New Zealand

The flight attendant grissled, "we've been paging you. You've held up the plane!". Hmmm, maybe we shouldn't have taken so long to savour the flavours of our McDonalds breakfast. Or maybe we shouldn't have put Lachy's toy magnets in his bag which got airport security a little paranoid when they scanned his carry-on luggage.

But then another person arrived on the plane later than we did so we didn't feel so bad anymore. The pilot later announced that another plane had blocked the runway so we had to take of late anyway.

The weather was fine and the flight had no unexpected bumps, so Lachy took this flight much better than the flight to the Gold Coast earlier this year.



We spent the first night in Christchurch, then headed for the station to catch the Trans-Alpine train ride to Greymouth.






From there we picked up a car and drove down to the Glacier region. In the morning we trekked at Fox Glacier. We enjured treacherous terrain, dodged rock slides and faced bad directions, to arrive at the foot of the glacier. And there, we were to find it had been roped off to prevent us reaching the ice that we'd hyped up so much when telling stories to Lachy.


We jumped back in the car and headed back to Franz Josef Glacier for another hike. It started to rain by then which made it more interesting and you were able to get a little closer to the glacier at Franz Josef.

Then it was up to Hokitika for a night before heading to Methvan and Mt Hutt from some snow.







 

The day we went up, the weather was pretty wet on the snow fields and visibility deteriorated during the morning to the point you could hardly see the chair in front of you.



We put Lachy into the Skiwiland class, he did really well and really enjoyed his first time on the snow. Only down point was he got real hungry and started crying during the end of the lesson. After scoffing down some pizza he was out playing in the snow again before we drove the down the mountain half blind in the heavy fog. The mountain was closed the next day due to the weather conditions and we headed back to Christchurch for a couple of easy days before heading home. This included visiting the casino that Lachy wasn't allowed in to, so he had to sleep outside on a park bench while he waited for us - just kidding :o).

Click here to see the full set of photos plus a short video we managed to take of Lachy's first ski.

Blue Moutains - Little Holiday

For the ANZAC day weekend we headed off to the Blue Mountains. We only spent a couple of days there so Lachy has dubbed it our Little Holiday.


We stayed at the Oaks Spires in Leura and visited the Three Sisters, Scenic World and Jenolan Caves like good tourists.

Trish had organised to go up there for a few days and mentioned it to us, so we booked a night up there too. Lachy got to play with Henry and Sarah just like on the Gold Coast holiday.

On Saturday we trolley bus'd it to Echo point, bush trekked across to the east end Scenic World station, flew across the Skyway, caught the Railway down and just made it onto the Skycable back in the nick of time to catch the last trolley bus back to Leura.

Steve and Cindy's mum also came up for the Jenloan Caves on Sunday. Steve ended up being the nanny since all the kids liked him so much.

We initially intended to do the Imperial Cave tour because that was the easiest one. It happened to be booked out so we did the Chifley cave instead which is a level harder and has 421 steps. Lachy walked for over an hour in there and did each step himself.

That afternoon we also did a small bush walk down to the Pulpit Rock lookout at Blackheath. Amazing view. Cindy and I were quite surprise that Lachy managed to do so much walking - bush walking and walking the caves. We now know what those little legs are capable of - mum ad dad don't have to carry him as much anymore!!

Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next

Just got back from the Gold Coast, our first holiday in over 3 years. It was great fun. However, when we arrived last week, we were thinking that the person who came up with the "Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next " phrase needs to be shot. We arrived in dismal weather and the forecast was for more of the same for the next week.

Click here to see the full photo album.

For our flight up there, the weather meant the visibility was poor so the plane had some trouble landing. Luckily (well, sort of) after aborting one attempted landing (in a very rough way that was not very kind to our stomachs) the plane circled for a while and our pilot was able to land. Other fights were diverted to Brisbane. After being all excited about getting on an aeroplane, Lachy didn't like aeroplanes much after that episode.


Given the weather was forecast to be bad for the whole week, we braved it and went to Sea World on the 2nd day. We were prepared and bought ponchos the night before. Most people on the day got them at Sea World - all you could see were masses of ponchos. It was still OK - not much queueing for rides and etc. Lachy says that Sea World was his favourite out of the theme parks. Cindy and I took turns to go on a few rides when Lachy had a nap - the joys of parenthood :o)

The weather cleared up after the 2nd day and was fine for the rest of our time in Qld. The weather reports did not change though. It was still forcast to rain for the week. Trust no-one, especially the weather-man. It was killer hot on our last theme-park day at Dream World.

On alternate days we ventured to Movie World and Dream World. For the first time the young lad got to drive by himself in the dodgem cars and car track, his little legs just barely managed to tap against the accelerator. He admitted himself he was a bit slow ;o)

I think the best theme park was Movie World, the shows there were quite entertaining. The highlight at Dream World was the Big Red Car and the Rapid River Ride. The Sponge Bob Concert struck me as a bit of a dud however little boy loved it. We managed to miss the bus as we tried to squeeze in one last river ride. Queue was long, ride was ok and as we rushed out the exit to the car park we managed to see a glimpse of our bus taking off without us. Luckily we managed to get on a public bus that came shortly after.

On the other days we bummed around on the beach and the resort pool. Lachy took a few tumbles and ended up doing a face plant with sand in his mouth. That left him very much unimpressed with the beach. He was having a good time up until then. He liked the pool at the resort much better. So much so that he wouldn't get out even when his lips were purple from being too cold.

We bumped into Henry and Sarah on the bus transfer back to the airport. Henry said "I thought I saw Baby Lachy when I saw a little boy with a round face". They were up at Surfers for a couple of days with their grand parents and we got same flight back making lots of noise on the plane together.

Xmas break

Cindy and I are back at work after a very hot Xmas break and lots of quality time with the little boy and all his new toys.

But not wanting to get too carried away with working, we'll be taking Lachy off to the Gold Coast in a couple of weeks time. It will be his first plane trip so he's pretty excited.

Welcome

Welcome to Mikey's blog.