Another South Island Road Trip

With another round of visitors here, I completed another tour of the South Island by car. But this time, I was able to check out a new place, Stewart Island, which is below the South Island of New Zealand. The rest was comfortably familiar, and I know where my favorite spots are without needing much map assistance. It only takes a couple years to start settling in to a country of this size, it seems.
 
Before we left Christchurch for our road trip, we drove along Summit Road in the Port Hills for great views of the coastal areas. We saw hang-gliders and sheep and stopped at the farmer's market in Lyttelton, where a cheeky sign introduced them to NZ humor.

 
On the road trip heading to Stewart Island, we stopped at Moeraki Boulders and Dunedin, where the weather was very decent.

young seagull squeaking in the nests on Otago Peninsula

Railway Station

finally went inside the big church in Dunedin, very beautiful

plum crumble at hipster cafe, Morning Magpie

After Stewart Island, we drove to Queenstown and enjoyed a burger at Fergburger and ice cream at Patagonia. On the way out of town, we stopped to watch the bungy-jumpers and hit my favorite fruit stand. I got the blueberry 'real fruit ice cream' with cookies 'n cream ice cream as the base (the flavor combo worked, surprisingly!) and they tried the cherry and mixed berry with vanilla ice cream. We also snagged a bunch of 'seconds' fruit that was cheaper than the regular fruit, including apricots and cherries.

After a wonderful day in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, we headed back to Christchurch to enjoy more Whittaker's chocolate and made a pavlova (meringue-type cake) with the pre-made store base plus whipped cream and strawberries and green kiwi fruit. We also finally checked out the newly-built Margaret Mahy Playground in the evening and it was quite fun (the young adults and teens come out after the little kids have gone home, and there's a security guard on duty so it's safe).