Dart Wilderness Tour

Dart River

We enjoyed a locals day trip on the Dart jet which took us on the river around Paradise, which is where they filmed a lot of the LOTR. It included a tour on a minibus, walk and the jet boat ride lasting 3 hrs! You certainly get your money's worth. Even though the weather wasn't too great, the trip was stunning - the boys loved the jet boat part of it. 👍

Mt Hutt

Mt Hutt is part of our ski pass so it cost us nothing to go to the mountain, something we couldn't refuse. We had heard it can be called Mt Shut due to wind, so we gave ourselves a few days incase it was. However, we got lucky and had no problem getting up there and enjoyed two full days with ok snow and it being quiet. 

 It was exciting to see a Keas hanging around the ski field, amazing birds with such character. 

Very happy with the cafe/restaurent setup. The cafe was quite small so we appreciated the choice of going the restaurant and enjoying wedges and chips there!

Ski Season Choice!

It hasn't been the best season for snow but having the choice of The Remarkables and Coronet Peak is an unreal opportunity. They are very different to each other and offer a completely different experience. Remarks definitely has the most consistent/best snow but Coronet has more diversity of runs. First world problems of choosing the right mountain to go to! ;)

Queenstown, Birthdays and Soccer Shirts

Moving out to Frankton means we spend less time on Queenstown, we all miss it so we try to pop in as often as we can.

Tom and Ollie had an amazing soccer party at Shotover School and had a fantastic turn out of school and soccer team buddies.

Being at a smaller school has it's perks. Tom and Ollie did superbly well at the cross-country with Tom coming in second to adulation of the younger students.

Ollie is particulary close to Pixel, or wants to be. Poor thing, never gets a second to herself once he is home!

My wonderful mum sent the boys the best birthday presents ever! The boys mentioned shirts but we were never going to be able to afford to buy them and I think they knew and respected that. For them to turn up in the post once an amazing surprise and the boys wear them all the time. Also, Ollie is officially a football fan watching Utd and England games regularly now. Yeah!!

Pokemon, Nexo Knights and Cross-Country

Tom and Ollie are loving Shotover Primary School and are very proud to be receiving their medal for being the founder students of a new school. We are still a relatively small school and all the attention certainly suits Tom!  T & O have been given lots of opportunities to represent SPS in different sports and they both qualified for the Otago Championships, which was very cool. Alex is loving Wakatipu High School and he also has been given lots of opportunities, although crashing lots during a snowboard lesson was not the best idea!  The bugger is now level 4 for snowboarding as well as level 5 skiing! T & O still love Lego and Nexo Knights is the 'new' set, and I was surprised they were both so keen to buy into it - which is great. They both regularly invite mates round to have battles etc, long may it continue!  Tom created a Pokemon shirt for a friend's birthday, very talented artist and not afraid to do his own thing for his mates. His friend loved it. :)

Spring Skiing

This wasn't the best season due to the high temperatures for this time of the year and lack of snow. However, we made the most of the season with some great walks from our house and we did sneak up to Coronet for night skiing, which was dangerous fun! Oli and I fell down a hole or two. Even with a lack of snow, Remarkable held out really well and there was still a lot of fun to be had on all the runs, although Shadow Basin is a particular favourite. 

Check the NZ ski website for Remarkables.

Monarch Wilderness Tour

This was a fantastic trip. There was plenty of wildlife but the two guides were amazing, they spent most of the tour answering the boy's questions - not once did they walk away or move on quickly. Their genuine enthusaism made the actual tour really interesting and we did get to see Albatrosses up super close but the big winner was the seal on the trip back - only in NZ!

Checkout their website for more info! 

Orokonui Ecosanctuary

Alex won a collection of freebies from a Dunedin Festival, this voucher entitled us all to visit the park with a self-guided tour. This was a great morning out because the boys were very keen to see the native birds and animals. Alex was particularly excited to be our bossy guide. They weren't so happy about Fran's 2 hr diversion to find NZ's tallest tree! 

Link to their website. 

Brighton Beach, Dunedin

About 20 mins south out from the city, the town is nothing - a diary, thats it! But, a beautiful and quiet beach to enjoy. :)