Hi Folks, After over 2000km around South Island in a camper van with a slightly dodgy steering rack it was quite a relief to hand it back in Christchurch and sit back in the comfortable (!) seats of a New Zealand Airways turbo-fan as it flew us up to Auckland at the top of North Island. Only a short hop and enlivened for us by a 16 month-old little girl and her mother in the seat next to us. Between us we ran through all the 'baby games' and it made us realise h...

Hi everyone, Well, we have been to some very remote places over the past week and finding a computer that we can use for uploading photos has not been easy, so we are going to save that until we get to Auckland. We are at Raikia, almost back in Christchurch, after an almost complete circumnavigation of the bottom two-thirds of South Island. We have been down as far as Invercargill (and have had a special visit with the owner of Burt Munro's 'World's Fastest Ind...

Hi Everyone, Just five minutes on the internet cafe timer to do today's blog, so here goes... Collected the camper van yesterday and we are now on the road south to Dunedin, then on to Invercargill. If ther winds are not too high we might go across to Stewart Island. Then it is up the west coast to the Fjiordland and then over Arthur's Pass back to Christchurch. Weather fantastic but a lot cooler than Sydney. Lots to fit into the next few days, including Burt...

Hello, Everyone! Our last two days in Australia didn't see any slackening of pace! On Sunday, whilst Steve played football, Catherine drove us up to Katoomba to visit the Blue Mountains. The area was an important coal mining area until the late 1940s. There is plenty of evidence on the steep slopes amongst the almost impenetrable vegetation. We took the funicular railway down the mountainside into the forest below and walked the raised wooden walkways before r...

Today we had a very relaxing day. Catherine was at work and Steve was away doing a land survey, so we did some domestic duties and then went down to Manly to do some shopping and general wandering about. We walked the length of Manly Beach (barefoot in the sand) and then around the heads into Cabbage Tree Bay and Shelly Beach. The mandatory 'two flat whites with muffins' and macadamia nut icecreams were consumed. The beach was veryt quiet early in the morning bu...