We have had a quiet, uneventful few days as we travelled from Franz Josef to Nelson and then onto Picton to take the ferry over to the North Island.

We stopped off at an interesting little coastal walk in a town called Punakaiki. The walk had interesting rocks protruding from the sea that looked like stacks of pancakes and gave them their name, the pancake rocks. It was a very pretty walk and at high tide the sea crashes up through blowholes and is by all accounts, very impressive.

The rest of the drive between Greymouth and Westport on the west coast was very pretty as we drove along the cliffs and had a great view of the sun setting over the coast.

We spent a very cold night at a DoC campsite in the Upper Bueller George just outside of Murchison before continuing our drive up to Nelson the following morning.

Nelson is a very nice town, it reminded me of a big, modern Yorkshire village with hanging baskets everywhere around the town. We had a mooch around here, visited the cathedral and looked in the jewellery shop owned by the designer of the one ring that was used in 'Lord of the Rings' to keep Ruth happy! We had to give in our email addresses and were then allowed to have a picture with a giant replica ring, although I'm not really sure why everyone would really want that but we did it anyway! We were recommended to stay in a cheap campsite which was very nice and also meant we could have a hot shower for the pricey rate of $2.

Our last full day on the south island was spent walking in the Rai valley along the Nydia track. The walking track itself was in very overgrown bush so for the most part, the views weren't great, but as we got further up and found a gap in the trees we could see down across the forest to the lake and sound below which was very nice. There is also a cottage to stop at that was built by the first settlers to the area and you can look inside where they have set the interiors up in late 1800s style decor and furniture.

As we still had a few hours of daylight, we decided to drive straight through to Picton and after much deliberation, settled on a cheap DoC campsite outside of town. As it is so dark at night we get a great starry view and are very appreciative of the flushing toilets provided here over the usual compost ones we have had to get used to.

We had a relaxed morning enjoying the good weather, before driving back to Picton to get the ferry over to Wellington on the north island.

We are now half way through our time in New Zealand and our campervan experience. Time is really passing us by now so we just have to make the most of every moment of our last month :)

Amy. x