Only two weeks?

There is a pretty standard conversation that you have with other while traveling.

"Where you are from?"
"Chicago, in the States"
"How long are you in New Zealand?"
"Two weeks!"
"Two weeks?!  That's not enough to see New Zealand"
"Oh, well how much time to you have in New Zealand?"
Here are some of the answers we received:
Barbara from the Check Republic: "Only one month"
Chris and Stacy from Michigan:  "3 weeks"
Retired pharmacist from England:  "6 weeks, then it's on to Australia."

We were thrilled to be able to put two consecutive weeks together for a vacation this year.  Last year, we were only able to get away with one.  But all these folks were right.  Two weeks were not nearly enough for New Zealand, but thanks to Jen's expert travel planning we were able to do more in those two weeks than I think most do in a month.

We last saw Barbara trying to hitch a ride out of Milford Sound.  We had a comfortable ticket on a bus.  Chris and Stacy were on their way to Queenstown to figure out what they were going to do next.  It can be great fun to travel without solid plans all the way along, but having bookings and reservations allowed us to maximize every bit of those two weeks and milk all of the New Zealand out that we could.

Speaking of milking the trip, we had quite a bit of time after we returned out car and got checked in to Air New Zealand, so we wandered around the Antarctic Center near the airport.  There is a big visitor center complete with snow and ice machine that we skipped (we were headed back to Chicago in November after all) but we peeked into the US's Antarctic passenger terminal and clothing distribution center.  There was a group of people getting briefed for there departing trip the next day.  Out on the Airfield there was a giant C-17 Globemaster in it's final preparation for takeoff.  We got the joy of seeing this beast of an airplane take off and head south to the frozen continent.  We briefly considered extending our trip, but decided we hadn't brought enough clothes.

Our last night in New Zealand was spent on a farm south of Christchurch.  We had an interesting night and breakfast that included a cold room and fresh bacon from the farm that still had the poor pigs little hairs sticking out everywhere.  We got a tour of the little farm via 4 wheeler.  The widowed owner riding expertly sidesaddle on the machine.

We spent our final couple of hours in Christchurch.  We caught the tail end of the Sunday service at the Anglican Cathedral that anchors the city.  It was neat to slip into a church halfway around the world and find comfort and joy in the familiarity of the liturgy of the meal.

We then walked down to on open air craft market to unload ourselves of the extra kiwi in our pocket (yes it's the name for the bird, people, fruit, and dollar) on Christmas gifts and souvenirs.

Thanks for traveling with us.  It's fun to know that people have been reading along.  A lot of the posts were dashed off in quite a hurry while we went from one thing to the next, but I hope they have been coherent and enjoyable.

Until the next trip ....
Doug & Jen