March 7th, 2009 Agility Trials

Hannah and Bee win first place in the Agility Trials. She came first in both her rounds with the fastest times and clean rounds over the jumps and tunnels.

Here are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place winners

Hannah with Bee's owner Louise. Bee is a Border Collie

End of South Island Trip - Kaiteriteri

After two days hiking the girls enjoy a lovely hot shower in our house we rented in Kaiteriteri. A great house for two families. We spend two more days enjoying the South Island and then take the ferry back home.

Tessa & Bexs at the beach

The beach at Kaiteriteri. Simon, Kate and myself ..what a beautiful place!


One last vineyard to visit on a lazy rainy Saturday afternoon. Kate and I find the most delicious chocolate...dark chocolate with lime inside!

Tessa and Rebecca Flying Fox

I have finally learned to blog videos. So this is a flying fox and they have them all over New Zealand in playgrounds. Here are Rebecca and Tessa.

South Island, Abel Tasman Great Walk

On April 23rd, we started our hike on the Abel Tasman. Named after the Dutch explorer, this is a 51 km track along the North Coast of the South Island and one of New Zealand's 9 'Great Walks'. It follows the coast through beautiful bays. An interesting part of the track is its tidal nature. There is a 6 m difference between high and low tide and you can only pass some of the track at low tide so you have to plan ahead.
We hiked the track with the Gately family from Wellington and planned a two day hike with a sleep at one of Department of Conservation Huts.
To start the hike, we took a water taxi from its parking lot via a tractor to be towed over the shallow tidal water and backed in the sea.

The Abel Tasman Aqua Taxi driver was great and showed us sites along the way for our 1 1/2 hour boat trip to the start of the track - including the split apple rock here ...

and the seal colony here. In a small rock pool, the baby seals play and swim...reminded us of the shallow pools our kids learned to swim in! Baby seals look like their coats are too big for them and are all bunched up. We started at Totaranui and hiked for 5 1/2 hours to Bark Bay. Here are Georgina, Tessa, Rebecca and Hannah.

One of our tidal crossings...you have to cross 2 hours within low tide and we missed it by a bit so Hannah needed a lift and James rolled his pants up.

Bexs and Tessa...shoes off helping each other cross. The mud was quite squelchy and pulled you in.

Kate and Meghan on try land again.

After 5 hours Hannah was a wee tired and Kate supplied some goodies to lay as a trail ahead of her.

Swing bridge crossing

Beautiful waters, lush trees, sandy beaches. Golden sand lapped by blue-green water. Numerous Bays. Stunning
We arrive at our hut...and we were the last ones there that night and it was fully booked with 34 people all sleeping sardine style in double decker rows of 7 mattresses side by side.

What a night. Fun to eat out of our pots outdoors off our cookers but many loud snorers and sleep talkers plus a few romantic couples. The next day we have a shorter hike of 3 1/2- hours to Anchorage Bay

This is a saddle....on an altitude picture this is what you dread as you climb up one steep side and then down the next around all the many bays and inlets.Another tidal crossing

And we're done...waiting for our water taxi to take us back to Marahau.

South Island, Marahau

The next leg of the trip takes us 230 km from the West Coast inland and to the top of the North Island and to a small town called Marahau where we are going to rest for a day and pack for our tramp in the Abel Tasman park.
On the way we stopat Buller Gorge and take the Swing Bridge over the gorge and the flying fox back (like a long zip line) back.

Penguin crossing. We are all a bit silly and queezy after three days of driving up the West Coast's winding, narrow highways.


Rebecca after driving up the West Coast in Marahau...trying to eat a carrot!

South Island, West Coast, Truman Track

This is the view behind our cabin. So the front faces the sea and back the rock. Which is how the drive up the whole West Coast has been...sea to one side and lush cliffs of rainforest on the other side. We hike one more trail near Punakaiki..the Truman Track

We lost Hannah on this track.She panicked that the tide was going to come in quickly and so she hid in the back of this huge cave.

South Island, West Coast, Ross

Old mining town on the West Coast and home of the largest gold nugget ever found in NZ - old Roddy.

Hannah gets punished for trying to steal Old Roddy

South Island, West Coast Punakaiki

Our second night on the West Coast is at Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks. The limestne has weathered into wht looks like piles of thick pancakes. When the wind blows and the tide is up, the sea surges through the caverns below and booms up in the blowholes. We are again fortunate to have a clear day and we watch the sun set over the rocks and then walk back to our little cabin by the sea at the Punakaiki Cottage Motel.

South Island - West Coast - Franz Josef and Fox Glacier

The first night on the West Coast we stay at a Youth Hostel in Franz Josef (population not many). We are lucky to have sunshine as it rains around 50% of the time here. After hiking around both Franz Josef and Fox glaciers we settle into the hostel for an evening game of NZ monopoly followed by a sleepless night listening to German packpackers party.

Reminds me of the blue glacial waters of Lake Louise in Canada. Hannah is mesmorized.


This is a lucky picture for the West Coast as there is enough sunshine to see what we think is Mt Cook (the highest mountain in the country) in the background. And we are back on the road to Punakaiki another 244 km up the winding coast roads.