Simon's despatch no. 4: Kaikoura The aquatic theme continued in Kaikoura. We were up good & early to watch the sun rise over the sea ready for our dolphin encounter. Essentially togged up in wetsuits so thick they'd make a whale feel over insulated, we cruised out to an area where the ocean floor comes very close to land, bringing an upwelling of food laden water to the surface. Luck was with us and a bunch of dolphins came to play. So as the engines were c...

Simon's despatch no. 3: Abel Tasmin It's been a very aquatic five days. First we were supposed to kayak the Abel Tasmin trail but there was more water falling from the sky than in the sea. So we delayed it by a day and went to see the largest natural water spring in Australasia. 15,000 litres of water per second erupts from the ground every second to create a river from no-where! Sounds really impressive but as it's spread across a number of upwellings it jus...

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...