Yesterday we left Nelson and headed for Nelson Lakes National Park where we had lunch and a swim in the glacier lake surrounded by beech forests and mountains. Here is discovered that ducks can be as bad as seagulls whenI had my whole sandwich stolen from my hand and devoured in about 2 seconds by a hoard of ducks!! We stopped in a place called Murchison for some famous New Zealand hokey pokey ice cream before driving down the Buller Gorge, an incredibly beautifu...

Today we got the ferry from the north island to the south island. When we left Wellington it was raining but luckily when we arrived on the south island the sun was back out. We then spent the day driving from Picton through the Marlborough region famous for it's Sauvignon blanc wine but unfortunately we didn't stop to try any! We spent the evening in Nelson, at the centre of New Zealand. We spent the evening having dinner and a nice cider in the beer garden in t...

Unfortunately I didn't have time to stop in Wellington so all I saw of the capital was a couple of bars as we have to leave at 7am tomorrow morning.

This morning I went white water rafting down the grade 5 river. It was really good fun and the scenery was stunning, especially as there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately this made the 4hr drive to Wellington this afternoon a bit warm without aircon but we survived and arrived this evening at 6.

On Saturday we arrived in Taupo which is dominated by a large lake. Lake Taupo is big enough to fit Singapore in it and it is thought that the lake was formed by one of the worlds largest known volcanic eruptions around 186AD. Apparently Chinese and Roman records talk of dark red skies and climatic changes, thought to be caused by the Taupo eruption! On Sunday I did the Tongariro Alpine crossing, classed as one of the top 10 walks in the world because of the stu...