Tasman Valley

The after lunch exploring turned the Tasman Valley just on the other side of Mount Cook.

 

 

 We walked the short but steep trail up the debris wall of the Tasman Glacier. The glacier, like so many others around the world that we've seen, has receded so rapidly that the debris wall left behind is enormous.

It was the first real test for us of hiking with Harry. Amazingly, he slept most of the way up the hill but woke up just in time to admire the view. First up, the Blue Pools that look more green than blue. Crazy Kiwis.

 The giant Tasman Glacier, the surrounding snow capped ranges & the enormous melt water lake were the reward for the toil up the hill. The shear size of the glacier and lake only became obvious when a helicopter buzzed past on the far side of the lake looking like a mosquito.

As always, a bird manages to grab my attention. This one is Yellowhammer.

 After the Tasman hike, it was time to head back to Tekapo. By the time we had reached the end of Lake Pukaki it was late afternoon. The clouds and wind had both disappeared completely. One final look and a few photos of this beautiful place before heading back to our holiday house. Breath Taking.

Lake Pukaki & Mount Cook

Another day and another beauty. We set off for the next lake over, Lake Pukaki. Another gorgeous turquoise tinted lake with a snow capped mountain range behind it. This lake has the highest peak in New Zealand behind it, Mount Cook, and the second highest, Mount Tasman. Clear skies & no breeze happens only a few days a year so we were incredibly lucky.

After a few photos we set off in the cars along the Western shore of Lake Pukaki. It seemed that around every bend was a postcard shot.

 

We reached the village of Mount Cook in the shadow of the mountain. This is the place where climbers launch their assaults from. We spent a little while in the visitor centre before going out exploring.

Our first stop was the Hooker Valley. The short trail up the valley is also the start of the climb to the summit of Mt Cook.

 At the end of the trail was the reward of turquoise glacial pools, a huge wall of glacial debris and, of course, Mount Cook.It was about the only time we saw clouds for the entire day.

We had lunch at the visitor centre where to view was sensational (below).

Lake Tekapo

 The morning after the wild weather, as if by design, the skies cleared and the wind was non-existent.

 We spent the morning exploring the local area including Mt John that has the observatory overlooking Lake Tekapo.

 This chaffinch is one of the many resident birds around our home away from home.

 The long daylight hours allowed us the opportunity to put Harry to bed for the night with a grandparent on duty & head out to watch the sun go down. By the end of the day the clouds were completely gone. The full moon was a mixed blessing. Great in sunset shots, but completely killed any chance of star gazing that Tekapo is famous for.

Lake Tekapo

We did get a bit further away from Christchurch than Akaroa. Three nights at Lake Tekapo was part of a plan to actually do some traveling during the trip.

With Kerri's parents & sister in tow we set off for the Lake. The weather had turned windy, wet & cold. By the time we reached the lake, the wind was howling! The lake even had waves lapping on the shoreline. What had we signed ourselves up for?

 The wind abated a little by the afternoon and allowed us to admire the view from our home for a few days. Other than the obvious views of the lake if over the neighbour's roof, the snow capped mountains completed a spectacular panorama.

 Late in the evening another storm front descended over the lake changing the sunset into quite the show.

Orana Wildlife Park

Orana Wildlife Park is an open plains zoo near the airport. I did manage to get some nice animal photos & Harry showed his first signs of his love of animals.

 Meerkats were Harry's favorites.

Akaroa

We did manage to sneak away for the day to Akaroa, about an hour's drive from Christchurch.

 Akaroa is the place where the French originally colonized New Zealand only to find out the English had beat them to the punch.

 Now it is a little fishing & village with a strong tourist trade including whale & dolphin watching operators.

With a baby in tow, there would be no whale watching for us so the only wildlife watching was the gulls including the large Black Winged Gulls (below).

  And the cheeky red beaked gulls.

Back to New Zealand

Nearly two years after the epic around the world trip, we finally left the country again, this time with our ten month old son, Harry. New Zealand isn't exactly a far away destination with an exotic culture, but with a baby, it was far enough for us.
A fair amount of the trip was about visiting Kerri's relatives who were jostling to meet Harry. Consequently, much of the time was spent close to Christchurch.

Wildlife was limited to the ducks.

 There are some great views of the Southern Alps from Summit Road that runs along the ridge between Christchurch & Lyttelton.

 And the views on the Lyttelton side are just as interesting.

 Lyttelton was in the process of re-build after to earthquake that was generated in Lyttelton Harbour that also caused widespread destruction in Christchurch.

Days 39 & 40 - Travel home to Perth

The alarm went off at 4.40am. We'd packed the night before so we got dressed & got into the cab we'd ordered the night before. The taxi ride to Kilimanjaro International airport is about 45 mins. I'm not sure why the airport is so far out in the middle of nowhere. We thought we'd left ourselves enough time but it turns out that we looked at the arrival time, not the departure time & were very lucky is was a small airport & were able to pretty much get straight on the plane. If we'd missed the flight, the next one wasn't until late in the afternoon & would have been cutting it fine to catch the connection to Johannesburg. We snuck onto the Precision Air ATR-42 while it was still dark & settled in for the 25 minute flight to Nairobi. (The photo below was taken in Nairobi.)

As we climbed through the clouds we saw the sun sneak a look over the horizon.

As we tracked north & the sun started to flood the sky we caught our first look at the mighty Mt Kilimanjaro.

 Kilimanjaro is the highest freestanding mountain in the world & the highest point in Africa. Even from the air its an impressive product of mother nature.

Before we knew it we were touching down in Nairobi. It seemed like an eternity since we'd landed there from Rwanda 10 days ago. Nairobi is a hub for air traffic for East Africa. Most flights from other continents (& other parts of Africa) land here & you can get a regional flight to pretty much any country in East Africa and some others close by like Ethiopia.

We Arrived at 6.50 am & our outgoing flight to South Africa wouldn't leave until 4.45 that afternoon. We'd been dreading this layover since we booked the trip. Considering what a bustling hub the airport is, there is very little to do or even many places to sit. There are a couple of commuter lounges that cost $25 USD for 3 hrs. We wandered about a bit, did some souvenir shopping to kill some time, then hit the lounge for a while. It was air conditioned, had free food & snacks, and comfy couches. Lucky for us there weren't many other people there. It was a boring, but reasonable pleasant way to fill in time. I set about writing the last few notes of my travel diary while Kerri read her book.

Once the 3 hrs were up, we headed back out into the terminal to find some lunch (and it was awful) & wander around to do some more shopping. Once we were bored of that we went back to the lounge to wait out the last few hours for the flight. Finally it was time to leave and we were so glad to be finally heading home. (The morning flight had taken us North & further away.)

The flight to Johannesburg was about 2-1/2 hrs and being that we left late in the equatorial afternoon it wasn't long before the sun disappeared over the Western horizon. We wouldn't see it again until we were over the Indian Ocean.

We flew into Johannesburg in the dark with the city lights guiding the way. Walking into the terminal it felt like we'd come back to the Western world at long last. we were now getting excited about the thought of being home within hours. We had to kill about 3 hrs in the Airport but there is lots of space, decent food and rugby merchandising shops. We caught a few winks of sleep & watched the planes come and go. Before we knew it our plane had arrived & the final leg of our 6 week around the world trip was about to begin.

Nine & a half hours later we were crossing the coast about 30kms North of where we live in Perth before touching down at Perth International. It was mid afternoon when we arrived home to our two moggies who seemed none the worse for wear after 6 weeks being spoiled by the house sitter. They were a bit weird to start with but they forgave us once they were fed.....

What an epic trip. We saw such a huge variety of scenery, animals & people. It's going to be hard to top. Six weeks on tour covering such a wide variety of climate & moving so often was probably a bit ambitious in the end.

Join us for our next travel adventure................