New Zealand

RT, Cas and Abbie skiing


Letitia posing for a picture


Abbie skiing

Cas thinking the resurrection has happened and he is in heaven

forging a creek to get up onto the glacier

a sideways picture of RT and Letitia in a glacier tunnel

on the glacier

in the rain and wind getting ready for the big climb up on the glacier

our road through the mountains

another road going through the mountains

our scenery while driving through the mtns.

one of our first glimpses of the "southern alps"

We just returned from our next to last trip. We spent two weeks in New Zealand. We arrived in Christchurch and drove from the east coast across the "southern alps" to the west coast. It may sound like a long journey, but it only takes about 3 hours to drive from east to west. We did not stop when we reached the west coast, we turned south and headed to the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers. We had never been to a glacier so we wanted to include this in our trip. We took a walking tour onto the Fox Glacier. This included about 700 "steps" which were sometimes thigh high for Abbie and we forged several creeks all in the pouring rain and strong winds. We reached the glacier and put on our cramp ons and walked around for about an hour before returning down the same path. We had a lovely time enjoying God's creativity.

We drove back to Christchurch and did some touristy things before flying over to Queenstown for a week. The kids were so excited to ski that upon arriving in Queenstown, we drove up the mountain for night skiing. Skiing is a bit different in NZ as there are not any trees to run into. There were only 3 lifts but we could ski anywhere on the mountain. The kids are getting to be quite the skiers. Cas loves moguls, jumps and speed. Abbie is not far behind and she also found a new love for jumps.

You can see from the pictures that the scenery was breathtaking. My passion for skiing was enhanced by the enjoyment of the picturesque mountains. We thoroughly enjoyed this part of the trip.

Unlike some of our other trips, we enjoyed relaxing times with the family-strolling around town, playing cards and NZ monopoly.

We have one more trip to Canberra, the capital of AU. RT has a medical conference and Cas will be celebrating his 12th birthday at the War Museum.