After Hanmer Springs we drove north to camp at a rather small and busy DoC site near Kaikoura, ready for the next day's activities. Now for a boring bit... Kaikoura is a small peninsula that sticks out into the Pacific, close inland are 2000+ m peaks and not very far offshore is a deep ocean trench. The mixing of the sea currents in this area produces lots of food and means there is potentially lots of marine life to see. In the morning we drove to the sea fro...

The travelling lifestyle affords a few luxuries, things we'd take for granted in day to day like... a full night of sleep, an occasional cold beer, a shower or a good meal. It's easy most of the time to be very happy just being in these amazing places seeing and experiencing new things but very occasionally, when its cold/dark/raining and you're sleep deprived/living off tinned food/itchy from sandfly bites/not had a shower for 5 days then it's easy to fantasise ...

After 2 nights in Queenstown we headed north and west (or northwest if you prefer). Firstly we climbed a steep switchback road and avoided cyclists doing the same thing as we crossed the Crown Range north of Queenstown on the way to Wanaka. This was a pleasant enough place but there wasn't much to see or do and there were plenty of camera-wielding Japanese tourists so we carried on. The road was gradually climbing and we came across a busy car park by a DoC sign ...

Neither of us were quite sure what to make of Queenstown. We'd been told by lots of people how nice it was, and the scenery certainly is pretty with the expansive lake (17x the surface area of Windermere), gorgeous autumnal trees and The Remarkables mountains towering above. The road into Queenstown is lined with motels, most with big glass windows to boast of the fireplaces and white leather sofas inside, and there were more shops bars and restaurants than any...

From Geraldine the road turned west and inland. The scenery changed to rolling hills of grey soil covered in tussocky yellow grass which looked much more beautiful than the description would have you believe. Almost in the centre of the South Island is Lake Tekapo. It is a huge turquoise lake which was incredibly still and offered lovely reflections of the surroundings. The colour of the lake was emphasised by the yellow, autumnal willow trees that lined part ...