Autumn months

It was sad to see the visitors go because not only does it mean a long time before we see family and friends again but also that summer was on the way out. We did however have a record summer and this lasted until mid april, approx 3 1/2 months of glorious weather so we couldn't really complain. We spent the majority of April catching up with friends in and around Auckland. We did manage to sneak a quick trip down to Taumarunui to stay with the Williams. Sarah had persuaded Neil to enter an off road run in May so she decided a bit of training was in order on the saturday morning. So much for relaxing weekends..he was however repaid with a night in their ski chalet and a few red wines. We did a walk around Mt Ruapheau on the sunday and started planning our next trip which would hopefully include some skiing as there was a dusting of snow on the mountain. Very exciting!

Neil had two more trips to Queenstown in May, for work apparently! Some work colleagues decided it was imperative they check up on the work Arrow was doing on the base station at Coronet Peak. It did take them 12 hours to get there the first time because of the weather so that made me feel much better. Obviously they had to fuel up on some fine wine and food when they did get there. The second trip was much less glamorous and was spent staying on a sheep station up the mountain with the average temperature -1 degrees. It involved a lot of walking, mainly to keep warm and the odd nip of whiskey, so I'm told. Hope everybody is well. Will try and keep on track with the blog from now on.
Cheers, Lucy & Neil x
Oh and Neil did complete his run, so am very proud!

Some more summer photos

Ahh summer days..

My parents were the next visitors to arrive and I was lucky enough to take them on a tour of the northern tip of the South Island for a week. We arrived in Christchurch on a very chilly saturday pm and after a quick tram ride we headed up north to Kaikora and the sunshine. We did the expected whale watch trip at 6.45am, quite an early start on your hols and quite eery but well worth it for the hundreds of dolphins all showing off in front of each other. The whales were q bit predictable unfortunately. We then headed even further up north to Blenheim, in the Malborough wine region and spent a very pleasant afternoon on a wine tour, obviously! We then carried on to the west coast via a quick stop in Nelson. The west coast was as awesome and as wild as we had expected. We took advantage of the clear skies and did a plane ride over mt cook, Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. I'm not sure who was more nervous, me or mum!
We had a few days back in Auckland before our last evening together up the sky tower.
A quick turn around (4 days!) and then Neil's parents arrived. Luckily they were here for a bit longer so we were able to slow the pace a bit. They spent a lot of time looking after themselves and pottering around Auckland whilst we went to work. We did have a few day trips up to Goat Island, the Botanic gardens and they did a boat ride over to Coromandel. We also had a fantastic 4 day trip to Queenstown in the South Island with them where we met up with Paul and Carmel, Neil's cousins. We packed a lot in and this included a day trip to Wanaka via the Crown Range and also over to Glenorchy. Lastly we had a very relaxing weekend on Waiheke Island with yet some more wine tasting!