After the Rob Roy Glacier walk we headed towards Arrowtown on the crown range which is the highest road in NZ. It was a really nice drive with amazing scenery. We pulled into a picnic spot to make a brew, Casson got out to have a look whilst I put the kettle on. The van door was open and I noticed a lot of little black flies in the van, wait these were no ordinary black flies, they were the dreaded sandflies, I did a half leap, half roll to get to the door as quickly as possible to shut it and started killing the little bas%tards that were still in the van.

Casson came back to the van and as he opened the door I'm shouting "quick, get in, sandflies"! He thought I was being overly dramatic as he hadn't seen any outside but he soon changed his mind. The van windows were covered in them. Any kind of biting fly loves me so I can safely say that the sandfly bites are some of the itchiest I've ever had and I didn't want anymore, we would both wake up in the night scratching our legs off! It was so bad that rather than getting out the van to get in the front we climbed through from the back. We spent the next few miles driving watching the little rascals cling on for dear life and cheered every time one flew off (van fever continues)

That night we camped on the highest point of the road, amazing views and an amazing sunset. In the morning on the drive down to Arrowtown the views were unreal, there was mist so thick on the lake it looked like it was covered in clouds.

We got to Arrowtown and it was absolutely freezing but beautiful, the trees were all changing into autumn colours and the town itself is a historic old gold mining town. We went for a walk round the old Chinese settlement which was really interesting and then headed towards Lake Hayes.

Lake Hayes is lovely, as it was such a nice day we walked the whole way round it and then decided to head into Queenstown. We really like Queenstown, it has a nice feel to it, we treated ourselves to a brew and a piece of cake each then headed back to Lake Hayes to watch the sunset and to camp for the night.

Next stop proper night out in Queenstown .....