028 – South Island (Christchurch, Fairlie, Twizel, Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford Sound), New Zealand – Sound Logic

With Grandma and Grampa hell-bent on hitting every major tourist attraction in New Zealand in two-and-a-half weeks, we’ve got a seriously packed agenda.

With our dense itinerary in mind, we debated using other modes of transportation to increase our efficiency.

 (Check the back row.)

We also briefly pondered alternative drivers,

 But our current system seems to be working out just fine.  And, Ciel has found the ride to be quite comfortable.

Despite the increased wind resistance from the dried emesis on the side of our van we’ve laid some serious tracks across the South Island in the last few days. By taking into consideration Ciel’s love of both brochures and strangers, as well as her resemblance to a well-known baked good, we have been able to accurately predict our travel times using the following simple equations:

Given,

We derive that,

Where,

This has allowed us to minimize downtime and cram in a maximal number of activities.

We stopped by Britt’s friend Chantal’s horse farm outside Christchurch, 

 Where Ciel tried to make friends with Chantal’s son Taylor.

 That is until he grabbed her foot and lifted it in the air causing her to topple over onto her face. Now he’s off her Christmas card list.

After that, we serendipitously arrived in Fairlie just in time to score front row seats for the big New Year’s Day Parade.

 We finally got our photo of Aoraki (Mt Cook).

 And Grandma and Grampa twisted our arms into frequenting another winery.

 The last couple days we’ve been in Te Anau.

 We toured the glowworm caves, and then we hopped on a bus with our driver, “My name is Diane, but you can call me ‘Curlz!’”, and headed north, passing by the Mirror Lakes,

 And a few lookouts,

 On our way to Milford Sound.

 We boarded the Milford Mariner and had a breathtaking boat tour of New Zealand’s most famous fiord.  

 With flanking cliffs rising 700 metres and innumerable waterfalls it was unbelievably awesome.

 “The Lion”

Missed him? Look again.

The Sound wasn’t the only MILF on the tour… 

Time now to restock Grandma’s supply of Gravol and ginger biscuits for the winding drive up the West Coast…

027 – South Island (Christchurch, Akaroa, Lyttelton), New Zealand – New (Year’s) Recruits

Grandma and Grampa Bearss have arrived, and true to form, the entertainment value of our days has increased exponentially.  Their arrival in Christchurch has been the biggest news since the September 9^th earthquake rattled the city.

Despite being away for the last three months, Ciel hasn’t missed a beat with Grandma.

And, although Grampa did garner some initial scrutiny,

It wasn’t long before he was accepted back into the fold, too.

She’s even become an active participant in his morning exercise routine.

We settled nicely into our little cottage,

Before starting out slowly, with a walking tour of the town. Which largely consisted of Grandma wandering around repeating “I have no clue where I am, weren’t we just on this street?”, while we waited for a lagging Grampa to finish scrutinizing the architecture of every building before pointing to an inconsequential crack/chip/lean and triumphantly declaring, “Hey, I bet that was from the earthquake!”

Then there was the pit stop to call Nana and G-Dad, so Ciel could tell them how much fun she’s having with Grandma and Grampa.

We did manage to herd them onto the hop on/hop off tram to speed things along.

One of the trams was too narrow to fit Ciel’s stroller.  Not a big deal, we just made sure Grandma wasn’t watching and then we had her ride up front.

After a relaxing 30-minute punt down the Avon River,

(Just enough time for Grampa to learn the entire life story of our punter, from birth in Vancouver, right through private school in Christchurch, to current rock band aspirations…)

We were off for a stroll through the botanic gardens,

So Ciel could make some friends,

And verify the sprinkler system was working properly.

Then we all decided it was time to stop pretending we were actually interested in azaleas and move on to our true objective.

The action picked up on day two with our venture out to the Banks Peninsula along the scenic Summit Road. Grandma and her iron stomach were so fond of the winding roads, and stunning views that she insisted we stop for numerous “photo ops’,

Which put us a little behind schedule, and stretched Ciel’s patience (along with Grandma’s gastric fortitude).

So it was, 80 km and three hours later, with Ciel wailing in the back seat,

And Grandma redecorating the side of our rental van,

That we finally rolled into peaceful Akaroa.

Grandma scored some motion sickness pills and Ciel squeezed in a little shoe shopping,

Then we were off to Lyttelton for a spot of afternoon tea beer (who’s kidding who?)

New Year’s Eve was a huge bash.  After getting hopped up on TimTam Slams 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tam_Slam),

Ciel got trashed and yaked in Grampa’s face.

Two bottles of wine (and 18 hrs of jet lag) later it was lights out for the team…

Tomorrow we start our trek back to Queenstown to start working on our resolutions… to have more fun (and more beer) than last year...

Happy New Year!