It was still raining heavily when we set off. This ensured that we would not get a helicopter flight over the glaciers. Our first stop was Franz Joseph glacier. We saw the glacier from the car park as we did not have enough wet weather gear to attempt the two hour return walk. The rain continued for the rest of our journey to Greymouth, but we arrived it did become intermittent. As we had nothing planned in advance we set about exploring the area from the car....

Feeling slightly worse for indulging last night, the drive to Fox was anything but uneventful. Having rained all night & there still be storm conditions along the route, there were numerous spectacular waterfalls. At one point the road was blocked from fallen trees, the only down side was not being able to see some of the great views properly along the route. When we arrived at Fox it was still raining heavily so we popped to Lake Matheson cafe for lunch. W...

The journey to Wanaka pronounced (one-aka), was 2.5hrs partly over a stretch of road we had already covered. Upon arriving at the YHA known as Purple Cow we received a double dose of good news. Not only was our room ready at 11:30 but we had been upgraded to an en-suite. This allowed us to get settled in before heading on a daily walk. This time it was round the shores of Lake Wanaka the 4th largest in NZ before arriving at Waterfall creek. Some essential lau...

Thanks to more sunshine we decided to walk to the steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street. It took around 30mins to reach, & was quite the effort to walk up. At the top we chatted with Dave O'Hare who holds the world record for running up the street. He jogs up the street 30 times a day. Dave family owns a ski resort near Queenstown, & has friends who moved here from Newcastle. He suggested we take a drive up to the top of a nearby mountain due to ...

Following a good nights sleep & a catch up on the phone with home, we went out to brunch. Capers was recommend to us by the hotel guide & we were not disappointed. Despite arriving at 10am the place was packed & we were lucky to get a table. Dunedin is very much student town with echoes of the toon, Leeds & Manchester. George St where we are staying is a mix of hotels & student accommodation. After brunch we walked around Forsyth Bar Stadi...