Retreating into mountains

Sun 16 Feb 2025


Today we drove into forests and mountains, following a scenic journey to Jackson's Retreat. 

It was set up some amazing hills, and we took an afternoon run to a nearby waterfall.

Sometimes you can see glow worms (of the flying variety) at night. We went looking for these, but alas did not find any. There were plenty of other activities to keep us occupied though.


"Arthur's Pass", part of our route tomorrow is closed due to a crash. It is also facing closures tomorrow and the day after due to roadworks. If it reopens overnight, we need to be there by 10am to avoid delays, or a detour costing us an extra three hours!


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bon voyage... to us!

Image
Fri 7 Feb (in New Zealand, Thu 6 Feb in UK!) Just said goodbye to mum and dad today (and to Aneel and Deepti via video call last night). Treating ourselves on the outward bound flight! Bert and Ernie are very happy.
Read more

Campervan time!

Image
Mon 10 Feb 2025 - We have the campervan! Thank you Lawrie Goodwin, for the recommendation of Wendekreisen, from whom we hired our campervan. We now have it and have hit the road. They drive on the left in New Zealand, so after getting used to the van, it's not too taxing. After some supermarket shopping, we got to Waitomo, our first campsite. We cooked up dinner and got settled to the scenery. A little more overcast today, with a spot of rain early afternoon, but still nice and warm.
Read more

Astonishing hot air balloon experience

Image
Mon 24 Feb 2025 It was definitely worth the wait to take a hot air balloon for astonishing views across the Canterbury region that Christchurch sits in. Every second of this experience was magical. Being thirteen hours ahead of the UK, we were some of the first people in the world (even before those at ground level in Christchurch) to see today's sunrise as the atmospheric mists cleared. It was an intimate trip shared with only Jessica (our other paying guest) and Nick (our pilot). We hope that the pictures of this experience speak for themselves.  Watch this video here for a sense of the serenity, punctuated by the burner. The experience also involved the setting up and taking down of the balloon for flight. Though are at the other side of the world, the balloons are made by Cameron Balloons in our home city of Bristol (shout out to Maggie Cameron)! After this, we handed over the campervan and headed in to stay in a Christchurch apartment for a couple of nights, thus entering a n...
Read more