Around the world with Gary & Tracy

Hi All

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas & Boxing Day. We certainly did! Gary had some wonderful New Zealand lamb and Tracy had super tasty tofu sausages! We had presents to open thanks to Kim and Nick and Katie so it was nearly like being at home - except the weather was 22 degrees!

After dinner we had a stroll down by the river, it was all very civilised. Christmas Eve we spent in a very crowded and jolly pub called Sullivans which was great. Christchurch is very compact so everything is within walking distance. Yesterday we did a big walking tour of the city and spent some time in the beautiful Botanical Gardens and mind boggling museum.

We are getting ready for New Year's Eve tomorrow as there are some celebrations in Cathedral Square followed by a band in our nearest pub where Gary is currently playing poker (a big thing in some pubs here and free!).

So all in all we are having a good time.

Have a delicious and sparkling New Year, whatver you are doing - cheers and good health everyone and all happiness in the new year.

Love
Tracy & Gary xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi All

Merry Christmas from Christchurch, our final destination in New Zealand. We arrived on Friday after saying a fond farwell to the camper van and hello to our one bedroom apartment at Stonehurst accommodation. The apartment is lovely and has everything we need to make our Christmas great, even though we are thousands of miles away from our nearest and dearest family and friends.

Christchurch is lovely, we haven't had much time to explore yet but will be doing so in the next few days. The weather is warm and the sun is shining so we are very lucky.

This will be our last blog before Christmas Day so we wish everyone a very enjoyable and Happy Christmas and hope santa brings you all lots of goodies. We have a New Zealand lotto scratch card to do on Christmas Day as our christmas present plus a box of surprises to open from Kim and Nick (many thanks).

Bye for now - we will let you know how many thousands we win on the lotto!!

Lots of love and Christmas hugs and kisses

Tracy and Gary xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi all

A very quick blog just to show you the amazing photo of Tracy swimming with hector's dolphins at Akoroa. What an experience! At one point there were 8 dolphins right by her. Gary stayed onboard to take photos, not easy as they are incredibly fast moving little creatures. Hector's dolphins are very rare, only 7000 left and only found in New Zealand so it was a real pleasure to be up close to them. They were shy and playful and just wonderful.

Bye for now, another blog from Christchurch in a few days.

Lots of love
Tracy & Gary xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi All

Fresh on the heels of glacier walking comes kayaking!! We are in Motueka, the gateway to Abel Tasman National Park and yesterday we spent kayaking in the morning and then going by water taxi to Tonga island to see the fur seals and their cubs before walking back to Bark Bay to be picked up by the water taxi and taken back to Kaiteriteri beach. Kayaking was exhausting - it looked so easy in the photos but the weather was overcast and windy so it was quite rough and we were paddling against the wind. For the first half Gary steered from the back but at Split Apple Rock we changed over and he just became a front seat driver!! Everyone else we were doing it with was at least 25 years younger than us and that includes the guides! Still, we didn't do too badly.

Abel Tasman is really beautiful and even in dull weather the sea is turquoise and the sand golden. It is impossible to see the walking trails from the beach, they are well hidden. It takes days to walk from one end to the other as its a huge area. There are plenty of sandflies though and our bushman fly repellent was well utilised. The company we went with were really good www.seakayak.co.nz They were very patient and encouraging even when we were going round in circles with the kayak!

Tomorrow we leave to go to Hanmer Spings, not too far from Christchurch. We have only got 7 nights left in the camper van. Tracy will be crying when she has to give it back. Its been great and its so wonderful to be able to have the doors open all the time and eat outside lisening to the wonderful bird songs.

Our next campsite has a squash court so we will be having a go at that in between frisbee and poker. What a life!

Hope you are all well, thinking of you, take care all.

Lots of love
Tracy & Gary xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi All

Here is Gary during our huge 6 hour glacier walk/climb at Franz Josef glacier. We were really, really lucky with the weather as usually it rains 2 out of every 3 days there. The day we did our walk it was a glorious bright blue sky and burning hot sun. Our guide got severely sunburnt!! As we did the full day walk, we got to go much higher up the glacier and through tiny narrow passages, Tracy has got bruises on her shoulders from trying to squeeze through a tiny gap. We wore crampons on our boots to grip the ice. It was a fantastic experience and highly recommended but exhausting. www.franzjosefglacier.com

Moved on to Westport, having a relaxing day beofre a full days drive tomorrow to Abel Tasman National Park.

Hope you are all ok and full of festive cheer!

Miss you
Lots of love
Gary & Tracy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi all

Well, the clock is ticking, we have been on the road 6 months now - hard to believe. We are enjoying life in the camper van enormously. Since our last blog we have been to Glenorchy - a small and beautiful wilderness with a population of about 200 people, Queenstown - home of bungy and numerous other adventure activites and Wanaka - home of the strange puzzling world and the enormous and totally mind blowing museum of Toys and Transport (check out the photo of Astronaut Barbie) and the fantastic Wanaka lake.

Whilst we were in Queenstown we went on the Shotover Jet on Shotover Canyon. This was a high speed, 380 degree spinning boat ride. Luckily for us it was a glorious day and the Shotover Canyon is a lovely green colour so it was stupendous to look at and exhilarating at the same time. The next day, we climbed to the top of the Cable car hill for wonderful views over Queenstown and the lake. On our last day in Queenstown we went to the park for a spot of frisbee golf and crown bowls, another glorious day.

We have been travelling up the west coast and are now in Franz Josef - home of one of the famous glaciers. The weather once again is fantastic, our next blog will be of the glacier walk. Coming soon....

Hope you are all ok, we are delightfully free of any Christmas paraphenalia which is a rare treat.

Lots of love

Tracy & Gary xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx