This is a bit of a catch up blog because I was too knackered yesterday to explain what we'd been up to. So here goes... We'd booked a trip with Kiwi Kayaks to go sea kayaking around Abel Tasman National Park so got the bus to Marahau at 6.30am, with a driver who seemed to think he was an unofficial tour guide for the entire Nelson region, imparting unsolicited information on soil types and generally setting the world to rights. Jim summed him up best when he sai...

I've continued my solo exploration today, looking around Nelson and then going tramping to the centre of New Zealand! I started off by having a quick look at the cathedral and having a VERY brief scoot about the Nelson Provincial Museum (it was boring). I couldn't really decide what to do next so headed to the tourist information centre and picked myself an easy "one hour return walk" to the official centre of New Zealand. It's in the middle of the Bot...

We've arrived on the South Island! It involved getting up at stupid o'clock to get the ferry across the Cook Strait, which didn't go down at all well with Jim. But the journey was really pretty, travelling through the Marlborough Sounds. We got back on the Magic Bus from Picton to Nelson, where we are now. On first impressions the South Island seems really beautiful and more impressive than the North in terms of scenery. We wound around densley forest mountains ...

Congratulations to Barack! We've been intermittently watching the US presidential race today in a bar inbetween sightseeing. Earlier this afternoon we watched the early results roll in with a handful of Americans who were blogging throughout, and then we watched his victory address with a jam-packed bar of Yanks and Wellingtonians, people actually crowding around the windows in the street to get a view of the TV. I think it will definitely go down as a 'Where wer...

Happy Birthday to Mr James Andrew Coxon, officially reaching the grand old age of 26 today! Jim opened his birthday present this morning and it went down a treat. In fact it prompted quote of the day from me "Look at you old man, 26 and sat in a cardigan reading a book about British politics"... Jim's response? "f*** off". There have been galeforce winds in Wellington today so we've postponed all sightseeing until tomorrow, opting instead t...