Day 31 home sweet home

Well I have woken up after my first night in my own bed after the long journey home.
It didn't get off to a good start, when our late flight (23:45 departure) was delayed and we were not going to be leaving until nearly 2am!

I have never been more grateful for my coloured blanket that I like to travel with. Callum bunked down an d managed several hours of sleep at the airport and then even more on the plane.

The downside was that on arrival at Singapore we were rushed round the corner and put straight onto the plane to London. As grateful as we were that they waited for the connection (although they didn't wait v long as we made good time to singapore) we found it tough to be cramped on a plane with such a short break to stretch your legs and back.

The last flight seemed to drag a bit, but a steady steam of juice, water, food and all 7 X-men films made the trip bearable.

I must commend Singapore Airlines. If you need to travel long distance I would really recommend them.

Now it is back to washing and unpacking to settle us back in ASAP.

A huge thank you to the Browns, the Randall's and Jeanneannefor opening up their homes to us, to Carey and Sara who flew up to Brisbane to meet us, to all our local friends for feeding our poor insane cat while we were away and to Maggie Burgess who provided so much useful advice for the Queensland part if our tour.

It's over but what an amazing adventure.


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Location:Southampton, uk

Day 28 Another Zoo and what a cracker

After a very lazy start today (Callum didn't even surface until after 8pm) we looked at the glorious winter sunshine and decided to head to Auckland Zoo, where Jeanne-Anne used to work.

Sometimes when you go to the zoo you hardly seen anything, but today the animals were really up for showing off. We saw rhinos, lions, zebras and giraffes, before we had a treat of feeding the giraffe - we thought cousin Isabella might enjoy that one! You have to move quickly but the male giraffe, Zabulu(born '98),  is happy to eat veggies from your hand. It's a shame you are only allowed to give them one piece each.





















We saw red pandas coming out of their house and climbing in the trees, the seals playing when they were being fed, followed by a super display of swimming from them while we watched from the underwater viewing gallery.
Callum sweet talked the ranger into letting him feed 2 different birds as well.





The best part was the trip to the kiwi house. The symbolic New Zealand bird is nocturnal so the display is set in the dark and the chances of seeing this shy quiet bird were slim. However we were lucky and after waiting for about 15-20 minutes we we're rewarded by one of the pairs of brown kiwis coming out.they are so fluffy and have such long beaks for getting grubs from the soil. A real treat and well worth waiting for.








So it is our last night in NZ and the end of our journey. Tomorrow we hope to learn more about Maori culture before flying home just before midnight.
It was a great day out.

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Location:Auckland Zoo, Auckland, New Zealand

Day 27 -Auckland

Having left Queenstown with heavy hearts, realising that end of our journey is fast approaching, we were lifted by arriving at Jean-Anne's in Auckland on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Jean-Anne is Richard's father's cousin and Richard stayed here while travelling and working in New Zealand in 1985!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To make the most of our Monday we headed out early to catch the ferry from Devonport to Rangitoto, one of the volcanic cones dotted around the city. Rangitoto is a volcanic island created about 600 years ago.

We climbed to the top to get some beautiful views of Auckland. It is 2.4km and takes about an hour. The boys also explored the lava caves and enjoyed making me worry when they turned up only 10mins before the return ferry. It wouldn't have been to bad, but they had the return ferry tickets!



After lunch we headed off to Ike's Emporium to invest in a bucked and spade and headed off to Milford Beach, where the boys created their biggest and best sand castle to date and then watched the sea wash away it's defences. It took some time as the defences were very large this time!! Finally the king's palace crumbled and we could go home - as it was getting cooler. It is winter here after all!











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Location:Milford, Auckland, New Zealand

Day 25 The sky at night

Again word of warning - post for day 24 was also done today so you might want to look that one up before reading this!

So back in Queenstown and what a most beautiful day.







We had a lazy brunch and then did some souvenir shopping before heading out on TSS Earnslaw for a cruise on lake Waikatipu.








The lake views were stunning and Callum went mad with my camera. Thank heavens for digital photography! It was great fun and you could see how the double steam engine worked and watch what was happening in the engine room, so I was in heaven!














We ended our day with a trip up he gondola again. We did a few more trips in the luge and then stayed to do a group astronomy session after dark. It was truly amazing. Seeing the Milky Way so clearly was magnificent but also to see the satellites and some shooting stars was brilliant. We can now find the Southern Cross and have seen Alpha Centari. We were also allowed to view things through a pair of 11" telescopes and we could see a binary star system, a cluster and the best part was seeing Saturn with 2 of its moons ( there are 63 we learnt).

As there were no clouds and no moon, we were also lucky enough to see the Magellenic clouds ( google it!) which basically look like clouds to the naked eye. It was a very special evening and brought back memories of star gazing with my dad and hopefully inspired Callum, although he seemed to know a fair bit!






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Location:Queenstown, New Zealand