New Zealand: South Island

The South Island was pretty amazing...

Queenstown Hill Hike--
that's the look you get before hypothermia 

Freezing!  See hood.

View of the other bungee jump, from the Queenstown Gondola.

Mirror Lakes.

Arrowtown Chinese Settlement- a sad part of NZ history.

Te Anau.  Educational tidbit: Lake Te Anau is the largest 
lake in the South Island and second only within New Zealand to Lake Taupo.

Cadbury Factory in Dunedin.

Fleur's Place.  Spectacular views, location and food.

Rose at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.

Decadent New Zealand: Fruits and food

I gained a few pounds on the trip.  Not entirely sure why...

Afghan cookie at the saddest cafe in NZ, just outside of Christchurch.

Post-run sugar at the Wellington Farmer's Market.

Fergburger, the Queenstown institution.  I got the Lamby.

Venison at V. Know in Queenstown.

Gummy worms at a Cromwell fruit stand.  

My score from the Wellington Farmer's Market.
A peacherine (eh), kiwiberries (yum!) and some sugary sweet plums.

Kiwiberry up close.

Mussels at V. Know in Queenstown.

My first NZ lambchops care of my awesome cousin.

An American(o) in NZ.

Not just any potato chips, but NZ potato chips!

Whole fish at the Wedding @ the Boatshed in Wellington.

Cappuccino at Fraser's in Auckland after a morning walk to Mt. Eden.  

Highly addictive.
Cookies and jelly candy INSIDE the chocolate.  Yeah.  

I'll have a flip-flop shaped cookie, please.

A "Lamington".  As a cream non-lover, it was still ok.

Venison pie.  Basically, you cannot get away from pies.
You wouldn't want to.  They are mostly delicious.

My first Scotch Egg @ Christchurch Farmer's Market.

Hey, they have orange cox!  Huh?  Orange cox!
No, it's a "Cox Orange", found only in NZ.

New Zealand, Land of Kiwis

Lake Tekapo, South Island

I kicked off 2014 with a 16 day trip to New Zealand to tour the North and South Islands, climb a little, swim a little, eat a lot, and dream a little.  My first stop was the Epsom section of Auckland, where I visited the standard tourist attractions: Mt. Eden, One Tree Hill, Davenport, the Viaduct, and Mission Bay.  Nope, no Skytower.

Te Annau at dusk, South Island

The original plan was to spend two days in Auckland and drive down to Wellington.  Fate had other plans so we instead based ourselves out of Auckland for four days and flew down to Wellington in time for my cousin's wedding in Wellington.  Using Auckland as our home base, we visited Kawhia and the hot springs beach on Ocean Road, which nears the top of my list of places to remember for a lifetime (seriously, one of the most amazing places I've seen, next to the night J and I had the Placa Real in Barcelona all to ourselves at night, to boot!).  We also visited pungent Rotorua and feasted on fried oysters, fish and chips, and fried mussels along the way.

Windsor Blue at the Christchurch Farmer's Market

Flying down to Wellington, we were treated to a wonderful wedding and the coldest summer winds known to man.  After the wedding whirlwind, we made our way down to Christchurch, Queenstown, Dunedin, Milford Sound, and Bluff.  We could easily have spent 2 weeks on each island and still not seen everything...

More posts to come.  Yes, there will be doggie voyeur pics, and a "Fruits of..." post.