Tuesday 24th November Papatowai beach was quite remarkable. From the campsite the short path lead down through wind sculpted trees to the side of the sandy estuary. As we ran out to the sea the early morning sun was rising up through misty haze that hovered over the breaking surf. There were oyster catchers calling on the shore and bellbirds and tuis chiming in the forest. As the tide and the river flowed out to sea, we watched, fascinated, as a small tidal wav...

Monday 23rd November Southland - The Catlins Coastal Rainforest Park. The south coast was a very wild and windswept place. Despite our sheltered spot in the dunes we were buffeted a lot during the night. On waking it was some time before we could think of a good enough reason to do anything other than sit up in bed watching the surf! The motivation arrived in the form of more sunny weather. The sandy beach had a curious tump called Monkey Island used by ancie...

Saturday 21st November Fiordland National Park We were startled to find that it was already 9am when we awoke today. Must have been something to do with yesterday's trek! It was slightly unnerving to suddenly be aware of lying with our feet higher than our heads and quite a challenge to sit up, get out of bed and stand up on a sloping floor... We had parked on quite a slope. This produced the novel experience of our washing up water having a deep end and a sh...

Sunday 22nd November Te Anau. The weather forecast fooled us again! Expecting to wake up to steady rain and high winds we were planning a dreary day driving south, windscreen wipers on full. Te-dah! Cur bright blue skies, white fluffy clouds and a light mild breeze. Our 'Great Views Fiordland Holiday Park' lived up to its name, and was excellent in all ways. Fully replenished with clean clothes, fresh water, charged batteries etc we were ready to set off int...

Friday 20th November The Routeburn Track, Glenorchy. It was a turbulent night of wind and rain and we could feel the van being buffeted despite our careful manoeuvring into what we thought would be a sheltered spot. The weather forecast from the DOC sounded grim... heavy rain - up to 3.3cm tomorrow morning - with snow above 700metres and a cold wind giving a predicted wind chill of minus 5. The afternoon looked rather better. We excitedly planned a cosy lie-i...