Christmas 2012

With Sarah away in New Zealand we put the Christmas tree up without her and only half decorated it and that is how it stayed until she came home. We then pulled everything off, fixed up the lights and took our traditional decorating photos... 

Sensible

Silly

On Christmas eve the girls got together with Kelsie and Teagan and went on their traditional Christmas light looking drive...

Silly

Sensible

We hosted Christmas lunch this year with Dad and Peter's family attending...

Sarah and festive Sonic

Nic and Dan

Lucy always finds somewhere to sit

After many months of looking and indecision Peter finally decided to buy a kayak. It arrived just before Christmas but we waited until Christmas day to open it... 

Tracey and Ethan

We enjoyed a very yummy spread of food...

And Janelle made her first raw cheesecake for part of the desserts...

Proud Nan and her 4 grand daughters

Later in the afternoon when it had cooled down a bit it was time for the big kayak launch. We just went down to the inlet...

It floats!

It was very enjoyable paddling around...

A lovely Christmas Day :-) 

New Zealand Part 3

From Rotorua they travelled to Waitomo and did Black Water Rafting. This was done underground in caves and they were jumping backwards in the dark down waterfalls. There were glow worms on the caves walls... 

 No trip to New Zealand would be complete without attending a sheep show...

Then from Waitomo to sunny Auckland...

Viaduct in Auckland

Another night out...

Back out into the country to Paihia and the beautiful Bay of Islands...

 Sarah did parasailing...

All good things must come to end so it was party time for their last night before the end of the tour...

Sarah stayed on in Auckland for an extra day and needed one more adrenalin hit so she decided to do a 300 metre sky jump off the Auckland  SkyTower...

 Hanging over Auckland...

She had a great holiday which only made her more keen to come home and start looking for another destination to explore. 

New Zealand Part 2

After a great time in Queenstown it was time to pack up and move on to Franz Josef Glacier. There were many sights to see on the way - beautiful glacier pools... 

 Thunder Creek Falls...

 Unfortunately Sarah was unable to do the helicopter ride up higher onto the Glacier due to some extreme weather so they opted for a 4 hour hike on Fox Glacier...

Valley looking back from Fox Glacier

Town of Franz Josef

 Moving on to Hanmer Springs via Christchurch to drop off some of the tour members and pick up some new ones. Plenty of beautiful scenery to enjoy...

 This area was used to film the battle scene in the Narnia movie...

Pretty Hanmer Springs

More amazing scenery on the way to Kaikoura...

 Before arriving in Wellington...thunderstorms and gale force winds...

Night out in Wellington

 From Wellington they went to Lake Taupo...

They had a B & D party on a cruise of the lake - Sarah was a Dork...

From Lake Taupo to Rotorua and the boiling mud pools...

 Sarah's Contiki group were the first to be welcomed into a Maori tribe and they had to sing them a song - they sang Hey Arthur...

Rotorua is very smelly due to gases released from the thin earth crust. This is right next to their motel...

 Sarah got to do some amazing activities in Rotorua and one of them was Zorbing - rolling down a 350m hill and around corners while inside this big ball filled with water and another friend!

Straight after that she decided to jump out of a plane at nearly 16 000. Because of the height at which she was sky diving she needed to be on oxygen for 10 minutes beforehand. She reached 200 kmph during the 60 second freefall. The whole jump took about 5 minutes to get to the ground. She thoroughly enjoyed the experience!...

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day she then got to go to Hobbiton and check out where the recent movie "the Hobbit" was filmed and "the Lord of the Rings" series...

 And enjoy a drink at the new Green Dragon pub...