Our Trip to New Zealand #1

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog.  Hope you are having a wonderful day!

A little while ago I threatened ... oops ...  I mean, promised, to show you some photos of my trip to New Zealand.  Hubby and I enjoyed 14 days on a Cruise ship and I've finally downloaded some of the photos to my computer and thought I would show a few pics of our trip to Mt. Sunday.  For those of you who are Lord of the Rings fans, this is the place where they built the city of Eduras, the Horse Lords Capitol.

Because the harbor in Christchurch is not suitable for Ocean Liners anymore (after the horrendous earthquake of a few of years ago) we actually dropped anchor just off Akaroa, which is a lovely little French style seaside village.  

We boarded a Coach to travel to Mt. Sunday and these are a few piccies taken through the windows.

We stopped at Salmon World for morning tea where we enjoyed the biggest muffins we ever saw.  They were huge so hubby and I shared one and it was still too much.  They were delicious though.

Here we are just outside the valley where Mt. Sunday sits.  Love those snow capped mountains in the background.  If you ever have the opportunity to go to New Zealand don't hesitate ... this place is awesome!!

There are mountains all around this valley and the area is huge.  Makes one feel quite insignificant.

See that small hump in the middle there??  That is Mt. Sunday.  Not terribly imposing compared to the mountains in the background is it?  

That is a river you can see in distance, I think there are two running through this valley.  Afraid I was too overawed to really take in what our Tour Guide was saying.

When the area was first farmed, the workers used to come here every Sunday for a meeting.  No one's really sure what kind of meeting it was, could have been religious or perhaps they went there to gamble or just for a chat.  They used to ride their horses up there and would stay all day.  In time the place came to be known as Mt. Sunday.

This excursion was one of the highlights of our trip.  I  took a lot more photos than what I've shown here but I just picked a few of the best ones.

On our way back  to the ship, in a little place called (quite appropriately) Little River, our bus broke down.

We had to wait for another one to come along.  Luckily it was empty and our Tour Guide persuaded the driver to turn around and take us back to the ship.  Luckily too that we had booked this excursion through the Cruise Line.  We got back after the time that the ship was meant to leave but, because we had made the booking through them, they had to wait for us.  Would not have been much fun trying to chase it up the coast to the next port.

A quick shot through the bus window again as we got close to Akaroa.  Sorry it's so hazy but this was the best of the ones I took.

This wasn't our first stop but these are the first photos I checked.  I have a lot more photos to download and I will share them from time to time.  They won't be in the order that we visited places but I don't think that matters.  As I said before, if you haven't already been to New Zealand and the opportunity presents itself, don't hesitate, it is a fantastic place to visit.  The country is so beautiful and the people are absolutely wonderful.  Hubby and I had a fantastic time.  This was our second visit and I doubt that it will be the last.  Loved it!!

Hope you enjoyed my little picture tour and thank you so much for dropping by.  Enjoy the rest of your day.
Take care and God Bless.