Our Annual Summer Holiday!

Once a year we have been taking the children away for a Summer holiday. First it was a week in a caravan park in Metung, then last year a week in Phillip Island, and this year we went to New Zealand! Hey... we figured we may as well drive around in a caravan, rather than stay in one spot!

We started the trip with a night with our dear friends Chris and Lou and were able to finally meet their little man Cody. The children LOVED playing with him and he has been constantly mentioned since. It was soooo nice to have a great catch up with Chris and Lou too.
We thought we were heading to NZ to see the beautiful scenery, but travelling with children is a vastly different kettle of fish! We spent lots of time exploring the local playgrounds and were tucked up in bed by 10pm each night. Of course we also saw some truly amazing scenery and went on some fabulous tours. One of our first stops was the Moeraki Boulders, on the East Coast. Its just amazing to see these incredible perfectly round rocks being formed and spat out by the Earth.
The area in and around Milford Sound was one of the most beautiful places in the world. Truly awe-inspiring stuff and the time I really felt like THIS is the New Zealand I've heard so much about.
Our last stop was at Mt Cook/Aoraki. We went on a glacial lake boat ride which got us nice and close to the glaciers and icebergs. It was reassuring to see the boat driver kept her hand on the controls the entire time in case we needed to vacate the area though!
Absolutely gorgeous and the children had a ball playing in the dry river gully in the National Park.

We really only covered the bottom half of the South Island, clockwise from Christchurch in a large circle. It was an amazing time and so nice for Dunc and I to be travelling again. It is a completley different thing travelling with kids, but no less fun. And next year? Well next year's Annual Summer Holiday will be rather cold and wintery as we are headed to:

And we can't wait!!

will try and fix the vidoes another time...