we woke up with a few sore heads and set off in the rain to franz joseph. we stopped at this little museam which was about the deer farming and culling which was run by a funny old man called pete who himself used to jump out of a helicopter onto the back of deer to catch them!!?? crazy fool. it was very interesting and you could even eat a possum pie but we declined, just tea thanks... we fed a dead mouse to an eel and someone tried to feed a wild pig which was ...

Today we had a lovely lie in then went on a walk outside aidens house. as they are in the hills they like right next to a national park which we had a fun 2hour wander around. after lunch we went to cable beach which was a lovely stoney beach with a estury on the other side. spectacular photos and realy nice area. we had another lovely tea and pudding and compared travling photos, stories and music over a bottle of wine. a really lovely night and a shame we have ...

day1 we headed out of nelson along to westport. we stopped at the nelson lakes to do what was meant to be a 45 min walk but as we got lost and took the wrong turning it took a bit longer. after retracing all our steps we finally managed to locate the group 200m from where we went wrong... typical. got some great photos of the lakes and resident ducks and had a really fun time skimming stones. after this we made our way to westport where we got cosy round the tv...

today we left kaikoura and headed to a seal colony where we had a 5min break to see them then headed up to picton where the groups split, those going north and those doing the south island (us) we then headed through lots of vineyards and tree plantations to get to Nelson. we saw a lovely rainbow on the way there but the rain soon stoped. we arrived and had a wander around before meeting up with Aiden and going back to meet Sally and the family. we had a yummy me...

we arrived in kaikoura and had booked onto a whale watching trip but due to bad weather it had been cancelled boo. hopefully when we come back here in a couple of weeks we will be able to see some. we went to catch up on some sleep as we were exhausted. in the evening another thai green curry was made yummy and a marathon of movies. great view from the balcony!