Victor Harbour

The first weekend of September we made our own long weekend weekend and headed five hours south to Victor Harbour in the Friday night. There is another Canadian exchange couple living there so we stayed with them.

The kids woke up early on Saturday and after checking out the farmer's market we walked across the wooden bridge to a small island called Granite Island.

Once you are on Granite Island you can walk around it in 30 minutes, of course it takes longer with two little kids! It was a very windy day!

After a quick nap the Beers took us out to a beach where whales had been spotted earlier.

After being at the beach less than 30 minutes we started seeing two right whales, one just stayed at the top of the water while the other one kept showing off it's flukes!

We took in the view from a place called the Bluffs before heading home for a bbq.

On Sunday we spent the day on our own starting with taking the horse tram across the bridge to actually make it around the island followed by some ice cream. Then it was off to Horseshoe Bay for some fish and chips and more time at the beach before a dinner out at a little Italian Restaurant.
Monday morning we took a slight detour so we could go through a little town called Hahndorf. It is a small German based town with a few cute shops like a puppet shop and a cuckoo clock shop. Clint bought the world's smallest pocket knife measuring in at about one inch! I bought a koala puppet to use in my classroom when I get back.
A stop at Mt. Lofty for a view of Adelaide before hitting the beach once again and then driving the three hours north back to Port Augusta.

Aussie Animals at Kindy

Miles Kindy had Animals Anonymous, a special group that brings Australian animals for the kids to see and touch and learn from every year. This year there were snakes, a sugar glider, a bettong, a green frog but luckily no spiders!! Miles is usually very reluctant to touch new things so we made a deal that if he touched five animals he would get a little toy aussie animal that we have been collecting. That was all it took, he was pumped on the big day!

This is a bettong. It is a relative to a wallaby and very soft to feel.

Izzy loved touching all the animals. This is a green frog which breathes through it's skin in case you didn't know.

Miles started with the fuzzy animal(bettong)and then it was smooth sailing through the rest of them.

Here is a baby python that Izzy enjoyed holding.

Miles took his turn and didn't squirm at all.

This lizard walked right up to Izzy while the instructor was telling us about him and Izzy just started to pet it!

Izzy is sitting on Keeasha's knee (a family friend). Her plan was to see what animals were going around and then visit both and return to Keeasha to pet one animal a second time. She especially loved the tails of the snakes and lizards.

This is a sugar glider that flies between trees. We got to see it jump from Keeasha's shoulder to the trainer which was very cool.

It wouldn't be autralian animals without a baby croc!

The grown up python really caught Izzy's attention! She loved hoding her part! It took 5 kids to hold the entire length of this snake. Miles on the other hand drew the line at the big snake and refused to touch it!

Even I conquered my fears and held the big python! Another incredible Australian experience that I'm sure I will never forget!

A Weekend in Adelaide

After being here for almost eight months we decided to finally spend some time in Adelaide. It seems we only seem to go there when we fly in or out of the airport. It is three hours south of Port Augusta but it's on the ocean with beautiful beaches, lots of green park areas and all the shopping and activities you would expect in a major city.
We started Saturday with lunch at the beach before heading to the museum which had animals, aboriginal artifacts and a cool room with shells and bugs that the kids could look at through a big microscope. We checked into the hotel and had a swim before meeting another Canadian couple for dinner.
On Sunday morning we got up early, of course! We went to a great open range zoo called Monarto.

This baby zebra is only one week old. Apparently her mom turms her back to her for 24-36 hours so the baby can memorize the stripe pattern and then the baby knows which zebra to follow when they move or run in the wild.

There had to be at least 12 giraffes here and the bus we were riding on went up close and then would stop so we could take pictures.

I think there were 4 grown lions but the best part was the baby cub who was so playful, wrestling with it's mom and pouncing around.

The chimps were our favorite, they are so cool watch. There were rhinos, bison, wild dogs, and lots of conservation projects to help animals on the verge of endangerment.
After lunch we drove back into Adelaide while the kids had a nap in the car and then we met up with Sheena and Paul from Edmonton. The boys went to the footy game (think a combo of football and ultimate frisbee in Canada) and the girls went shopping.

Miles got his jersey from Snake (Clint's deputy principal from school) at our Canada Day birthday party. He and Clint both dressed up and Paul wore a Crows scarf (the opposing team). Geelong Cats vs Adelaide Crows.

This is the team Clint has been cheering for all year. Geelong Cats

The game ended at 7:30 pm and then we had to drive three hours home in the dark. The good news was the kids were so tired that they slept all the way home!

Doubtful Sound, East Coast and Lake Tekapo

Our second daytrip from Te Anau was a boat cruise around Doubtful Sound. This required one boat to cross a lake, a bus ride through the mountain range and then the three hour boat cruise through Doubtful Sound. Everywhere you looked it was pristine. Take a look at what we saw.

This was the first lake we went over.

This was part of the bus ride through the mountain pass, look familiar to any of you Canadians?

The next few are part of the nature cruise.

Although we spent a night in Dunedin we didn't visit the Otago Peninsula which is supposed to be a special place. We did visit the Cadbury factory for some cheap chocolate. This was the first beach that we stopped at and could walk on along the east coast. It was so warm that Clint could wear his shorts without funny looks!

I was there to catch the kids if they fell! Aren't they cute though?

These Moeraki boulders are on another beach just down the highway. There are about 30 of them and they look like large rock marbles on a sandy beach. This boulder looked like it had run into the cliffs and split apart.

Izzy was tired out after all the running on the beach, so much so that she cuddled with Clint on the walk back to the car.

This is Lake Tekapo, probably one of the most beautiful places we saw. There was a glacier fed lake, mountains all around and perfect clear skies. Our 2 bedroom condo was so nice that I could have lived there for a year!

We started the day with a hike but unfortunately the higher we climbed the snowier and icier the path got so we had to turn back and slip and slide our way down which Miles didn't enjoy, he cried the whole way down!

This was the view from half way up the climb. After our hike we had some Thai food overlooking the lake and then went back to visit the Church of the Good Shepherd seen below.

This church is in the most beautiful spot, not hard to talk to God here! We finished the day at the hot pools which overlook the lake and mountains.
What a great way to end our trip.
We went back to Christchurch to catch our flight home. It was another fabulous trip and took away some of my homesickness since it reminded us so much of B.C. Although coming in July meant being in the snow and cooler temperatures the payoff was no traffic on the highways, especially on the west coast.

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!