After spending a little over a week on the South Island of New Zealand, we flew up to Auckland. We arrived after the devastating floods that closed the airport and caused a lot of damage throughout the city. We stayed in a central area and Brennan took advantage of this by doing some running through the parks. Auckland is much hillier than I was expecting, so I was extra impressed by his dedication to running!

We left Lake Tekapo and drove west, heading to Queenstown. It was a 3 hour drive, but a lot of the road was between mountains so it was very winding. We were able to stop off for a nice viewing area, called "Roaring Meg" just before getting into the Queenstown area. 

We left Christchurch and headed to the middle of the South Island. This part of our trip to New Zealand was the most challenging to plan and I was not really looking forward to it. I'm so glad I was wrong though-it was the best few days!

We rented a car in Christchurch and started driving west. Brennan did excellent driving on the left side of the road while sitting on the right side of the car! We enjoyed mountains around us and the 3 hour drive was relatively uneventful. 

Our time in Wellington was brief because we had more adventures planned! We woke up early and left our hotel to head to the ferry port. We took a 3 hour ferry across the Cook Straits from the North island of New Zealand to the South island. 

The ferry was large and had many seating areas, a few cafes and an outdoor viewing deck. We didn't spend much time outside because it was so windy, but it helped with my slight case of seasickness. 

Our time in Fiji came to an end, but we had a new country to visit-New Zealand!

When we got to the airport and checked in, we saw this bright sign. I guess common sense isn't always common?