Hamner Springs and the West Coast

We flew into Christchurch and spent one night there before heading off on our New Zealand adventure. We found an amazing pizza place (Hells Pizza) and the next morning we checked out the market (some great souvenirs and food) and Botanic Gardens which were beautiful. The devastation of the earthquakes is evident all around town. It was sad to see such a huge area fenced off because the area was so unsafe and broken. It seemed to us that the churches were hardest hit or really anything made of brick.

After spending the morning in Christchurch we drove 2 hours to Hamner Springs which reminded us of Jasper and Banff combined. We headed to the hot springs which had about 10 different pools of varying temperatures.

The kids had a great time swimming, it had been a while! In the morning we wanted to explore the town but the stores weren't open and we had six hours of driving ahead of us so we decided to head out.

After driving for three hours in the rain we finally saw the ocean. The west coast seemed a lot rougher to us, but maybe that was the weather conditions.

We spent the night in Fox Glacier but didn't get to see the glaciers due to low cloud and lots of rain. In fact, this is the Haas Pass which we almost didn't make it through. Chains on your tires were essential and guess who didn't have chains for their rental car! We spent an hour debating whether to try to get through or detour 6 hours and exchange cars. So glad we didn't detour, even though there was snow the road had been plowed and it really wasn't bad at all, we were more scared that cops would tell us to turn back than the actual road conditions!

This country must have the most incredible views. Everywhere we went there were postcard worthy spots!

This is the view from our apartment in Queenstown. Queenstown reminded us of Kelowna. Lots of shops and tons of activities. We decided to do a 4x4 Lord of the Rings tour with the kids. We had the jeep to ourselves other than the driver.

The morning started out overcast and rainy but this is a view of Queenstown from half way up the road leading to one of the ski hills.

This area was used in a scene from the first movie where a boat goes through two greek god pillars. Bungee jumpers were a minute up the river as well, we saw three people jump!

We weren't sure how Miles would like the trip but this is what he looked like when we were going through the river (which we did about 15 times!)

Clint and Izzy enjoyed the bumpy ride too!

This is what it looked like when the jeep went through the river.

Izzy had fallen asleep in the jeep and Miles feet were freezing from our snack break so we got a moment to ourselves on a road to another ski hill.

Te Anau was our next stop. We did two trips out of here, the first to some glowworm caves and the second through Doubtful Sound. Here are some scenery shots of things that we saw, beautiful!