...I woke up in the car a little cold despite having spent the night on a beach in the summer :D...I drove to the nearest town of any size (2 hours) for breakfast, passing a string of similar sounding villages (Takaka, East Takaka, Upper Takaka, Takaka Hill etc.) spread over a distance of 100 km or so...I pass a sign reminding people to "drive on the left" like many times before but this time it was accompanied by a message "and always kph!"; I guess now I know w...

...I wake up to a very frosty morning and after boiling some tea I start walking back. I came here down the valley route, this time the sky is cloudless and majestic, so I take the crest route to go back....a girl I meet in the hut last night catches up with me on the return ascent and walks ahead. I try to keep up but she's really fast. She gets on my ambition and after an hour of chase I catch up to her and we talk. A very nice traveler from Holland with an...

...rental guys in Picton can't fix my mirror other than by duct tape and they promise to charge me big bucks for it if they can't find a second hand replacement. Oh well, lets hope they do....weather is stunningly amazing or amazingly stunning as I drive to my next trek at St. Arnaud. It's called Lake Angelus trail, takes two days to finish and is in the Nelson Lakes National Park. I make frequent photo stops, the South Island is just too beautiful no...

...I wake up to pouring rain, the first day like this since my arrival...I wish my rental were a diesel. Diesel fuel is just over half the price of gas....I learn another Maori expression: "Auahi kore", meaning "No smoking"...as I entered the Taranaki region I passed big signs, about 100m apart down the road, saying in that sequence: "WAAOOUU!!!" Then "WELCOME TO TARANAKI" and then "HOME TO LEGENDARY LIFESTYLE". As I leave it, the same signs say: "WHY???" and the...

...I find that 13 can sometimes really be unlucky but everything depends on the point of view...I am about to climb the mighty Mount Taranaki, but I wake up to milky fog all around and give up. I decide to tend to laundry and other pressing affairs..,after breakfast it clears up and there's beautiful blue sky all around so I drive half an hour and 1000m up to the trailhead only to find the same milky fog up there, which apparently has no intention of letting ...