Changes in Latitudes

On Wednesday I joined Marius, Pancho, Rigmor, Tron and Katrine at the cabin for typical Norwegian Easter festivities: skiing, lots of eating and more skiing. We don't have typical Easter weather (warm and sunshine), rather we have been getting more snow and it is a chilly 15 degrees C. Mom and Dad have given me a couple of my own Easter traditions: listening to Handel's Messiah and eventually watching Life of Brian. Katrine treated us to some Icelandic Easter candy (a large chocolate egg filled with chocolate and licorice) and Icelandic white ale. We hunted for our Easter egg yesterday which Tron really enjoyed. It's a scavenger hunt of sorts and the egg is filled with candy. Pancho has been getting plenty of exercise, attention and sleep. Struggling with snow sticking to our skis. We chose the wrong wax. Pancho rolling in the snow  Sleepy puppy More struggle with the snow conditions  Marius preparing his skis

We drove out from Lake Wanaka and past Lake Hawea towards Tarras. Tarras was put on the map in 2004 when " Shrek the Sheep " was found in a cave, having avoided being sheared for six years! He became quite the sensation, being taken on tour before eventually being sheared in front of 200 people and on live television. There we stopped in the little store for some small souvenirs and an ice cream. Continuing on we stopped at a town called Twizel to get some information on Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and the dark sky reserve. This part of New Zealand has the world's largest dark sky reserve, which boasts the best stargazing...we decided to not stay the night though since we had some amazing nights before that. When we got to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park we got some advice on how to not take too long of a hike but also get some great views. The little known trail, Red Tarns, was recommended to us and we were happy we did it. From the top we had a great view of A...

From Greymouth we drove south along the west coast of New Zealand. This was the only day we had bad weather. The rain poured pretty hard, and I was a little bummed because Mount Aspiring National Park was what I was really excited to see and get in some nice hiking, but we still stopped along the way through the park for short (30 min) walks in the rain. The road that goes through the park is called the Haast Highway ...our stops included Fantail Falls, Blue Pools (not pictured), and Makaroa before we called it a day. [Rain on the GoPro ...looking at Franz Josef glacier] [cairns in front of Fantail Falls] [Marius adding his cairn] [We are big fans of picnic lunches when we're on a road trip] [soup, bread, cheese, rice crackers, hummus and coffee] [Entering Mount Aspiring National Park] [We were supposed to see Aoraki/Mount Cook really well from this side, but the clouds did not let us] [Cell phone service is really spotty and often nonexist...