West Coast is the Best Coast

A quick photo bomb from our first trip over to the West Coast. Great weather, amazing beaches, glowworms, rivers, and waterfalls. Overall a first class experience.

Simply NZ

With the new year here, I thought it was about time to give you an update on our New Zealand life.

Greg and I are both working for engineering firms in Christchurch and taking our weekends to travel and see as much of this beautiful place as possible.  As most of you don't read what we write anyways (sorry if you are the one that reads this) we will be keeping it simple and just provide photos with short blurb on what and where.

Miss everyone and wishing you much warmth, cheer and good health in the new year.

Port Hills hike above our house and looking over Christchurch

Mother sheep and lamb looking out towards Sumner

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb....

View from top of Edoras in Lord of the Rings

Biggest bull I have ever seen

Evening Sunset from our porch

Greg stuck in a rock at Castle Hill

For Christmas Eve we went wine tasting on bikes in the Marlborough Region with dear friends Sam and Ross. 

We visited 8 wineries that day, at least I think we did. I only remember the first three.

Perspective

Definitely not what you would call a "sandy" beach, this was a rare ocean gravel bar created by strong off-shore currents. It separated the ocean from an estuary.

Cable Bay swim session.

You can see the ocean here and the estuary on the left with Piffin Island in the center. We paddled around Piffin Island the next day.

Sunset along the coast. 

Mountain biking in the Hira Forest. Lots of tight technical singletrack. 11 km of of downhill.

Sea kayaking around Piffin Island with Cable Bay Kayaks. Great day with lots of sea caves and bird watching. 

T-bird enjoying the day and waiting for our turn to enter the cave (small shadow in the rock just to the left of T's head). 

Some amazing water coloration inside the caves. 

Sometimes it seemed impossible that we would be able to paddle through these small opening, Greg was in shock. 

Estuary on the eastern side of Cable Bay.

We found some freshwater eels in a creek. They're about three feet long. 

After sometime in Nelson mountain biking and beach time, we rented a sea kayak and spent three days paddling in Abel Tasman National Park. Teresa found some mussels along the rocks and cooked one up. 

Our first campsite in Able Tasman at Observation Bay, a boat in only camp site. 

Our Mountain Hardwear Trango lit up for the night. 

The first sunrise of 2016 on the Abel Tasman coast.

Morning coffee on the beach in the 'dilly' cup.

That just about wraps it up for 2015 and many more pictures to come in 2016.