I have added a few more photos to the “Heading Back to Auckland with Driver Terry” Folder. These are the photos we took from the Sky Tower and Auckland township. There are also a couple of “Stitched” panoramic photos there too.

I have added some more photos again. This time the journey to Rotorua.
This includes photos of hedging, Corregated sheep, dog, shepherd etc.
An extinct Moa bird statue and the Agrodome.

Also included was another photo taken the evening we went on the steamship the ‘Earnslaw’ to the Colonel’s Homestead at Windsor Peak Sheep Station.
This is across Lake Wakatipu from Queenstown.
The photos brought back a wave of memories of the time in NZ again.
Thank you Ann & Baron.

After spending 10 days in beautiful Portland and enjoying all the charms of the region, we headed to Cohuna to visit family there.
After 2 days catching up with everyone and enjoying a celebratory dinner for Fiona’s birthday, we hooked up again and headed off to Albury.
We had arranged with a guy, (David), to install our new Solar Panel in readiness for our big trip.
After enduring a very hot night and even hotter morning whist the panel and electrics were installed, we finally hitched up again and travelled home. Home Sweet Home!
It was so good to be back.
I finally got my new laptop too, as Coral had arranged to get it delivered to her place, in our absence.
Now I have the work of setting it up as we like it.
Matt networked it to our router and we can now be on the net in any room in the house. These wireless connections are great.
Unfortunately we both came home with a virus, so haven’t been up to doing too much.
So when we are feeling a bit better, we will begin to look at putting some more photos on the Gallery of our New Zealand trip. Only now we have more photo’s of our Christmas holidays.

We have been very busy tonight organising photos from our time in the Portland Region over the Christmas break.

We headed off on Boxing Day to enjoy time with family and friends for a time of rest and relaxation. After the hectic time of shopping and cooking for Christmas and packing ready for our annual vacation we spent the first couple of days recouperating around the caravan park. After usual shopping for essentials for the week, we decided it was time to check out the surrounding sites.
First port of call was a trip to Bridgewater Bay to check out the Petrified Forest and Blowhole.
It was a warm and very windy day with plenty of flies to annoy us.
This is an awesome place, where the forces of wind and the sea have carved out the area of limestone coast to what it is today.
There is an information board to describe how the petrified forest came into being. Interesting!

We then moved on to Brigewater Lakes for a picnic lunch. This is a lovely tranquil place with a grassed area with tables and seats. There is also a boat ramp there.
There were other families here with littlies and teenagers water skiing on the lake too. So it is obviously a popular site with the locals.

After eating our lunch we packed up to discover the surrounding areas.
We didn’t need to travel far when we came upon the Tarragal Caves. We enjoyed climbing the steep hill to investigate these mysterious caves and check out Mary’s ‘lady’. (She wasn’t so impressive up close).

This is the site where Evan took the lovely photo looking back over the Bridgewater Lakes area from inside the cave. He so graciously allowed me to copy it to add to the Gallery. Thank you Evan.

We visited Cape Nelson Lighthouse as well. This is such a windy place that they there is a solid concrete wall to shelter you when you walk from the house to the lighthouse. It is a very rugged coastline here and easy to see how the ships of old came to grief along these coasts. You can see why there is a need for a lighthouse in this area.

Another place of interest is the Gannett Colony. This is situated at Point Danger, behind Alcoa and on Lawrence Rock. There are thousands of Gannett’s at both these places. There is an information board.

The last day in Portland, we took the tourist tram to see the sites around town. It was a great way to get an overview of the township and what there is to see. One of the stops along this route was at the Model Railways Tourist Museum. (Not sure of the title of this place). It was very interesting and there were models of the original layout of the port in the very early shipping days. This is fascinating. The tram also circum-navigated the town and the conductor pointed out the old buildings and homes that are heritage listed. The turn-around point for the tram was at the old Water Tower, which is now used as a War Museum. We found this informative and the views from the top of the tower, with its 360° windows, overlooking both the town and harbour, were fantastic. We did take a few photos from here, some of them panoramic.
After leaving the tram, we walked through the botanical gardens. (we were a little late for the rose garden and too early for the dahlia display). There is an historic caretaker’s house in the gardens that is over 100 years old. We quickly looked at the council offices, library, and courthouse. The courthouse is the original building and is still in use today. On our travels we came upon a willy-wagtail who was obviously nesting, as he was very concerned about our presence.

Portland is a very busy harbour. There were ships coming and going the whole time we were there. We even got to see on oil rig being towed out of there. And there is an old whaling pot on the foreshore as a reminder of the old whaling days.
We had a lovely holiday in Portland and will one day return.