The South Island

People who are from the South Island of New Zealand are very proud of it. In fact, they think it's by far the best island out of the two. Some even go so far as to say they consider Auckland part of Australia, and trust me, that is not good. :) We enjoyed our trip to the south island, but I personally did not think it was better than the north island. They are both beautiful, but different. I have enjoyed each of them. There are so many pictures we have, that I'll have to put them on a few days in a row.

To get to the south island you can either fly, or ride on a ferry. We did the ferry, since we were going to be doing a lot of driving on the south island. It is about a three hour ride from Wellington (the capital of New Zealand and at the bottom of the north island) to Picton (much smaller town on the top of the south island).

I guess I'll just start at the beginning of our trip and show you a few pictures that stick out to me. This first one is actually still on the north island and I cannot remember what it is called, but is was a really fast river and waterfall. It would be so fun to whitewater raft down it, until you reach the falls, that is. But some people would still love to do that too. :) The water was so blue/green! It was really pretty, and really loud.

We took "the Desert Road" down the north island, and drove past Mount Ruapehu, or as it is now commonly known, Mount Doom!


After crossing over into the south island we stopped at a really nice winery and tasted some samples of their wine and bought a bottle to enjoy later. There are so many vineyards it was amazing to look at! I don't know how they keep track of all that.

This is a picture Travis took just off the side of the road we were traveling on. It's not often you can see snowcapped mountains and the beach in one glance. Maybe that is what people are referring to when bragging about the beauty of the south island.

That is all for now. Travis is cooking dinner and I think it's almost ready. I will carry on tomorrow!