Start of a new school year
A poem about school, typed up by Louise.
Back To School
It was the last week of the
holidays,
I was felling rather
glum,
I could hardly wait for School to start,
Neither could Mum!
Now we been back a week,
I could do with a breather,
I can hardly wait for the
holidaysThe teacher can’t either!
Work, Work, WorkAfter the long Christmas / summer holidays, Louise and Daniel returned to school at the beginning of February. They both moved up a class so Louise is now in the top part of the school and Daniel has Mrs Rossie as his teacher (Louise’s teacher last year and a friend of ours outside school).
Louise was nervous about the change of class but soon settled in. Mrs Caddick is her teacher and is very gentle natured and maths focussed, with the result that Louise has been coming home with interesting logic puzzles to solve and increasingly challenging homework. This week it was stats – I might have done a technical degree but I am realising how little I remember – the kids turn to dad for the difficult stuff and fixing things!!
As with our old school in England, the classes have mixed year groups. Louise is 7 but a lot of her friends are 9 and an innocent conversation about boyfriends with a friend last week, made it dawn on me that those tricky conversations are not too far away!
Daniel was thrilled to move up a class with most of his friends. Liza Rossie is a fantastic teacher and seems to be able to get the best out of children. Daniel has had o chop and change a bit in his short school life so it great for him to be settled. It is noticeable how motivated he is, we now have two children that don’t like to go to sleep because they are too busy reading. At the start of term, Daniel made a book about himself – his goals for this year were all skateboarding related (I didn’t understand any of them!) and it is very funny to hear him and his mates discuss technical terms.
On the whole this term has been hot and sunny and for the first half of term, the kids spent every afternoon at school up at the outdoor pool just next to the school (an amazing setting, overlooking the harbour). It culminated in a swim sports day a couple of weeks ago – Louise and Daniel both came third in all the individual stroke races that they swum, Daniel took part in a pyjama race and Louise entered the open cup race which involved swimming a length of each stroke (including butterfly). It was a great morning, very competitive as well as very supportive. That evening we also had a picnic and family fun night up at the grassy with teachers, parents and kids. We had sack races, tossed the gum boot, threw water bombs between parents and children and finished with a boys vs girls tug of war (which the girls won of course – check out the determined look from the mums!)
Term 1 PhotosWe are only two weeks away from the Easter break, the clocks went back here this weekend so it could be all downhill from this point on!
Our big trip south
Go back a couple of weeks from here, Ben and I had just had two days to ourselves in Christchurch and on Friday night we drove down to Tekapo to join up with Mollie and Paul and the kids. Since then we have covered 2100km, from Tekapo to Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford Sound and Oamaru, in fact most of the island south of Christchurch, only the Caitlins and the Otago Peninsula remain in our list to see. Below gives you a rough idea of where we went:
We have been to Tekapo a couple of times now, once when Ben did his arm in and the second time when we discovered Parkbrae Estate, with lovely views across the lake and with the Church of the Good Shepherd just across the road.
Mollie and Paul spent their first day with the children down at the lake and enjoying the gardens of the cottage and then on the second went up to Mt Cook National Park.
On the third day when we met up with them, we ventured out to see the cliffs at Omarama, en route passing the base of Lake Pukaki with views directly up the lake to Mt Cook (we never tire of this one). To get to the cliffs, we had a 10km drive down a dirt track, Ben’s clean car now looks like a dust cart, but the cliffs were impressive and we took a good walk around before driving on to the shore of Lake Benmore for a picnic lunch.
Photos from Tekapo and Omarama
(copyright Mt John Observatory)
The drive from Tekapo to Queenstown is a fairly long stint at 4 hours, shortly after leaving we pass round the base of Lake Pukaki once again and get our last view of Mt Cook. We have travelled this road before but it is quite different in the summer compared to the winter. The roadside is a wash of pink, purple, yellow and white, with mile after mile of lupins. We enter the Lindis Pass, less rugged than the other mountain passes we have been through with a gentle incline and roads that sweep through the rolling mountains. The lunch stop that I have selected turns out to be one of my less good ideas: Bendigo is an old gold mining settlement but another unsealed road (Ben’s low to the ground sports car objects a bit to the deep pits on the track and we park up at the earliest opportunity) and the rain which pelts down just as we stop means that we have a quick walk round the remains and then we crack on. The next stretch of road is lined with vineyards, we notice that a couple of them have what look like mini wind turbines, we work out that they must be used to enerate wind in the cold months to keep the air moving and prevent frost (usually they use helicopters for this job). From Cromwell, we follow the Kawarau river almost all the way into Queenstown. The river passes through the steep Kawarau gorge and we stop to look at the water gushing out at a point called Roaring Meg. The Kawarau Bridge, 43m above the river, is the site of the world's first commercial bungee jumping operation (and no I’m not even remotely tempted!) and Shotover River, well known for the Shotover Jet Boat, flows into it from the north.
Queenstown is a pleasant surprise: labelled as the “Adventure Capital of the World” and a major tourist spot in New Zealand, I had expected it to be crammed full of people and cheap souvenir shops. Certainly you could spend a packet here if you decided to put the label to the test but if like us you are more interested in the scenery, it’s a great place to visit.
Queenstown is situated on the shores of Lake Wakatipu and our apartment is just out of town across the road from the lake and with views across to the Remarkables Mountain range. On the first evening, we jump at the “honk” of the steamboat the TSS Earnslaw as it arrives back into Queenstown and the next day we take a trip out on the boat across the lake to Walter Peak Homestead for a tour around the farm (sheep shearing, demonstration of dog skills and feeding the lambs and then shoving them back into the field, all good fun for the kids).
The following day we drove up the lake to Glenorchy, the location of some of the filming of the Lord of the Rings.
Queenstown and Te Anau PhotosIn between all this we found time to wander into the town, Daniel played football in the park with some older lads and both Louise and Daniel spent the evenings after dinner, practising skimming stones.
From here we take a 2 day detour down to Te Anau and then return to Queenstown on our way back north to Christchurch. Te Anau, is again located on a lake, the largest in the South Island. We stay in a cottage on Blue Mountain Farm and Louise and Daniel enjoy meeting the dogs, playing on the trampoline (generally making themselves at home!) and feeding the chickens. Across Lake Te Anau are the glow-worm caves. Inside the caves are a series of walkways and a fast flowing underground waterfall. At the end of the walkway, we board a small boat and weave our way around the glowworm grotto, pitch black except for the tiny luminous green light given off by the hundreds of glowworms.
Our main reason for coming this far south is to visit Milford Sound. We actually end up going twice, the first time from Te Anau in the mist and the rain and then two days later from Queenstown to see it in the sun.
Milford Sound on a wet misty dayQueenstown to Milford Sound and back on a sunny dayAfter 8 days, the inevitable starts to dawn on us and we start to wind our way back to Christchurch, staying a night in Queenstown and Oamaru on the way home.
Photos from Oamaru, Moeraki Boulders and back in Christchurch
Queenstown to Milford Sound in the sunshine
Today, we are doing the long drive up from Queenstown to Oamaru, 5 hours but that’s ok because we can make a day of it and stop at plenty of places on the way. Well that was the plan anyway!
We woke up to blue skies and sunshine, I’m not sure who had the idea first (I think Paul may have thought it and then Ben suggested it) but we ended up putting off the drive north in favour of another trip to Milford Sound, this time in the sunshine. It was all a bit mad, especially as it turns out that Mollie is not really that keen on small planes but somehow we ended up at Queenstown airport where we jumped on a seven seater plane. The 45 minute flight to Milford Sound is spectacular, flying over and sometimes very close to mountain ranges, glaciers and lakes before circling around the fiord and landing at Milford airfield.
We then took another boat trip out, this time we did see Mitre Peak and I think you’ll see from the photos that it was quite a different place in the sunshine, far fewer waterfalls and it felt less of a wilderness than when we came two days ago.
On the flight back, we took off from the airfield headed straight for Mitre Peak, it was a bumpy ride to start with and Mollie may have kept her eyes shut for some of the way! We took a slightly different route back completing the circuit and then flying alongside the Remarkables and across the Queenstown end of Lake Wakatipu before touching down at Queenstown airport.
Photos of our flight and Milford Sound on a sunny dayAfter an amazing 4 hours, it was time to get back in the car and start the journey that we had originally intended earlier in the day. Much of the drive was through central Otago, very flat compared to the mountains we had been flying in and around only a couple of hours ago. After what seemed like ages, we were pleased to see the coast again and had a short stop at the Moeraki Boulders (see previous blog entry for a description of these) before wearily arriving into Oamaru a few hours later than planned.
return to Milford in the rainlink back to Our Big Trip South
Milford Sound on a misty wet day
The road from Te Anau to Milford is a reason itself to visit Milford Sound, the focal point of Fiordland National Park at the other end. Our drive starts along the shores of lake Te Anau and through the downs where we come across sheep on the road (surprising that this is a first in NZ for us given the ground we have covered and the population of sheep). Already the scale of the mountains surrounding us is impressive, different shades of green, and later blue/grey as the mist and the rain descends, show the mountains which seem to poke out in front of one another in layer after layer.
We stop at Mirror Lakes and then pass along a stretch of road called “the avenue of the disappearing mountain” which gives the illusion that the peak ahead is sinking out of sight as we drive directly towards it. After a point called The Divide, the scenery changes again, the mountains tower even further above us with sheer slopes and as the rain sets in, there are tens (maybe hundreds) of waterfalls that rush over the rock walls to the roadside. It is then through the Homer Tunnel: unlined, rough and a bit scary as it descends through the mountain to the Cleddau Valley and on to Milford Sound.
Milford Sound has been carved out of rock by glaciers over two million years ago. Huge volumes of water flow into the fiord creating a layer of freshwater over the sea water, creating conditions for unusual marine life (including black coral) to exist much closer to the surface than usual.
I imagine that on a sunny day, this place takes on a different character altogether, today the mist hugs the mountains and the clouds almost seem alive as they roll over the peaks. Although grey and wet, the visibility is good and we take a boat trip out. We can’t quite make out Mitre Peak but again there are plenty of waterfalls and we see dolphins and seals. As we reach the open sea, the boat lurches in the swell, there is a little island just off the rocks which used to serve as the post office (weird, in the wilderness of this place but apparently true) and then as we turn to head back in, the entrance is almost impossible to spot which explains why the fiord went unnoticed by ships for so long.
The map above shows where we went on our boat trip and should help to place some of the names in the
photos taken of Milford Sound the first time roundcompare to two days later when we returned in the sunshinelink back to Our Big Trip South
