While the boys were out
conquering Edoras and Rohan, the girls decided to head for the mountains to do a little exploring of our own.
We took the
TranzAlpine train from Christchurch to Arthur's Pass for the day. It was a scenic 2 1/2 hour train ride over the Canterbury Plains and into the Southern Alps through 16 tunnels to reach
Arthur's Pass, the South Island's highest settlement (900m above sea level - which explains our exhaustion on the hikes!).
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| Ready to depart Christchurch |
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| Hmmmm… this is fun... |
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| In one of the 16 tunnels |
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| As always, it's so hard to capture the view, but it was an amazing one from the train |
Once we reached the train station at Arthur's Pass, we checked out the village. That consisted of: a park information centre, two restaurants/shops, some backpackers accommodations and several cabins all on one street and took about 10 minutes to see it all. We did spot a
Kea bird right away, which was one thing we were hoping to see!
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Julia and a Kea bird (a "mountain parrot")
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At the Arthur's Pass National Park information centre, the park rangers had some great ideas and suggestions of hikes that would suit our little group. We started out on the Millennium Walk.
After admiring such a beautiful little waterfall on that walk, we moved on up the road a bit to tackle the Devil's Punchbowl Track.
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| Now THAT is a waterfall! |
After some refreshment at the local eatery, we hiked along the river and just took in the most amazing scenery.
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| She's becoming quite the tramper! |
And before we knew it, it was time to get back on the train and return to Christchurch.
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We kind of liked the outdoor observation car on the train
(for a very small amount of time) |
It was a great girl's day out and one we'll always remember!
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