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!