We woke up to overcast skies and it wasn’t long before it was rain was falling.  We had hoped to get up early and see the sun rise over a lake, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  Our next stop was to be Franz Josef Glacier, but again the weather made hiking in to see it difficult so we kept driving north and toward the west coast of the South Island.

By lunch time we found ourselves in Hokitika – a gold mining town.  We decided to walk around town and look in some shops. Today was my birthday and Tim was encouraging me to pick out a present from New Zealand. The first stop was a glass blowing shop.  They had beautiful pieces, but truthfully, after just packing up the house in Dallas, I don’t want more knick knacks in my life.

The next shop we visited was a jewelry store specializing in jewelry made from locally mined gold.  We found a small sterling silver pendant filled with tiny gold nuggets.  I decided that it would make a good souvenir and it’s easy to pack!  So i picked out one and we went on our way.

We wanted fish and chips for lunch and checked the restaurant next door to the jewelry store.  The fish and chips were $20/plate which was too much. So we stopped a teenager and her grandmother and asked where we should go for fish and chips.  They sent us to a small shop on the beach front.

The total bill for the three of us was about the same as one plate at the other restaurant.  This shop didn’t accept our debit card so we had to go to an ATM and get some cash.  We have been in New Zealand for more than a week and today was the first time we had to get cash.  Pretty incredible.The fish and chips were yummy and we enjoyed sitting in our car and eating lunch.

On the road, we drove along until we came to the “Pancake Rocks”.  We got there just at dusk.  From there we drove on to Westport where we are staying in a backpacker’s lodge for the night.

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Today we left beautiful Queenstown and drove up to the top of the mountain to see one of the ski resorts.  From there we drove through Arrowtown – an old mining town which was quaint and full of beautiful cottages.

Then we took the road less traveled through the mountains to the west coast.  The road took us alongside two beautiful lakes and the views were just stunning.  The amazing blue color of the water surrounded by majestic mountains was almost unbelievable.

Once out of the mountains the scenery changed and we began to signs of agriculture again.  The road led to the coast where the sun was beginning to set over the pounding surf.

We arrived in Fox Glacier just in time to take a walk up to where we could see the lower end of Fox Glacier.  It was getting dark, but tomorrow may bring rain so we wanted to see it while we could.

The place where we are staying tonight has a small kitchenette so we bought some groceries and we made our own dinner tonight.

It’s hard to believe in less than a week we will be in the Solomons.  We are enjoying this trip very much, but I think we will be ready to be done with long days in the car and settle into our home in Honiara and our work.

Enjoy the photos from today – which REALLY don’t do justice to what we saw with our eyes!

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We woke to overcast skies and before long the heavens opened up and it was raining quite steadily as we left the home of our hosts. Our first stop was the Dunedin Train Depot – Victorian era building which boasts being one of New Zealand’s most photographed buildings.  It was interesting and had an art gallery upstairs that we walked through.

From there we went to find the worlds steepest residential street.  We drove up to the top and then had to turn around as it is a one way street.  Now we can say we’ve been there and done that.

We traveled through some amazing country today.  We decided some of it would have been perfect for Lord of the Rings filming (but it wasn’t as far as we know).  The rain slacked off as we traveled and the sun started breaking through.

After arriving in Queenstown, we traveled on to Glenorchy – a small village at the end of Lake Wakatipu. The lake is surrounded by steep mountains and we were told that the lake is as deep as the mountains are high.

Tonight we are being hosted by a family in Queenstown – again, friends of friends.  Soooo grateful!

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Today we traveled on from Christchurch to Dunedin.  It was another beautiful day and we were blessed with warmer than usual temperatures and more clear skies.  The scenery was breathtaking in places as the ‘Southern Alps’ stretched out before us. We traveled a more interior road for most of the way rather than the coastal road which would have been a bit faster.

Our hosts last night told us of a place where Lord of the Rings was filmed.  We were interested in seeing it but were sure where to go and if the road would be open due to the heavy snow last week. A farmer was working with his sheep, so we stopped and I asked him about the film location.  He thought the road was still closed so we gave up on that idea.  However, we did get to watch the farmer on his ATV and his sheepdog herd the sheep from one pasture to another.  It was fun to watch them in action.

We stopped in a town called Oamaru.  It was so fun.  Many of the old buildings in the city were built of marble because the close proximity of a quarry.  Walking the streets in the older part of town truly felt like a walk back in time.

We also managed to visit a beach were penguins come in.  It was so fun to see some penguins in the wild.

We are in Dunedin tonight.  The sister of a  friend in the Solomon Islands helped us hook up with this lovely couple.  We have been truly blessed by the hospitality of New Zealanders.

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The ferry arrived in Picton – the tip of the South Island at 9 pm, 30 minutes earlier than scheduled.  We stayed at a backpacker’s lodge and took off in the morning.  The South Island looks less green, but still has pastures of cows, sheep and even deer.

One of our stops was Kaikoura where we wanted to see seals.  We stopped at one point where we could pull off and saw a man climbing on the rocks.  It turned out that he was with the Department of Conservation and was looking for a seal wrapped in fishing net.  He asked us to help him look for the seal and when we spotted it, he put Tim to work to try and help corner the seal.  The seal evaded capture and slipped into the sea.

The man then invited us to go to a nearby waterfall where the seal pups navigate the river and go play in the falls.  Each year the new pups find this waterfall.  We had a delightful time watching the pups play.
From there we traveled further south.  The views are amazing. We stopped in one small town and bought buns filled with cream.  A yummy treat to enjoy as we walked along the boardwalk.

Then on to Christchurch.  We drove through downtown where so much damage was done a few years ago by two earthquakes.  There is much construction going on.

Today we travel on to Dunedin.

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Our opportunities to be online are not predictable.  I’m trying to catch you up on our travels and will let the photos tell you about yesterday in Wellington. The photos are in a new format – be sure to see all of the photos by clicking on the ‘next’ button.

We had a lovely visit with Heather, our family friend who we got to know in Honiara.

We took the ferry to Picton – in the South Island and head to Christchurch this morning.

His eyes followed us everywhere

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Saturday morning we packed up the car and started heading south.  On our last trip to New Zealand we didn’t see a lot of the South Island and this time we want to see more of it.  Our destination – Waikanae, where friends from our days in Papua New Guinea live.

We enjoyed driving past steep hillsides dotted with white sheep and cows grazing in lush green pastures.  It’s obvious to see that small family-owned farms are still surviving in New Zealand.  Once we got off the main high way, windy two lane roads took us through the countryside and through small towns.

The small towns are quaint.  Each town has a bakery, petrol station, book/stationery store, grocer and restaurants.  They remind me of how small towns in the USA would have been back in the 1960’s.

Toward the end of the trip we began to see snow covered mountains in the distance.  A light rain began to fall as night began to fall.  The Petterson’s house was warm with a fire burning and soup and scones fresh out of the oven.  It was great to catch up with them and hear about the projects in which they are working in Papua New Guinea.

Friday morning we woke feeling pretty good in spite of having only 5-6 hours of sleep.  The director of Wycliffe New Zealand and his wife picked us up to take us to the home of Mary and Kevin Salisbury.  We met Mary last November in Australia.  Mary and her husband are members of Wycliffe.

As we got to the house, a bucket of fish were sitting by the door.  The Salisbury’s live a short walk from the sea and Mary has fish nets that she sets.  That morning she was surprised to find 12 fish waiting in the net.  God provided a delicious breakfast.  We enjoyed a delightful breakfast sitting around the table in their sunny dining room while we chatted about various things.  After breakfast we took a walk to a park nearby along the waterfront.

Mary brought out some winter clothes for us to borrow – it is winter in New Zealand.  Then Mary and her mother took us on a driving tour of Auckland – an unexpected pleasure.  What a beautiful city.  We were blessed with clear blue skies and sunshine.

As it is winter, darkness fell quickly and we drove back to the flat in the dark.  We were glad to fall into bed after a full, but wonderful first day.

As dawn rose on our last day in the USA, we had a long list of tasks to accomplish.  First on the agenda was Sarah taking her driver’s test.  She and Tim headed to the Department of Public Safety at 6:30 and were the first in line outside the door at 7:05.  The early start paid off and Sarah had her license in hand by 8:15.  Whew! and well done, Sarah!

We were blessed to stay with our long time friends, Tom and Lynn, the last few days before we left.  Lynn was our chauffeur and helped us run errands.  We took over their living room with our suitcases and carefully filled each bag and weighed them with a 50 pounds as the target weight.

On Tuesday afternoon, we loaded the cars and headed to the airport. We checked in and didn’t have any problems with the weight of the bags.  I noticed the weight of the last one – 22.8 kg.  The limit is 23 kg.  Tim’s careful weighing paid off.

Two families met us at the airport as well as Emily, her roommate and Sarah’s friend, Jordan. They gathered around us for a prayer before we headed through security.

As we entered the boarding lounge, we noticed a large video camera.  Once we got on board the pilot said that the camera was there because someone was doing a documentary on this flight from Dallas to Brisbane because it is the longest commercial flight in the world at 16 hours.  Not the most encouraging thing to be told as we started the journey.

Being exhausted from all the running around we did the last few days was a blessing in a way – we slept on and off through the long flight and were in reasonable shape when we arrived in Brisbane.  We got off the plane, went through security and reboarded the plane for the trip to Sydney.

We expected to have a couple of hours in Sydney, but after sitting in the departure lounge for a while, we overhead passengers talking about the flight being cancelled.  Sure enough it was cancelled and we were told to wait and see what Qantas would do about getting us to Auckland.  After a while they gave us each a $30 food voucher for the airport restaurants.  We went and bought lunch and went back to find out what was happening.

We were told that we would be on a Jetstar flight that evening. We headed to the departure lounge only to hearing an announcement that we were to go to the Qantas transit desk.  At the transit desk they gave us our boarding passes and thrust another three $30 food vouchers.  We weren’t at all hungry, but headed back upstairs to see where we might spend the vouchers.

As we left elevator, what was in front of us but a Godiva Chocolate shop.  We asked if we could use our vouchers there, and were told enthusiastically that they were happy to take our vouchers.  We carefully calculated our best values, found some half price specials and even got a free box of biscuits.  It was satisfying to score some deals and we headed out to see what we could score with the last $30.  A trip to the Lonely Planet store found us picking up some fun items that we never would have bought with ‘real’ money and off we went to the departure lounge.

By the time we got on the flight to Auckland we were really feeling the jetlag.  Jetstar is similar to Spirit Airlines in the USA – NO frills and NO space.  Our seats were in the last row of the plane and we felt like sardines.  The bag of chocolates felt like a small compensation for low budget seats to Auckland, but at least we were getting there.

Our friend, John, met us a the airport – by then it was 1 am on Friday morning.  It took two trips to get us and our gear to the flat where we stayed.

We are thankful for the cozy flat where we could stay for a couple of nights and leave most of our gear while we make our road trip in New Zealand.  The adventure begins!

This needs to shrink to 6 pieces of luggage of no more than 300 pounds.

This needs to shrink to 6 pieces of luggage, each weighing no more than 50 pounds.

We are back from our trip to Michigan and Minnesota where we said our hard good-byes to our families.  One thing that makes it easier this time is our plan to be gone 2 years instead of the usual 4 years.

This morning we start tackling our long ‘to-do’ list of things that have to be completed before our departure Tuesday night.  Our focus this morning will be to reduce the pile above to fit into 6 pieces of luggage – each one weighing no more than 50 pounds.  At this point it seems like it will be a miracle if we hit the goal, so we may have to make some hard choices of what can/can not go.  We appreciate prayers for this process.  Decision-making at this point can be exhausting!

At 2 pm this afternoon, Sarah goes to take her driver’s test. It would be a real blessing if she got her license before we leave the country.  Please pray for calmness of spirit as she takes the test.

Thanks for standing with us in this journey!