Give them roots and wings

Day 9 

We drove to the Otago Peninsula and visited the Albatross Colony the next morning.

The view was spectacular.
I love the shot of Samuel against the wide ocean.
But somehow it makes me feel so lonely for him.
Or maybe I just feel lonely for myself.
I missed him just by looking at this photo.

I much prefer this photo,
of Samuel standing just next to me…

The view was beautiful. We did not see any Albatross (we did not want to wait for the guided tour), except pictures of them in the centre, but we saw lots of sea gulls.

We went back to the mainland and had a KFC lunch at about 11:30am before we drove up to Lake Tekapo through Oamaru.

We spent the whole afternoon driving, and visited the “Vanishing Trails” enroute. We saw the Moeraki Boulders, Whale Fossil and Elephant Rocks. They were fascinating, definitely worth a visit.

The Moeraki boulders!

I tried so hard to get unto this boulder
– something which my older boys did easily.
They were certainly much braver than I was…
I was terrified that I would fall forward
so I never applied sufficient thrust to jump onto it.

But I finally got onto my own boulder!
(There were so many to choose from!)

Elias did too 🙂

Here were the whale fossils.

Frankly, I didn’t “get” the whale fossil…

Elias did “get” something from the whale fossils.
He said that he concluded that the Noah’s Ark story was real.
Otherwise, how could the whale fossils get there?
Wah, I am impressed.

I liked these rock formations better.
We thought it made a fantastic backdrop for a family photo.
I like taking this type of family photos
– all in a single photo, but standing apart and separately.
Same, yet so different.

Here we were at the Elephant Rocks!

The battle scene in “The lion, the witch and the wardrobe”
was filmed here.

Obviously, he had to climb this giant boulder.
Obviously, I did not try.
The funniest thing was that he had trouble getting down after that.
Daddy had to “rescue” him.

It was really, really fun for the kids.

We carried on our drive, had a takeaway fish and chips dinner at 7:30pm, and reached Lake Tekapo at 8:15pm.

Lake Tekapo is so beautiful.

But nothing can be so beautiful
that it cannot be made even more beautiful
by the presence of someone you love.

The children had much fun playing along the lake – bouncing pebbles off the surface of the lake, and trying to build a dam.

My boys, are so boys.
I am so proud of every single one of them.
Including the adult-boy.

We had a late start the next day because the children played at the playground and the lake. I did not want to leave the place either.

But eventually we moved on, and visited the Church of the Good Shepherd at about 11am. It was the ONE place I was looking forward to visiting.

I loved it there. We spent a long time there. I spent time in the sanctuary too. But I did not want to take any photos – it is,  to me, a sacred place, and I wanted to honour it.

We drove up to Mt John, where the Observatory was. The view was breath-taking.

By that time it was 11:15am and we felt a bit peckish, so we had a little snack in the Astro Cafe.

After that, we proceeded on our drive to Mt Cook.

2pm

We went to this Salmon farm at Twizel. It was a nice place to stretch our legs.

First we feed them,
then we eat them!

We had fun taking fishing photos too!

It was so, so fun!

We stopped at a scenic spot (lots to choose from!) for a late lunch (3pm!) of ham sandwich.

The Southern Alps! So magnificent!

We reached the Sir Edmund Hilary Alpine Centre at Mt Cook at about 4:15pm.

Then we took the Kea Point walk.

We started at 5:15pm and returned at 6:30pm. It was a very fun walk. Again, I felt like Frodo and Sam…

We’ll walk together to Mt Cook

Yeah we made it!
It was exhilarating because we actually took a risk doing it.
It was a windy day, and getting windier by the minute.
Sand was getting into our eyes
and the boys nearly fell off their feet at some point.
We pressed on and were glad we made it there and back safely.

We camped at Glentanner Park Centre, Mt Cook. It was to be our last night on the campervan.

Dinner was unexciting – canned soup and cup noodles.

Go back to Day 7-8 : Dunedin

Read about Day 11-14 : Christchurch 

Return to New Zealand, South Island : Overview