New Zealand

Since we arrived we have spent our days winding through some of the most consistently stunning scenery we've ever seen and our nights gorging on home-cooked foods (steak, bangers and mash, bolognese - all those things we were dreaming of) and guzzling a lot of wine. We have put on a couple of kilos, our guts feel a like they do after some serious Christmas bingeing, but it has all been, as they say here, awesome.

We arrived in Christchurch after a fabulous but fleeting 24 hours in Sydney. We arrived as the sun came up, spent the day on a whistle-stop tour of the harbour area, the evening at a steakhouse in Bondi with (generous) John and the night at his Rose Bay flat.

Sydney was cool but Christchurch was positively chilly. Fred and Lucy met us at the airport and we spent a day shivering and shopping for warm clothes (many South Islanders, on the other hand, do not seem to feel the cold. They can regularly be seen in shorts and flip flops - or even barefoot - going about their daily business as if it was blistering hot). We sorted out a hire car and hit the road south to Oamura, where we saw tiny blue penguins at dusk and curious yellow eyed penguins at dawn.

Next stop Dunedin, where our plans were scuppered when we discovered that everywhere was booked up because of a centennial rugby match between the All Blacks and South Africa. We decided to move on, but not before scooting around the Otago Peninsula and calling in at Dunedin's Cadbury's factory shop. We got as far as Owaka (population: 395) in the Catlins, the windswept but beautifully rugged southeast corner of the South Island, where we spent our time seeking out seals on long sandy beaches and stopping off at waterfalls.

From the Catlins we headed to the Fiordlands, with a night in Invercargill, one of New Zealand's less appealing towns - and there are not many of them (actually I think it might be a city but it just doesn't seem right to call it a city. So many 'towns' in New Zealand seem to warrant a big black dot on the map but are not that much bigger than Malton. Never heard of it? Exactly).

Invercargill is a slightly soulless urban sprawl, with KFCs, kebab shops and vast booze stores with names like LiquorLand. Te Anau, where we were headed next, could not have been more different. Tucked on the edge of one of the South Islands many lakes, it is pretty much a main street with a few shops, cafes, a tiny cinema, all surrounded and subsumed by hills and mountains and trees and a lot of water. We stayed at a fantastic backpacker's place about five miles out of town where a converted barn up the hill from our cabin housed a huge kitchen and dining room, a pool table and two log fires - perfect after walks and our trip down to - and on - the mighty Milford Sound.

Then it was on to Queenstown, a couple of hours up the road. This is Lord of the Rings Country, all snow-capped peaks and lakes so large they look like the sea. We spent an afternoon soaking up Queenstown's adrenaline-filled atmosphere (it is the home of the bungee and a whole host of heart-wrenching experiences) and mulled wine but ended up spending the night in quaint but beautiful Arrowtown, 20 minutes away, as everything in town was full.

Arrowtown has a Wild West look to it - no surprise then that it was built on a gold boom in the early 1900s. But after a wonderful NZ pie, we were in the market for some snow action and decided to base ourselves an hour away in Wanaka. Like Queenstown, it sits on the edge of picture-postcard lake but is smaller and quieter than its more raucous sibling and is closer to Cardrona ski area - where some of us (Fred and I) would spend three teeth-gritting days of beginners' snowboarding lessons while others (Chris, Lucy) looked cool as they swished down far-flung runs.

Well, Chris spent about 3 hours as a rooky snowboarder but switched to skiing after a near-stationary but shoulder-wrenching fall left him with a tendon injury. He ignored the doc's advice and returned to the slopes for a couple of successful days on skis - his ability on which he had been far too modest about. Despite my near constant crashing, Cardrona was fantastic - excellent snow and mostly perfect weather. By the end I felt I was getting up some speed (though Chris's video evidence later refuted this) and could turn and stop at will. So I spent the next few days incapable of dressing myself, but it was worth it.

Just time for a scoot up the west coast and a stop off at the mighty Fox Glacier before we went up and over the middle of the South Island at Arthur's Pass and on to Methven, not far from Christchurch, where we spent a last night with Fred and Lucy. They were heading up to nearby Mount Hutt for some more boarding action before flying out of Christchurch and on to Vanuatu ahead of us, while we were heading north.

We spent a day at the wheel going up the northeast coast past Kaikoura and lots of lazy-looking seals and on to Nelson. We lunched in the green-shelled mussel capital of the world (Havelock, it was delicious) on the way back to Renwick in the heart of Marlborough, South Island's wine country, and spent a fabulous day savouring Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs - not only were they delicious but, considering the hole that an inflation-ridden NZ has burnt in our pockets, it was all free.

We managed to book our ferry to Wellington on the day that the storm that had ravaged the North Island headed over to the South Island, so I spent the delayed and extended crossing mostly horizontal. And then Wellington was a washout. We spent the night in a grubby little hostel, totally unlike the wonderful places we've stayed elsewhere, and it didn't stop raining the whole time we were there.

Time in NZ was running out and so after an hour at the city's fantastic museum we had to jump in the car and headed to Napier, North Island's art deco haven in the heart of the Hawkes Bay wine region. We weren't fast enough to catch the cellar doors that day but we stopped at a few the next morning (Hawkes Bay is all Cabernet Sauvignons and Syrahs. Chris tasted, I watched and sniffed, as designated driver) en route to Rotorua where we soaked our limbs in the town's stinky but heavenly hot springs.

Up and on the road again yesterday morning through Hobbiton country and up here to Auckland, where we spent today wandering the city. Downtown is much more Victorian and urban than I expected but the burbs, all spread over hills and around bays, looked lovely from a stomach lurching trip up the Skytower. Tomorrow we fly to Fiji where we spent the night before flying on to Vanuatu, where we'll catch up with Fred and Lucy for the last time...