Yesterday we pre-booked a small plane flight over the Tasman Peninsula coast line which was top of Peter’s bucket list, but it was highly weather-dependent, so we didn’t know if it would happen or not.

But, kudos to the weather – it turned out great.  We had a pilot who was experienced at “handling” photographers (and was also a tall and handsome good-looker if I might mention that) and he was happy to take the door off and strap Peter in to make sure he didn’t fall out. We were flying for about 1 ½ hours and Peter was thrilled with the shots he was able to get (way more than he had hoped.)  Once I got over my fear of falling out, or of watching Peter fall out, I absolutely loved viewing the world from 500 to 1500 ft above.  It is a wonderful way to get a really broad perspective of things without feeling detached.  Wish I was young enough to pursue a career as a small plane pilot!

We then drove to Orford where our motel room is, as promised, right on the ocean across from Maria Island (2^nd on Peter’s bucket list.)   We had a long walk on the beach out front and we are now chilling out and looking at all of Peter’s aerial shots.

It sure feels good to be back in the sunshine, and we hope it continues when we head to Freycinet Peninsula tomorrow. (Peter has to wait another day until there’s room on the Maria Island ferry for a day trip over!)

  Peter getting his harness rigged.

  Preparing to scramble into the back seat through the non-door.

  View from the back seat – where the door should be!

  My best shot from the plane – well my only shot, I was too worried about dropping my iPhone into the ocean to use it again!

  One of Peter’s best shots of the day!

  Hope you like this baby wallaby, he’s about the same height as you!

The weather gods have pretty much abandoned us.  We awoke this morning to torrential rain but eventually stopped feeling sorry for ourselves and got in the car to see if it might stop before we got to the trailhead for the Cape Hauy Trail, which promised great views of the stunning dolerite and pillared lava cliffs that this peninsula is so famous for.

The power of positive thinking!  Just as we got to the trailhead, the rain indeed stopped and we were able to get in a pretty good hike this afternoon. I continued to tussle with one or more of those gods the whole way along though.  Every time I got really heated up and stopped to remove some layers of clothing, within 5 minutes the rain and cold winds began.  As soon as I put the layers back on, the sun would come out and I’d be all heated up again.  That went on for about 4 hours!   However we persevered and were rewarded with some amazing (and very windy) views at the top of Cape Hauy.

The Tasman government is in the process of building The Three Capes Track which will end up being a multi-day hiking trail all along the Tasman Coast (it seems many countries are doing this – not sure which generation of backpackers they’re targeting but doubt it’s the baby-boomers!)  The 5km Cape Hauy section we did today is fully completed and really well done.  There were a lot of ups and downs and they have built stairways in many areas but they are all of local rocks (probably pillared lava pieces) not wooden structures.  So they are much more natural to move on, plus they blend in seamlessly with the surrounding lands.

We also met up with a lot of wallabies today! They are small kangaroos and they are just the cutest little things.  Very tame, don’t seem to have any fear of people but also don’t pursue a relationship with us!  Charlotte would have loved them!

Really hoping the weather improves for tomorrow.

  First view of the pillared cliffs, which suddenly popped out of nowhere!

 A better view of the cliffs.

  And another view from closer to the top.

  View from the top of Cape Hauy of the coastline to the north.

  A wallaby!  They’re about 2 ft high. Apologies for the lack of focus!  peter got an amazing shot of this one which I’ll hopefully get up tomorrow.

Uneventful flight to Tasmania, and picked up our next car rental – on the road again!

Drove to Port Arthur from Hobart, mostly along the coast and the coastal scenery is wonderful.  The interior is a little less attractive although it became more lush as we progressed north.

We checked into our B&B at Port Arthur just in time for the rain to arrive!  But it cleared fairly quickly and we went to a lovely little beach – Safety Cove  Beach – recommended by our B&B host.  It was deserted and had the most gorgeous views.  Finished off with dinner at Felons, in the Port Arthur Penitentiary.

  First view of the Tasmanian Coastline.

  Safety Cove Beach

  Peter lost in the sand patterns at Safety Cove.  Dinner with the ghosts of the convicts from the 19th century!

Tasmanian Devils!  They DO exist!  But haven’t seen any whirlwinds!

The day dawned mostly sunny and with a view from our hotel window of the Queen Mary 2 which had pulled into port overnight!

We started off with a trip to a Telstra store to get new connectivity now that we’re in a different country.  Fortunately it was a totally different experience than in New Zealand with Vodafone/Dick Smith, both of which provided useless service and very bad advice (not to mention not even delivering what we purchased.)

Joel at Telstra got us set up with phone and Wifi all in working order and we walked out very happy customers.

Good way to start out, but we would totally love this city anyway.   We are staying right down by the harbour where there’s lots of action.  From almost any direction, you walk uphill from the harbour into a city with lots of tall buildings, many with very exciting architecture. We continued wandering uphill as far as we could and ended up with a great view of the Opera House and then walked back down through the Botanical Gardens.  The streets were all very busy,  teeming with people heading into work.  It’s a totally urban atmosphere, almost NYC-like.  I would live here in a flash.

This aft we took a fast ferry to Manly, mainly so we could see Sydney and the Opera House from the water.  The Opera House totally lives up to its reputation.  We didn’t go inside so it’s hard to imagine how the stage and the seating fit into the construction!

Manly was not what we were expecting (basically just a bedroom community) but it would sure be lots of fun to live there by the water, ride your bike to the ferry depot and then commute by ferry into Sydney every day!  Especially if you could walk up from the harbour to your office building!  I might just come out of retirement if I could pull all that together.

Sydney has done an amazing job on their waterfront.  Together with Chicago, it puts our Toronto situation to shame.

Thanks to advice from Tim Gibbs, we picked a hotel in The Rocks area which is where the original European settlers first established themselves in Australia, directly around the harbour. Seems an auspicious point to start our Australian visit! The neighbourhood is most interesting, full of old buildings and roadways as well as more recent and modern buildings.

We finished the day with a terrific Italian dinner at Appetito, just down the street from our hotel.  The 2-hour time difference with NZ is getting to us and we’re fading fast. Better get focused on packing for tomorrow’s flight to Tasmania!

  I’m sure everyone recognizes the Opera House, shot by Peter.

  Skyline shot from the Botanical Gardens (also by Peter.)

  A tree right across from the front door of our hotel (by Peter.)

  Some old (1844) buildings right behind our hotel blended with a couple of newer ones (by Peter.)

Today was another long travel day, mainly because we left the hotel room early and kicked around for 4-5 hours before heading to the airport.

The plane trip to Sydney was uneventful but very  bumpy.  It was an Air New Zealand plane but the seating felt like Air Transat – hardly any leg room (even in upgraded seats) and really close together.  I started out squished between Peter and a very tall young man who was really struggling with the lack of space. Fortunately for me, his TV screen wasn’t working so they moved him to another seat and we then had some room to breathe for the rest of the flight.

Flew through bad weather and lots of turbulence, and landed in torrential rain.  We then flew through Customs and Baggage but slowed down in a taxi for a LONG drive downtown to our hotel in The Rocks area.  The rain stopped so we walked around for a while until, at the farthest point from our hotel, it started up again even more torrentially!  Had to buy a cheap umbrella and still got soaked!

Hoping for sunny weather tomorrow!

  Our first sight of Sydney!

We definitely agree with all the promotional material that it is a country that offers many outdoor and active opportunities… mountains, coastlines, national parks everywhere.

Most of our drives had continuous gorgeous views, the scenery generally a combination of peaceful pastoral rolling hills with mountain ranges in the background.

After travelling around, it is easy to see why Lord of the Rings was filmed here.  It all fits together!

The country’s small population is obvious.  There are generally no signs of civilization outside small towns, except for rare farm buildings.  We saw the most beautiful picturesque lakes, and there was never a cottage or other building visible along any shoreline.

However the sheep civilization is well-developed and widely spread.  My predominant memory of NZ is rolling green hills dotted with hundreds of little white sheep standing so still, they seem to be statues…until you get close enough to see their little mouths chewing up and down constantly!

We have spent a lot of time trying to decide our favourite areas but it is impossible to say – we loved everything we saw and did.

We can say however that we didn’t spend enough time here.  Although we are very happy with the amount of territory we did cover:

• I would like to see the northern tip of the North Island (as a contrast to the very southern tip of the South Island which we did see.)
• Peter really wants to hike the famous Milford Track which the weather prevented this time around.
• He wants to spend more time photographing the “Ent” trees.
• And he wants to come back during Spring or Winter for what he hopes would be more dramatic scenery with either wildflowers or snow-covered peaks.

In conclusion, this country lived up to our hopes and expectations and we are very happy we spent time here.

Walking around Christchurch this morning, we were even more surprised at the extent of earthquake damage still visible and being reconstructed.  Even my Hair Salon told me they lost everything in the quake when their building was condemned due to damage.  They have been operating out of temporary premises ever since, having to move every 2 years or so as the constructions crews start to tackle wherever they’d been.

Here are some of the images Peter took this morning.

  Building was destroyed but, like so many others, has not yet been torn down.

  A small remnant of a destroyed building has been preserved as a monument.

  “Flag wall” is an artistic monument representing the shingles of the roof of a collapsed cathedral.

Fairly uneventful day, driving from Dunedin to Christchurch which took 5-6 hours.  We stopped to see the Maoraki Boulders which were a bit of disappointment for several reasons, none of which I’ll go into here.

I found a patch of blue in the sky while waiting for Peter to photograph the boulders and hoped that my mother’s positive thinking would turn the patch into an actual pair of sailor’s trousers …. but we weren’t that lucky.  It was grey and cloudy all the way, although at least it didn’t rain.

Christchurch is smaller than we anticipated.  Population about 340,000 compared to Auckland’s 1.5 million.  Downtown where our hotel is located, the devastation from the earthquake 5 years ago is surprisingly visible.  There were about 130 people killed, but 100 of them worked in one building which completely collapsed in on itself.  The site is only about 2 blocks from our hotel – it has been cleared and a memorial erected in their memory.  There are quite a number of other building sites around here which are clearly under repair from the quake damage.  It was an 8.something quake so larger than the one in Haiti, but I must admit I don’t remember a tremendous amount of news coverage in Canada.

Big excitement tomorrow – I go in the morning to get my hair coloured (aka root touch-up) at the True Grit Hair Salon.  Will be interested to see how they do things here – stay tuned for pictures!  Peter will meanwhile be photographing to his heart’s content at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.  We walked through this afternoon and they are absolutely wonderful – David, we thought of you and wished you could see them with us!

At 4:00pm tomorrow, we leave New Zealand and depart for OZ.   It’s a wonderful country and we are sad to leave it.  Tomorrow I’ll post some final thoughts on our time here.