a cable car up to 1700m then started the climb.

First view of Mount Ruapehu.

Dramatic river drive from Wanganiu to Tongario world heritage area.

Wanganiu - a lovely place to live, 2 rowing clubs and a good racing pigeon club. What more could you want! Oh, and superb weather.

Longest swing bridge in New Zealand.

Arthurs Pass at sunrise.

Spent all afternoon looking in trees for the alpine Kea. When the visitors left a flock of twenty or more descended on the village looking for sweet things to eat (spilt ice-cream)

Arthurs Pass - an interesting highway linking east and west coasts, going through the mountains.

Helicopter flight to the glaciers

Had a really brilliant day, took a helicopter ride up to the top of the glaciers. Flew round Mount Tasman and the glaciers and could see Mount Cook in the distance. The helicopter landed on the snow and we were able to walk on the ice. Difficult to make a snowball. The views were fantastic as it was a clear, hot day.

Sunlight over the mountains (Dave's favourite)

Although these crevices don't look very deep they are in the region of 300ms.

Mount Tasman

Clouds over the glacier.

Franz Josef glacier and the river flow made up from continual ice melt.

This is the mouth of Franz Josef glacier. In the 1970's this glacier was much smaller. It is one of the only glaciers in the world that is still increasing in size.

This is as close as we could get to the Fox Glacier due to glacial movement that morning.

We saw lots of stone piles like this along Haast beach.

Cloud formation over lake takppo

Leaving Queenstown.

After spending 6 weeks searching for two of New Zealands rarest birds we spotted both the NZ falcon and the NZ robin in the same afternoon.

Mirror lake

Milford Sound

No captions on the photos, just enjoy.

We met a pod of Dusky dolphins who frolicked beside the boat.

Millie enjoyed the boat ride and seeing all the waterfalls.

After a three hour drive through fantastic scenery we arrived at the boat to take us through the Milford Sound.