Easter in New Zealand

Over Easter I went to New Zealand on an aviation themed coach tour.   The aviation photos will be posted separately on my plane spotting blog.

The tour started in Christchurch, and our hotel was opposite the cathedral that was damaged in the devastating earthquake in 2011.  It has been temporarily replaced by what is known locally as the cardboard cathedral.   Christchurch also has some vintage trams running through the city.

As we headed south towards Dunedin we passed the big Salmon in Rakaia, and the Basilica in Timaru.

We had a stop in Oamaru where we saw the Opera house, the Steampunk HQ and precinct.

The next morning we headed to Larnach Castle.  The weather was very Scottish,  but the impressive interior, entirely hand carved and assembled on site by master craftsmen more than made up for it.

Back in Dunedin we visited the impressive railway station before some of us visited a local conservation area by 8 wheel drive Argo.  We saw New Zealand Fur Seals and Little Blue Penguins.

The next morning we bade farewell to Dunedin, though sadly not to the weather. As we traveled through the Catlins, we made a stop at Purakaunui Falls, an idyllic walk through temperate rainforest to a beautiful three level cascade.

We passed through some lovely scenery but before chicking into our Invercargill hotel we made a stop at a hardware store!   This was the most unusual stop of the tour.  Amongst the shelves were vintage vehicles, motorcycles and automobilia, including artefacts from Burt Munro, the world's fastest Indian.

As we left Invercargill, we stopped at the Bill Richardson Transport World.  This massive collection of over 300 vehicles of all types is in a huge group of interconnecting halls.  The photos don't do it justice.

We stopped for lunch in the little town of Gore.  Gore has several claims to fame.  It's New Zealand's Country Music capital.  It's home to the big brown trout, and (in my opinion) home to the best pies on the trip! (sorry, no photo of the pie as I didn't know how good it was until I'd eaten it).  

We arrived in Te Anau, with a couple of hours free to explore.  I walked along the lakeside, and decided to take a floatplane ride over the Fjordland National Park.

Today we were heading for Milford Sound, and a lunch cruise.  On the way we stopped at the aptly named Mirror Lake before boarding our boat.

Next stop was Queenstown.  En route we stopped at the goldrush town of Arrowtown.  I took a walk around the chinese village, where the chinese miners stayed, separated from the rest of town.

We had a free afternoon in Queenstown.  Many of us took the cable car to Bob's Peak.  The view was amazing.  I saw the steamship TSS Earnslaw while I was there.

Heading North towards the Alps, we made a short stop at Cromwell, Home of the big fruit, before calling into Fox Glacier where I ticked off one of my bucket list items.  A helicopter flight up onto the glacier. 

On our last day we headed up to a viewpoint to see the Franz Josef Glacier before heading up to Arthur's Pass to catch the Trans Alpine Train back to Christchurch

This was my first coach holiday, and i really enjoyed it.  I saw much more than I would have done had i been driving.