Thursday, May 15, 2014

New Zealand Holiday

Last Friday evening we landed home from the most wonderful three week family holiday in New Zealand. None of us had ever been there before and the trip had been in the planning for about a year. In fact, Andy did absolutely all the planning and booking, for which I am eternally grateful, because I have not had the brain space for it nor, really, the ability to imagine we could actually achieve such a thing, logistically or financially. But it happened, and it was brilliant!
New Zealand is a stunningly beautiful country. Geographically quite different to Australia, it is a dynamic landscape formed by, and still under the influence of, volcanoes and earthquakes, glaciers and massive rainfall. Yet there are many cultural similarities and we felt quite at home. What's not to love about a country that bakes a treat called Lolly Cake and has an icecream flavour called Goody Goody Gumdrops? Oh, and they also have really, really good beer.
To a large extent ours was the Lord of the Rings / Hobbit Movie Fan Tour of NZ. Starting with the set of Hobbiton. Just superb.
Click away now if you don't want to scroll through about fifty photos!
- Jane x





another movie location

at 'Rivendell'


hiding from Ringwraiths (another location)






best lemonade ever

temporary and beautiful 'cardboard cathedral' in Christchurch, which had terrible earthquakes a couple of years ago

still earthquake damage visible everywhere

Moeraki Boulders




we survived 12 days in a motorhome, yay us!

Autumn colour

oh yeah, another snowclad mountain backdrop to camp by





tiny man, big horse








teenager!

Piper Cherokee, for reals... it had ashtrays on the armrests!





so much beautiful lichen and moss everywhere

yikes, we went in a helicopter too!




the boys' first experience of snow!



band pose

so many rainbows

Ahhhh, New Zealand. We loved you. Well, most of us loved you, most of the time. And the six year old... well, he's six.

- Jane x

13 comments:

  1. Oh, wow, Jane - what a totally fabulous holiday! Such gorgeous pictures. And your big boys are growing into such handsome young men

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  2. Looks like a very lovely trip. NZ is a pretty special place. Cx

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  3. Great pics. I especially love the one of Clem falling into the loo! Sounds like a great trip. I've always been very anti-NZ (saving it for when I'm old and can't travel any further) but maybe I'm coming around...

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  4. AWESOME! Glad you had a great time, we've loved our NZ holidays. Still so much to explore too!
    Great pictures - your boys are SO COOL!

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  5. Fabulous! How I love holidays in NZ. Such a great drive holiday.

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  6. Great photos Jane, looks like a really fun family holiday. Well done surviving the whole campervan thing.

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  7. Looks amazing! My cousin lives in NZ and I know wouldn't be anywhere else....except perhaps North Yorkshire, UK ;) He's very into the outdoors in fact he teaches something related at school now and is forever rock climbing/canoeing etc on Facebook. The Lord of the Rings stuff must be brilliant for the boys (and you), I'd especially like to see Hobbiton. High Five for the campervan, we once considered it....then decided we weren't brave enough. Bethx

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  8. Wow looks like a fantastic trip, i LOVE nz, its such an amazing place to visit. Your boys look like they had a fantastic time, some great family pics in there.

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  9. You went to Puzzling World! I loved NZ and this has brought back so many happy memories of our holiday there. Looks as though you had a fab time.

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  10. Oh, wow, this looks like an AMAZING trip! These photographs are wonderful! I love your boys in all of the different poses and with different expressions - and always with mountains behind them! I admit I am the most curious about Clem falling into the toilet - I was puzzling over that one, since I'm pretty sure there weren't Romans in New Zealand ... ever ...

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  11. I knew they'd be amazing pics. Looks absolutely beautiful!

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  12. Amazing, wow, so jealous as we all want to go.
    Thanks for the great photos.
    xx N

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Hey, I would really love to know what you think. Go on!

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