Vacation Pictures (New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa)

[Mike K]

Sorry to disappoint, but my vacation hasn't started yet. I intend to post all my pictures in this thread, so right now all I can do is ramble on about my plans, because I am bored waiting for my flight to get here tomorrow.

My winter contract is up and tomorrow I am scheduled to depart Antarctica. In February, I flew from DFW, to Sydney, to Christchurch (stuck there for 8 days due to weather delays), then to McMurdo Station via this route:


It will be a 6-hour flight north, back to Christchurch on a C-17. Here are some pictures from last year when I made the same trip:





My plans in general are:
3 weeks traveling around the south island of New Zealand
5 days Gold Coast (just south of Brisbane), Australia
1 day / 2 nights Johannesburg, South Africa

Route around New Zealand:


I plan on continuing west to travel all the way around the world. One of my bucket list goals is to be on all 7 continents. Right now I have Australia, Africa, and South America left (I don't count layovers in airports). This vacation will knock out Australia and Africa.

Here is my route home (also shows my trip down from February):


Stay tuned for pictures...

[soap]

Cool.

[Unicorn Jeff]

Nice man! My parents went to New Zealand for 2 weeks back in august. They said it was beautiful and amazing.

[8mpg]

Awesome man... I have always wanted to travel to all 7 continents. Austrailia and Antarctica are the only ones left. Antarctica is the hardest and you knocked that one out of the park

[soap]

Let's see if you can get a savanna cat in your hotel.

[Mike K]

Well, I am in New Zealand. That is the first time I have left the ice on my scheduled date! Only down side is that my girlfriend and I don't actually start our vacation until Friday, because we planned a couple days in assuming we were going to have flight delays due to bad weather.

But here are a couple pictures from yesterday.

Our transport out to the airfield.


The plane landing! Weather was iffy and they even flew in an hour early to try and get in before some forecasted bad weather. It doesn't take much to cancel a flight down here, they like to play it safe. Fortunately, the C17 holds enough fuel to fly down, circle overhead for a couple hours if it can't land, then fly back to Christchurch. The Airbus that comes down every now and then (passengers only, no cargo) does not have that option. It's PSR (point of safe return) is about an hour away, so once it gets here and we have a snap of bad weather (and yes, the weather can change at a moment's notice) it must land.

[Z06killinsbf]

Nice!

[Tremor14]

too cold

[helosailor]

Ice ice baby

too cold

[cobrajet69]

Hella cool!


David

[Mike K]

**All pictures were resized by Imgur, so the quality probably isn’t 100%**

Ok, sorry there were no updates to this thread. The charger for my computer broke and I had no way of uploading the pictures from my camera. As a matter of fact, I had to buy another memory card so I could keep taking pictures. I was going to post everything in chronological order, but when I got to Wanaka (where my computer charger stopped working) I had already uploaded pictures up until that point. I mailed my computer home, so I wouldn’t have to lug it around, but it has not showed up yet. So, I guess I will have to start in Wanaka and update everyone on my first half of New Zealand once my computer gets here.

Here are just some random shots I took while driving around the south island. All were taken from a moving car, nothing special, but you see how amazing New Zealand is.





Wanaka

This is kind of a lame part to start off with. After traveling around Amberley (just north of Christchurch –where my girlfriend lives), Christchurch, Dunedin, and Milford sound, it was non-stop. I spent the first week meeting friends and family, so we planned Wanaka as a spot where we could relax. We were actually staying at her bosses batch (what they call a vacation home) so we did 5 days there, and it was free.

We were a block from the lake and spent most of our time just hanging out and going on walks. Like everywhere else in New Zealand, the views were amazing. I have a couple other pictures (long exposures with a 10-stop ND filter, but those are on my computer)


Warbirds & Wheels Musium
Just down the street was a small museum by a private investor dedicated to old warbirds and classic cars. There is a HUGE gathering once a year, but this is just the small museum.

[Mike K]

Fox Glacier
Hands down the best part of my trip. We did a helo-hike of Fox Glacier on the west coast (Franz Joseph glacier is right next door). A quick 5-min helo ride on top of the Glacier, then a guided tour around for a couple hours. The trip almost got canceled due to a low ceiling (low hanging clouds) but they went for it anyway and it all worked out.

The view from our motel and my girlfriends car.

[Mike K]

Our guide clearing the way.

[Mike K]

A couple guides working together (can’t see the others working inside) to setup a new route. We were actually one of the first groups to up for the upcoming season and they were still clearing areas.







Flying back out.

[Mike K]

Pancake Rocks
After leaving Fox Glacier, we started to head for Karamea, but made a quick stop about half way to see the pancake rocks. The waves eroding away at the limestone made some pretty neat formations.




Sometimes the erosion would cause blowholes in the rocks.