And so we'd arrived at Blenheim, our last destination on New Zealand's south island. This town was conveniently situated a short drive north from Kaikoura and only 30 miles from the ferry terminal to the north island, more importantly it is slap bang in the middle of the Marlborough wine region where we were headed for a wine tasting tour. Following our big night out in Kaikoura the most pressing issue of the day was finding a McDonalds for some hangover cure, a...

The drive from Franz Josef Glacier to Kaikoura was the longest and most arduous that we had to undertake on our New Zealand tour, some 540 kilometres over winding, unlit back roads and over the Lewis Pass. It took us about 7 hours to complete the journey to Kaikoura, arriving at the dead of night in a Department of Conservation campsite in the middle of nowhere with the usual facilities consisting of…. a hole in the ground for the toilet and nothing else. We...

Today it is all about the glaciers! After a bit more zig-zagging around the country we'd gone over Arthur's Pass and arrived at Glacier Country home to New Zealand's largest glaciers the Franz Josef Glacier and the impressive Fox Glacier. We'd spent the evening in a nearby Department of Conservation basic campsite and were up early to start exploring. The Glaciers have been around since the last ice age and Franz Josef is currently Some 12km long. Together wit...

We drove all afternoon to get from Mount Cook to the Banks Peninsula which is situated close to Christchurch. Due to the earthquakes in Christchurch we'd decided to give it a wide berth and as we drove through the outskirts we could see some of the repair works that were being carried out to the city's infrastructure. The quake is still massive news in New Zealand, as we travelled listening to the radio almost 70% of adverts were linked to the quake in some way...

We arrived near Mt Cook village late in the evening after the long drive from the Otago Peninsular. We parked up at a nearby DOC campsite and the only good thing that could be said about the site was that it was free. With an early rise we were able get to the Mt Cook Village early in the day to start exploring the foothills. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand, reaching a height of 3754 metres and from the first moment that we saw the mountain r...