Well time is running out for our adventures of New Zealand- and we find ourselves in Kaikoura, the whale watching capital of the world. We hoped to get a brief glimpse of these natural wonders before we left these shores. Unfortunately having booked ourselves on a boat we awoke this morning to torrential rain and sleet!! There has been a sudden cold front here and even up to a foot of snow in Christchurch. This is a little worrying as our plane leaves from there ...

Another exciting week with Bungle!!! Fortunately we've only had our trip to the glacier dampened by bad weather - we weren't impressed with the equipment when 40 mins into a 6 hr excursion the waterproofs failed and boots started leaking but at least the sandwiches weren't soggy ...!! It definitely wd have been far more impressive in the sun but it rains there 270 days a year so we weren't too unlucky apparently!! The scenery is still stunning us and each jo...

Whistlestop, nighttime tour of Christchurch - we're here for 12 hrs and most of that we'll be sleeping following a fantastic trainjourney from West to East side of S.Island via Arthur's pass. This is reputed to be one of the top 4 train journeys in the world, so in honour of Pete we changed our plans at the last minute and booked a return ticket. The scenery was phenomenal topped off with a bottle of wine, the only thing threatening to spoil it was a 70yr old in ...

Greetings.....we've finally made it to south island and are currently in a backpackers hostel in sunny Picton trying to be young and hip by hanging with young backpackers!! - we're only here for the night as we pick up a car tomorrow and head off - so we don't have to pretend to be young for too long!! Since our last postcard we have enjoyed ourselves with Gail and Bas in Masterton. They looked after us and we really enjoyed the homely atmosphere of their log cab...

We've had a wk of adventures, the biggest challenge the best "walk" in New Zealand -the tongoriro crossing. However, when faced with a strong south westerley wind and meeting snow and ice at the top it was more like a mountain climb -one fellow hiker even got his ice pick out -we skirted on round him in our haste to get to the top. However judging by the no. of times we slipped over this was not the wisest move expecially when the cloud cleared to reveal steep dr...