The travel adventures of Mark & Vanessa Greatorex
Today was one of those exceptional days. Just when you think that things might not be going as well as they could have, thanks to the excessive heat, along comes a day like this to remind you of just how wonderful international travel can be. I will add a couple of posts separately regarding our…
Our flight back to Melbourne was generally uneventful, except for the fact that we hit a bit of turbulence midway which caused me to become quite ill with motion sickness. Sadly the last hour or two of my first international return flight were spent with my head in a bag, which can really put a…
Our last full day in New Zealand and the weather gods had turned on their finest for us, with brilliant blue skies, light winds and a pleasantly warm temperature of 32 degrees Celsius. Just the sort of conditions to take a long and leisurely walk around the city, to revisit some of our favourite places…
As New Year’s Day dawned and our trip began to draw to a close, we headed back towards where it all started at Christchurch, but first of all we had a couple of stops to make along the way at Kaikoura and Hanmer Springs. The road to Kaikoura follows the rugged South Pacific coastline for…
Having left behind the grey weather of the west coast, we woke to discover blue skies and a pleasant day before us. We’d spent the previous evening at the Scenic Hotel Marlborough in Blenheim, and even managed to take a dip in the hotel pool, though still not a very warm one. We set out…
Our plan for the next few days had initially been to head from Wanaka across to the west coast and spend a few days by the beach, however we’d struggled to find decent accommodation and the weather report was looking pretty ordinary, with a big low pressure system moving across the Tasman, so we decided…
I’ve combined these two days as for the most part, Day 8 of our trip was spent travelling from Lake Tekapo to our destination at Ramada Resort by Wyndham, Wanaka for the next two nights. Once in Wanaka, we stopped at a local craft market before hitting the pool at the resort on one of…
After all the walking the day before, Vanessa was keen to have a lay-day, and as I was keen to give the nearby rivers a try with my fly rod, I happily agreed to leave her at the resort whilst I drove up to where the Cass River entered Lake Tekapo. Once again the waters…
Christmas Day on the South Island was a bit gloomy, but the temperature wasn’t too bad, so we decided to take a drive up to Aoraki/Mt Cook, just a couple of valleys over from our base at Lake Tekapo. Along the way we passed mile after mile of Lupin filled roadsides, and as we came…
After 4 days of driving and visiting all of the usual tourist haunts, the next day was set aside for a bit of R&R. Vanessa had bought a couple of books at a local second hand book stall and she was keen to sit on a lounge in the sun back at the apartment to…