First off, its been forever since I’ve posted. Things are sorted and I’ll be back hopefully with more frequent posts on what is going on – what new adventures are up next? This time I’ll share our latest Easter holiday.

In New Zealand Easter is one of the major long holidays as both Good Friday and Easter Monday are viewed as public holidays. Supermarkets are closed all day on Friday and Sunday and restaurants have a surcharge and cannot sell alcohol without a meal purchase. So, we decided to go away down to Otago. Stephen has never seen Glenorchy and I felt I had to share the place with him – a town literally in the middle of the mountains with lakeside views.

Anyways, to start off our journey the first stop was a preparing for the alcohol ban by grabbing a bottle of wine and some cider for our holiday. Check. Then we headed down to Wanaka early Friday morning where Warbirds of Wanaka was being held. We walked around town (and of course grabbed a pie – one of NZ’s best), which we know quite well and frequently re-visit and then ended up at the lake shore for a front row seat to the free airshow as part of the day. We watched some aerial acrobatics, a plane landed on the water, and a helicopter landed a few meters (literal) away from us, soaking us with its spray of water from the lake. Then we had a front row seat as the “moose” stole the harbour master’s jetski and took off followed by some playful attempts to capture him.

We had a good seat and laughed and smiled lots. Then we headed into town for a bite to eat and walked around the lake that evening before returning to our hotel for a soak in the outdoor hot pools.

The next morning we headed out over the mountain pass – Crown Range Road – into Queenstown where we breezed through on our way to Glenorchy. Stephen’s never been, so we drove on nearly every road in Glenorchy, including those where some 4 x 4 driving was needed. We lucked out with what was a beautiful day – forecasted to be miserable. The road to Paradise – literally a place called Paradise – can’t beat that.

After our drive we walked around town and the lake front before grabbing a burger (the best burgers in NZ) at the local pub. We walked off our burger by the lake and found beautiful peace in the quietness of the mountain shadows. As the sun went down and the stars came out we went back to the hotel and had some wine with our movie and slept for the night before our major walk tomorrow.

It was a cold (first taste of frost for the year) as we woke up ready for our big hike – the main event for this trip – Earnslaw Burn, which could be the most beautiful glacier/waterfall combination. You can read about that whole adventure here. To sum it up – Beauty, waterfalls, and some achy feet.

When we finished our walk we headed over to Queenstown to spend the night since we thought we’d have more choice for a late night meal. We ended up at my favorite thai place followed by a walk around the lake and a crepe for dessert. Honestly, it was a perfect day – couldn’t have asked for better. It was exactly what we needed to relax and be together (Stephen has been away for work for the past 6 months).

Monday morning we got up and had breakfast in town before checking out of the hotel and started the journey home. First stop was to Arrowtown to check out some of the old mining remnants. Then our trip continued via Cromwell. See, we had to make this pitstop so we could see the racing track. It was actually pretty cool – maybe we’ll get Stephen a ride around the track one day.

It was a slow day getting back to Christchurch – stopping at Lake Pukaki and a break to feed the salmon at the farms and some mountain pictures. Overall, a really enjoyable holiday with a little bit of everything – even a rainbow on the way home 🙂