Sitting in a tiny bunkhouse lounge with rain falling steadily outside and my damp trousers gently steaming in the hear of the log fire, it's hard to remember that the last few days have actually been beautifully sunny... Like this one, we delayed our plans and waited out the last rainfall back at Fox glacier. The fronts seem to do a two-way pincer movement in these parts and high pressure sets in pretty reliably afterwards. It cleared up just lovely last time an...

After giving our feet a chance to recover from our 3-day Routeburn tramp, we headed off to Doubtful Sound for a spot of kayaking. Doubtful is the shy cousin of glamorous superstar Milford Sound. The only way to get there is by taking a 40 minute boat ride over lake Manapouri and then a 20 minute bus journey over an unsealed service road. Once we got there we had the massive fjord to ourselves as we paddled along all day watching birds and fish in the dappled suns...

Simon's 2nd depatch: After a day of washing and sourcing food & sleeping bags we began our first big adventure - a three day tramp in the "wilderness" along the route burn track. It's a old route through the lowest pass in the humboldt mountains, with glorious views of the area as the whole 2nd day is spent above the tree line >1000m. However as the 1st hut's warden pointed out, NZ's fiordland is the 3rd wettest place on earth after Hilo Hawaii (2nd) &am...

Simon's first set of dispatches: After an epic couple of days flying we realised that on top of losing the in-car charger we'd also managed to lose a day?!? I think this now makes me technically a day younger than everyone else who hasn't crossed the dateline so Leo and Claire Brittain watch out I'm gaining on you! Queenstown was gloriously hot and sunny. After we'd checked into the teenage mega-city that is the nomads hostel, we headed up the skyline gondola t...