New Zealand Family Trip - 1/8 - Perth Airport to Lake Pukaki

My family and I went on what was to be one of our last family holidays ever from the 7th til the 23rd of December, 2011. We spent 16 days in New Zealand, a place where none of us had been before. We had some ideas of where to go by consulting family friends and such, but it was still a big leap none-the-less. We hired a camper van and drove around the south island for the most part, soaking in the beauty and serenity and missing our loved ones back home.

I have divided the trip up into eight parts; 2 days each in the hope of not boring you with one, two or four giant posts. Each post contains about 40 to 100 photos, both from my familys camera and my own, so its hopefully pretty tolerable. I have also included a map indicating our travelled path. Alllllllllrighty then, hope you enjoy your trip through our trip!!

the following post will cover the red path and airport shindigs

if you havent met my family personally or virtually yet, then here they are;
my dad denis, my mum janine, my brother joesph and sister molly. and the skateboards mine

after being dropped off by my girlfriend we flew from perth to sydney

then from sydney to christchurch

jet lag will make you look like a blowfish

the first exciting bits of NZ were seen from the planes window

that was accumulating ice gems

sea of cloud

we hit up the taxi cab to take us to our hotel room in christchurch

we rocked up and were greeted by man-eating bumble bees

after settling into our lodge, we walked up the street to the botanical gardens. mole nearly threw up...

mole and jo went to check out some trees

we spotted big foot

here is the rose garden

where you can see many different types of roses

and have a board which tells you what they are and where to find them

mmmmmmmmmmmm... rosessss.....

whats the time dark cloudy day?

yeah, let's get. read my mind

tree climbers

photo of a photo

tree huggers

FINCH!

cupped hand of stigmas amungst other things

the boundary river

earthquakes will make buildings unstable

we came back to the hotel flat which was already a mess

dad went for a shop and bought me back a longy, which then put my weary head to bed

the next day we went to go pick up our transport for the trip; a campervan

we chilled whilst the parents sorted out how to work the thing

so we hit the road and tried to obide by the new road rules we just learned - dont hit livestock...

our first lunch stop

table and chairs proved very useful

on the road we spied a POI (point of interest), so we stopped

we found a river where joesph proceeded to act like gollum

some nice sedimentary geology


after some photos we crossed a bridge for a toilet stop

this was josephs first time using a public toilet. he wore his slippers..

shame

the driver of the moving house

we hit the road in search for our next POI. The clouds were slowly creeping over the hills

and we arrived to Lake Tekapo

photo of a photo

mole

den

molly and mum argued continuously about these flowers.
were they holly hocks or lupins? molly won with lupins in the end many days later.

went around a corner to go spy a famous church

brother sister mumma blister

the church with a flying joseph

dog sculpture

we hit the road toward our sleeping destination

gps said we were off the beaten track

we got to our spot and back our van up to get a view out the back window

sheesh, lucky we didnt back up further or we'd finish our trip a little sooner than expected

camping spot #1

Lake Pukaki

me and jo went for a walk

the other campers

you better look where you are boy, be careful..

ahhp, told ya so

setting sun

rock towers gave us ideas for the next morning

dinner perched on a cliff. good start to the first day in our wheely house