Monday, May 02, 2005

New Zealand trip

Just got back from New Zealand last night... Had a fantastic trip - NZ is such a beautiful country. This time, I went with Claire, and spent the ANZAC day weekend in Wellington with Bindu who showed us most of the main sights and played hostess to us (even cooking a fantastic Keralan chicken curry!!). Wellington certainly proved itself in the weather stakes. In one day, we got heavy rain, drizzle, sun, cloud, wind and hail.

From Wellington we caught the ferry to the South Island, and spent some time in Picton, and the Marlborough Sounds region. We also sampled some of the Marlborough wines and found a few new favourites. (Brought some back with me too... so some of you may be lucky enough to try it!) Then we travelled up to Nelson, and the Takaka/Golden Bay area, which is pretty spectacular, and then travelled through the Nelson Lakes region and Lewis Pass to Hanmer Springs we we booked in for the girls pamper pack... Definitely highly recommended.

After Hanmer we headed down to Christchurch where we travelled through the Banks Peninsula to Akaroa, and in town wandering through the magnificent autumn scenery in Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens. It's such a beautiful city at this time of year... We even took a punt ride down the Avon, and a trip up the Christchurch Gondola (gives a great view of the city and the alps, and also over Lyttelton harbour).

So overall, a great holiday, and well needed... Now it's back to work to sort out everything that's piled up in the last week... Will post some photos soon.

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