We left the North Island today and travelled to Picton on the Inter-Islander Ferry. The crossing was really smooth and the scenery coming into Picton was amazing! The first thing we did was to collect our hire-car; a 1994 model Nissan Sunny, in light brown... classic. "Sunny" then took us to our overnight stop-off in Okiwi Bay, located in the heart of Marlborough Sounds. The landscape of this region is fantastic, the height of the fjords and the thickness of the rainforest are just amazing, your jaw just sits open the whole time. Our campsite at Okiwi Bay was quiet and picturesque, but we really loved the local beach, set in its own secluded bay, absolutely perfect.

The next day we decided to explore the fjordland a bit more and drove out to a place called French Pass, not quite sure why it was called that. I told Sheona that there were loads of French people there, but I don't think she bought it. The drive out there was really good, though some of the road was not on tarmac so it was the first real test for Sunny who passed it with driving colours. Again, I'm sorry to harp on about this, but the scenery was really good, you can see from the photos. Anyone who is thinking of visiting NZ needs to pay a visit to Marlborough. We continued on until we arrived at Nelson in the North of the South Island.

-B