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Today is the day for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! This is the main reason I am in Melbourne in the first place and involves two separate plays one after the other. Robin who is now 10 was asked months ago if he wanted to go, and he said yes.

Today I am back in the car, and this time heading out to Bendigo to do something a bit different and adventurous, I’m heading deep down into a gold mine.

Our second full day in Australia was spent in the centre of Melbourne city. I discovered that big Luke has a handy train station just down the road from his house – so instead of having to drive in we caught a train from Melton Station through to Southern Cross station in the City.

On Sunday the 13th of October, I decided to introduce Robin and Luke to the weird and wonderful wildlife of Australia by visiting the Healesville Sanctuary, which specialises in just Australian wildlife.

Today I’m off to Melbourne for nine days and the main reason is to see the Harry Potter plays!!

We ended up with an Air New Zealand Skycouch, so me sleeping, and Luke watching Paw Patrol

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the official sequels to the books / movies. JK Rowling said she would never write any more Harry Potter books and instead she decided that the next chapter would be a set of two plays instead of novels. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is only available in Melbourne near us, so to Australia it is.

On Sunday the 23rd of June Auckland City had a free public transport day in celebration of reaching 100 million public transport trips in the preceding 12 months. This is a great achievement and shows all the hard work to create a completely new bus route system combined with the new electric trains is working as more and more people are using public transport to get around our city, including me to and from work.

The 6th and final day of the tramp, 10 kilometers to be traveled over gently slowly descending terrain which after yesterday was a nice but what became boring walk.

The fifth day was the longest hardest day of the tramp and involved crossing our second saddle, the Little Wanganui Saddle at 1087 meters with a steep 300 meters climb first up. I was a tad worried about this long day and this big climb, but the climb up to the saddle was actually surprisingly ok.

The fourth day of the tramp was another short day of only 8.6 kilometers through some lovely South Island beech forest but also through some rough patches.

The morning involved climbing up 200 meters to the top of the saddle and the going was actually quite easy. The saddle is at 1009 meters and stone hunt at just under 800 meters so several hundred meters required uphill over several kilometers.

The second day walking the Wangapeka Track was a nice short day of only 8 kilometers with another 200 meters gentle rise during the day.

The first day of the tramp is an easy 11 kilometre walk with just under 200 meters rise in height while walking alongside the Wangapeka River.Most excitingly within 15 minutes Julianne spotted 5 Whio (Blue Duck). The Whio is a very rare NZ bird, and is unusual for a duck in that it lives in fast flowing rapids such as in the Wangapeka River.

For 2019’s walk I decided to head somewhere much more quieter than a Great Walk and instead the Wangapeka Track near the top of the South Island in the Kahurangi National was choosen. The Wangapeka is a six day tramk which is no longer maintained by DOC and due to a cyclone in 2014 has a number of large rock and tree falls you have to clamber over and around.

The two days after the Milford Track and Routeburn Track were a holiday at the other extreme; from tramping to living it up in Queenstown! Having never been to Queenstown I was blown away by the range of activities on offer, all of which are quite expensive. So first up it had to be the Shotover Jet, one of the oldest and most famous attractions in Queenstown.

The final day of the Routeburn Track involves is a short walk of only 9 kilometers all up about 4 hours walking - all up which is either downhill or flat so it was an easy day.

The third day of the Routeburn Track involved going up over the Harris Saddle.

The day started with low cloud cover and off and on rain – so this the one day on the tramps where the weather did not behave, but I can’t complain as the Milford Track was the more important walk.

People normally do the Routeburn Track over a period of three days, but I decided to take my time and do the walk over four days. This gave me plenty of time to enjoy the lovely beech forest of the South Island and to make the most of the expense getting here. As such the previous day had been a short 2 hour walk to Lake Howden. 

After walking the Milford Track, and relaxing in the lovely Milford Sound for 3 days it was time to start walking the Routeburn Track, another of New Zealand's Great Walks. The Routeburn Track is normally done over 3 days, but I have arranged to do the walk over 4 days, as I have come all the way down to fiordland national park, I wanted to spend more time here. 

Yesterday was a lovely day, with the afternoon and evening spent on the water in Milford Sound, and this morning I get to wake up in our little cabin on the Milford Mariner. Quickly I got dressed and headed up for breakfast as the Milford Mariner starts heading out towards the open sea. 

The third and final night at Milford Sound before our second tramp was not spent in our chalet, but instead on the water with with on the Milford Mariner through Real Journeys. There are whole range of boat trips you can do in the Milford Sound ranging from 1 to 3 hours – but I guarantee nothing beats leaving at 4.30pm, staying overnight and leaving at 9am the following day.