Conquering the South Island

We've come to the end of our trek of the south island. I sit here in Queenstown trying to remember what we've done over the last week. We have stayed on the move, that's for sure.

Since our kayaking expedition in Able Tasman national park, we have been whale watching in Kaikoua. We saw some enormous sperm whales, and one of the more amazing sights was a pack of dusky dolphins. Let me explain, I've seen plenty of dolphins in my day. I've even had dolphins swim right beside me in the surf, but this was different. Dusky dolphins travel in packs of 4-5 HUNDRED. So from the deck of our boat there were more dolphins than you can count stretching for about 200 yards in every direction. They were swimming, jumping, diving and everything else you can imagine a dolphin doing, some weaving back and forth under the boat. They were everywhere! That was a cool sight.

On from Kaikoura we hit Christchurch for a quick night and then on to Lake Tekapo. I'll get some pictures up when I get back to Oz. Here are some pictures of Lake tekapo to give you a visual. Its a pretty gorgeous place.

From lake tekapo we headed for Mt. Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand with a lot of mt. climbing history. We did some day hikes around there and then onto the ski town of Wanaka. The town of wanaka is set right on another beautiful lake with mountains in every direction. It was one of my favorites. In the right season you can see people wakeboarding on the lake and look in the other direction and people are snowboarding on the mountains.

From Wanaka we took a flight to the milford sound. It was the perfect day. From the plane we could actually see Mt. Cook which was about 130 Kilometers away! We saw glaciers and Milford sound was a sight in itself.

Queenstown was our next and final destination where we've enjoyed meeting people from all over the world and spending some time in one place. We took a jetboat ride this morning between the canyon walls on the Shotover river and we've enjoyed out time in Queenstown.

Can you tell we've been on the move? It's on to Sydney tomorrow then mom and dad head up to the Great Barrier Reef and I return to the Gold Coast. It's been a busy but fun last two weeks.

for now