WELCOME TO WANAKA 2024

As most of you know we now travel each year to New Zealand for a period of about two months.  Our youngest son, Dan, lives here on the South Island in a ski town called Wanaka if you want to check it out.  Dan is married to Annie and has three children, Phoebe, Malcie and Iris, ages 15, 13 and 10.  Dan is a software engineer and can work from anywhere in the world.  They moved to NZ four years ago after spending 12 years in Palo Alto, the center of the so called Silicon Valley.  Annie is a native New Zealander.

 

Our trip:  we flew out of Phoenix on Monday at 3:30 pm and arrived in Queenstown on Wednesday at 10:00 am.  Dan was there to pick us up for the one hour ride to Wanaka. The elapsed time was 27 hours! Incidentally, the drive from Queenstown to Wanaka is one of my favorite rides of all time as we drive up and over one of the most scenic mountain views anywhere.  Although no snow was on the road there was plenty on the mountain.  

 

We could not have had a more on time collection of plane trips (3).   Interestingly the flights were not full and as a special treat we were upgraded by Air New Zealand into business class for the 12 hour flight from Los Angeles to Auckland.  While Auckland is the largest city in NZ by far, it is not the capital.  The capital is Wellington, a beautiful city on the very south tip on the north island. 

 

The home Dan rented for us is very nice and is only about two miles from his house and less than one mile from school.  The grandkids routinely stop by our place after school and feast on snacks put out by Joan.  They usually bring a friend or two and it’s fun to listen to their banter. Lots of goofiness and laughter!  We love it.

 

So, we have been here a week with about six more to go.  Jetlag has faded into the past and we are getting into a routine. Of course it is winter down here with temperatures  in the high 30’s to low 50’s. Wanaka is only at 1200 feet elevation but is very, very far south, hence the temps. Quite the change from Arizona. I’m going to try to do a posting once a week and hopefully the next will be a little more interesting. Anyway I got the first one done!!