The second half of our South Island road trip kicked off in Blenheim and the Marlborough wine festival. This involved a day of sampling various different wines from the Marlborough region and eating lots of nice food too! We enjoyed a mini Greymouth reunion, catching up with friends from our time there. In comparison to "Ronan Day' it was all very civilised and Emma and I nearly managed to look like the sophisticated young professionals that we are!!

The following day we travelled to Christchurch where Emma and I had planned a romantic night at the movies for Valentines day but had an early night instead in preparation for the long drive to Dunedin the following day. A sunny but fairly uninspiring road trip took us to Dunedin - "Edinburgh of the South" apparently, complete with Princes St, Dundas St, The Water of Leith and Portobello! We enjoyed a day sightseeing in and around Dunedin taking in the Cadbury's factory (lots of free chocolate) and also the place where we were reliably informed by our tour guide that the Dunedin Railway Station is the most photographed building in the southern hemisphere with the Sydney Opera House a close second... some might say the Kiwis are kidding themselves here! We visited Baldwin St - steepest street in the world although there is some dispute about this too! We headed out onto the Otago Peninsula in the afternoon where we were lucky enough to see Yellow-eyed Penguins in the wild.

From Dunedin we headed south again through the Catlins National Park staying in a place called Curio Bay after exploring varoius beaches and waterfalls. We took a walk along one beach which was supposedly inhabited by a seal colony. Having taken note of the warnings not to go within 10 metres of the seals or sea lions we headed out along the beach. Having not spotted any wildlife we turned to come back along the beach only to be met by a huge sea lion. Bearing in mind the previous warnings we clambered up the sand dunes to avoid disturbing it and also because we were a bit scared of being mawled by a sea lion! After a good half hour struggling up and down sand dunes and wrestling with massive thorny bushes/thistles we clambered back down onto the beach only to discover big groups of tourists strolling right past all the sea lions and neither batted an eyelid!

After visiting the most southerly point on mainland New Zealand we made a pit stop in Invercargill for provisions - wouldn't advise staying much longer than that as it's one of the most unispiring places in NZ! Fortunately we were headed for Te Anau before starting the Kepler Track the following day. We had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast and it looked like our good luck with the weather was about the run out as 4 days of rain were forecast for our walk. So unlike our previous walks we were extra prepared and even took a black bin bag to cover our rucksacks (very sensible I hear you say!). Miraculously we saw none of the rain that was forecast and enjoyed 4 days of walking in stunning alpine scenary. The highlight being when we had been trudging up the steepest part of the track for a couple of hours and thought we were barely half way only to be met with a sign saying 45 minutes to Luxmore Hut - good times!

First stop on arriving back in Te Anau was a hot shower and then a trip to the local cinema to watch Fiordland on Film - amazing documenatory with images of this part of NZ from a helicopter pilot's perspective. The next day we travelled up towards Milford Sound stopping at mirror lakes on the way. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Mitre Peak as again the weather was on our side. Our return trip took us back via Te Anau, Queenstown and then to Glenorchy where we stopped for the night. The mountains here are just amazing and it is easy to see why they picked this as one of the locations for the Lord of the Rings movies.

We stopped in Wanaka the following night to break up the drive back to Christchurch. An early morning run round the lake nearly killed us - not great given our marathon plans but we consoled ourselves with chocolate strawberries and a movie in Christchurch that evening! We treated ourselves to a much needed haircut while in the big city before driving north to Kaikoura where we were to spend the next 3 weeks working in The Lazy Shag backpackers to save some pennies for the North Island Trip...

The end is getting ever closer but still plenty more fun to be had so we'll keep you updated on all our stories xx