Family Life, Geocaching, Holidays, NZ Holiday 2014, Out and About

Lets head to the mountains …

November 28, 2014 Scott Leave a comment

We awoke to blue skies and warmer temperatures than yesterday afternoon but I feel that will be short lived as the clouds started rolling in at 10:00 am. Another day and another struggle to get kids out of bed.

Even though we didn’t do the observatory tour last night, you can still drive up during the day to have a look around and check out the view. As it turns out all tours last night were cancelled due to the weather and it doesn’t look very promising for the rest of the week.

It is fairly steep going and a tight road up to the top and it is amazing how many people make the trek up by foot but we got up there in the motor home.

The view from the top is spectacular with snow capped mountains to the west and the bright blue Lake Tekapo to the east. It even started snowing while we were up there.

I did the short walk around the mountain grabbing some geocaches and we seemed to have grabbed some passengers for the return journey. A couple of Malaysian girls that had done the 2.5 hour walk from town appreciated a lift back to Tekapo.

After dropping the girls off and filling with diesel it was traveling time again – this time to Mt Cook which is only a couple of hours with a few stops along the way to take photos of the lakes and mountains. It seems that every time you come around a corner there is another breathtaking view or vista.

First stop at Mt Cook was the information centre which had a lot of useful information on the glaciers and the history of the region.

It was now time to do some walking. We decided on the Tasman Glacier walk first. Even though there is a new sealed road to the start of the walk, the first single lane bridge is original and the motor home just fit through it. This walk soon gets the blood pumping and even though the distance isn’t too long you have to climb up the moraine piles to the viewing areas. It is even possible to get down to the Tasman Lake to touch the water and given that there are icebergs floating in it – it is cold.

Walking back to the motor home, rather than stick to the track we headed cross country over the moraine piles and of course the kids didn’t want to follow Dad and Mum and guess what we were back 20 minutes before the kids.

Tonight’s campsite was at the base of the mountain – what a backdrop. Jenny got to try the oven out and roast lamb was had for tea.

Tomorrow will be a big walking day with a couple of glacier walks.

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Family Life, Holidays, NZ Holiday 2014, Out and About

Look out Christchurch – here come the Thompsons on segways …

November 27, 2014 Scott Leave a comment

Today we needed to be in town by 10:30 am for a fun adventure but it was still a struggle to get the kids out of bed in time. We were going on a tour of Christchurch City with a difference – we were doing it by Segway.

Urban Wheels instructed you in the use of a segway then took you on a tour of the rebuild of Christchurch following the earthquakes that were almost 4 years ago now.

After about 20 minutes instruction we hit the road, footpaths, parks and malls by segway. This was a real fun way of getting around town and a line of 5 segways moving around created plenty of interest of its own. I even found time to play Ingress as we went – not a bad way to do it.

There certainly a huge difference to what I remembered of Christchurch with 1600 buildings having been demolished and the rebuild started with a lot of activity and money being spent but I get the feeling that the locals don’t think it is happening quick enough.

A lot of the old facades are being held up with concrete filled shipping containers and the buildings behind demolished. There are art and community projects called Gap Fillers on sites that will eventually have new buildings. The earthquakes have given the City an opportunity to redesign itself and part of that will be apartments for city living being built which is a foreign concept here.

A focal point for the rebirth is the Restart Mall which is made entirely of shipping containers and has actually changed locations already with shops, cafes and banks.

We were lucky to get 3.5 hours on the tour instead of the 2 hours as he didn’t have another tour today and was enjoying our company.

To finish off the tour, Graham got us to race in Hagley Park. It is amazing that when you want to go fast, the segway actually tries to slow you down so it is not that easy to race but the overall loser was Bradley and he will be cooking our meals for a couple of nights.

Time to hit the road again but not before getting the electricals fixed in the motorhome. It turns out that the auxiliary battery was at the end of its life and this is why we were getting unusual things occurring last night with the lights and battery charger.

A three hour drive and our digs for the night was Lake Tekapo. An amazing place with a turquoise green lake surrounded by mountains. It was a little overcast with what looked to be snow falling on the mountains in the distance and the temperature was getting cold.

We were going to go up to the Mt John Observatory but luckily it was booked out as it would have cost us $600 for a couple of hours and I can see better value going to the Observatory at Arkaroola. We will get up there during the day and check out the view.

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Family Life, Holidays, NZ Holiday 2014, Out and About

Antarctic Centre – is it cold in here ….

November 26, 2014 Scott Leave a comment

After a good nights sleep, in fact it was a struggle to get the kids out of bed, it was back to the airport to pick up the Motorhome for our holiday in New Zealand.It took about an hour but we finally got our home for the next 4 weeks. Talk about downsizing. After having the 40 ft RV with all the bells and whistles in the US back in April, this 26 footer seems so small but I am sure we will get used to it.Since we didn’t really have any breakfast, everyone was getting hungry and as luck would have it, the Antarctic Centre was just by the Airport where the pickup spot was located.

Into the cafe for some brunch then spent the rest of the afternoon at the Antarctic Centre. This is an interesting place which is the base for logistics for the New Zealand, US and Italian Operations in the Antarctic. A lot of interactive activities including a ride in a Haggland transporter over a 4WD track that most 4WD’s would fail particularly with the 3m deep water trench where the Haggland actually floats across. There is also a simulated Antartic storm where you donned coats and endured -8C with a wind chill of -50C, some 4D movies and finished off with watching the feeding of the fairy penguins.

It was getting late in the afternoon now, and even with no NZ cash time to go shopping for supplies and SIM cards. Lucky we have plastic.

Time for one more activity before calling it a day. There was a geocaching event GC5G6X5 – Quick Catch-Up & Fish Event in Hagley Park. It provided a good opportunity to chat with some locals and Jenny found some more things to put on here list of things we were doing on this trip. We were not the only international cachers there – three German cachers travelling the world attended as well. We catch up again with them in Adelaide if they make it to SA.

Camping tonight was just north of Christchurch at the Spencer Beach Holiday Park. It was huge with no problems with neighbours as everyone was spread out over 80 acres. I guess this place fills up in the summer holidays.

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Family Life, Holidays, NZ Holiday 2014

Nearly a Show Stopper …

November 25, 2014 Scott Leave a comment

Well that is 24 hours that we don’t want to repeat in a hurry. Let’s backtrack a bit. All was going well even if things were going to be a bit tight but it was achievable.

Rachael was at Schoolies over the weekend and apart from being very tired, she had a day to recover before heading away again. No issues here, she was all packed and ready to go.

Jenny and I had a quiet weekend with me having a work commitment on Sunday but we were all packed and ready to go.

Bradley went to Melbourne to the US Consulate for a visa interview. He is doing a 6 month exchange with the University of Illinois so a normal online visa doesn’t cut it. His interview was Monday morning. He had driven over with a couple of Uni mates and was going to hit the road home straight after his interview.

All was going well, Bradley arrived home at 6 pm from Melbourne and it looked like every thing was going to plan for a Tuesday departure to New Zealand.

We were chatting about passports around 10pm when Bradley suddenly realised that he had left his passport with the US Consulate for the visa endorsement. Now this was a show stopper – no way Bradley was getting into New Zealand without a passport.

So what are the options.

Bradley stays home and waits until his passport returns by post – problem is that our mail is on hold so that won’t work
Get a second temporary passport – this is possible but takes 48 hours if it is approved
Get onto the US Consulate and locate his passport and fly him to retrieve it.

There were a flurry of phone calls to various government departments and emails to the US Consulate but not a lot could be done until morning so a very sleepless night ensued.

After a couple of hours sleep it was back on the phone and email to try and get a second passport or locate his current one.

There was no luck with the second passport so the only option was locating his passport in Melbourne. As luck would have it, one of his mates was still in Melbourne for his visa interview and he managed to grab Bradley’s passport and get it to Melbourne Airport.

So with some juggling we got Bradley on the first flight to Melbourne to reunite with his passport and then fly him to Sydney to meet up with us. We ended up meeting in Sydney at the same time.

With crisis averted, a couple of stints in the Qantas Club (Adelaide and Sydney), a couple of flights and we landed in Christchurch just before midnight. A shuttle to the hotel and it was into bed for some well-deserved sleep.