We awoke up on Friday and went straight to reception (literally - I went in my pj's) and we booked ourselves a whale watching tour for the afternoon. Then we went to get dressed and went for a walk around the town, pottering into some of the craft shops which Graeme loved hehe.We then found a spot by the sea to eat our sandwiches before checking in for our tour. We were first told to sit in a briefing room and watched a documentary on whales. Then we were given a...

We arose to the pitter patter of raindrops on the car roof and dashed to the bathroom to get ready. After breakfast and sorting our bits out we headed to the river and parked up to have a walk to the centre of New Zealand. We walked for around half an hour along the river then looked at the map and realised we had missed our turning so headed back a bit then over a bridge. After walking round some streets for a bit we found a sign pointing up a big hill saying 20...

The alarm went off and it was still dark so we flipped the laptop open and lay in bed while skyping family. In-between calls we both got ready and Rachel made a egg sandwich. On the way back from the kitchen with the egg sandwich the wind blew the top layer bread off, so she had to rush back to the kitchen to grab some more, but the ducks outside the car were very happy. After checking out we parked up in town and had a short walk along the river then through the...

We woke on the Tuesday with sore legs, and we packed up the car and got on the road. We had a long-ish drive to Greymouth so decided to stop in a cute village called Ross. We saw a sign for a heritage walk so did the hour walk around the area, and it had some historic mining things scattered about. The walk went past a little lake where we saw a few people doing some gold panning. We completed the walk then sat and had some lunch, and after discussing we decided ...

The following morning we woke to…rain! We were going to do a walk up to a view point to see the Fox Glazier but decided not to as we would probably not see anything. Instead we decided to continue onto Franz Joseph as there was a bigger town there with 'rainy' activities. It was a good choice because after half an hour being in Franz Joseph the rain disappeared and the clouds cleared a tad.We first popped into the tourist information and saw a display room on t...