Both children awake far far too early and given that we thought we had a trip this afternoon we decided to have a lazy morning. The girls watched Madagascar and I wrote the diary, David slept. We then swapped so I slept and David watched TV with the children. At around 11 we left the motel and walked to Flagstaff park to let the girls play. The weather was hot and very windy, bits were falling out of trees, just not nice. We then walked back to the hotel for ...

I think this should come under the 1st or rather the first part should. Last night we packed the car with everything but the last minute bits and set the alarm for stupid o'clock or rather 3am. We got up and lifted the girls into the car, the idea being to try and keep them asleep so we left them in their PJs, as it happened they both woke up. The journey to the airport was easy and we dropped the car near one of the two tall round things which may or may not h...

What a difference a day makes ! The sun has been shining and our moods have been lifted. After a little panic over the little camera and its loss, now resolved we left at about 10:20. We headed over to Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens as this was the quickest way to the city centre. Well I say that but we have two small children who have a homing instinct for play parks. We managed to persuade them not to paddle but they had a really good play on the othe...

The weather today was overcast turning to blooming miserable with showers, no to be fair it was just rain, rain and more rain. We started fairly late today and decided to take things easy with a trip to the Antarctic Centre.We arrived there about 11:30 and decided to do the basic tour as we felt the up close and personal would be too much for the girls to cope with. We spent a while in the four seasons room but Alex was a little spooked by it so we ended up pop...

We awoke to a very miserable day and the prospect of not seeing Mount Cook at all, we were all grumpy anyway as Swansea Real Estate called at 4am again. After a difficult start we were away before 10 and headed up to Lake Pukeki for the Mount Cook viewpoint. When we arrived you could see nothing but clouds so David popped into the information centre for a weather forecast and was told things were clear at Mount Cook Village. The drive to Mount Cook village was...