Hello again here is our blog for the South Island of NZ. We arrived in the South Island after a 3 hour ferry journey from Wellington and headed straight to Nelson where we wandered through the town, ate what seems to be the adopted national food of New Zealand, sushi and headed to our camp site, Lake Rotaroa where we had our first encounter with the nortorious sand flies. People had warned us about the sand flies but after using almost a whole can of fly spray we realised it was useless so we stood eating our home made gourmet burgers while the sand flies feasted on us. Next stop was the strange town of Greymouth that provided a few stories. We followed our AA guide to a camp and found ourselves on the forecourt of car lot. An ingenious idea had been conceived whereby the owner thought it would make perfect sense to combine a motor home site with a car lot! It wasn't. With this said we did manage to find a nice bar with some good beer. The Franz Josef Glacier was the next stop on our whirl wind tour of the South Island where we went on a 4 hour hike over a large section of the Glacier covered head to toe in Arctic survival gear which Hayley is modelling very nicely in many of the pictures. The Glacier hike was truely amazing. We continued our trip along the west coast and visited lake Matteson which as you can see from the photos was beautiful and a photographers dream, especially Reflection Point. We had been informed by our Glacier guide that the township of Haast was 'a blink and you miss it' kind of place and let me tell you he wasn't joking. Like many of the towns in NZ, and i use the term town lightly Haast was so small, consisting of little more than a pub, restaurant, shop and campsite which is where we bedded down for the night. This actually turned out to be one of the best campsites we stayed at and it provided us with the opportunity to watch the horror film 'House of Wax', not the best genre of movie to watch when staying in at a campsite in a 'middle of nowhere' town! The next day provided us with a total of 7 hours driving in order to get a base from which to visit the world famous Milford Sound the following morning. The forest campsite in which we stayed was called Cascade Creek. So the next morning we managed to take the 2 hour cruise through an overcast Milford Sound however even the weather couldn't detract from the picturesque scenery of mountains and waterfalls as you can see from the pic's. After arriving back at the van we discovered that Mike had left the lights on and as a result the battery was dead.., luckily the local cafe had leads to start the engine as apparently this was a regular occurance for visitors to Milford.Queenstown was our next stop however we didnt follow in the footsteps of most travellers and take part in any extreme sports as we'd already had our fair share in the North Island and instead we spent a couple of days exploring the town and looking for gifts for you lucky people at home! On route to Christchurch we visited Lake Tekapo, or Mike's lake as it is commonly referred to by Mike! This was the bluest lake ever! We managed to get some really good pictures of the lake while visiting the famous Church of the Good Shepard which is guarded by a statue of a collie dog which Hayley was intent on capturing the perfect shot of even if it meant tapping her foot repeatedly and tutting loudly until a large group of japanese tourists moved out of her way! It worked. Christchurch was one of our favourite places where we decided to go for a punt along the river, visit another Moari Museum and take a stroll around the botanical gardens. Hayley randomly managed to spot a Uni friend in the car park of our hostel, it was very bizarre but definitely not the first time we've bumped into familiar faces. So after sampling various restaurants, shops and sipping on a number of lattes we worked our way up to Picton and onto the ferry back to the North Island. Wellington was home for the next few days where we spent almost one whole day trying to find a parking space for our beloved camper van! We also visited Te Papa museum and saw the sights. We left Wellington and travelled along the west coast visiting a few towns along the way before arriving in Auckland where we parted ways with our camper which after 30 days we kind of relieved about.So now we're in Auckland doing the sights and catching up on some last minute things before flying to Bali. However we did find time to sail the America's Cup race boat out into the Gulf and become fully fledged yachts men in only a couple of hours, all thanks to our good old friend Sam! Hope all is well at home,lots of love Hayley & Mike xxxx