Only two stops left in South Island, Nelson and Picton and by this stage we were becoming blasé about the beautiful scenery that we routinely drove through but once again the town of Nelson was overlooked by a hill and the its peak was the centre of New Zealand (so they claimed - We had to climb it at sundown, complete with camera to sate Heather's appetite for spectacular sunsets ; coming back down in the dark was interesting and vaguely dangerous. On our way ...

We were getting towards the end of our South Island adventure and heading towards our last major area the Abel Tasman National Park. Some hairy driving ensued as we negotiated stomach churning mountain roads. We arrived in Takaka a small hippy town within the national park and stayed at Annie's Nirvana Lodge, which lived up to the hippy ethos of the town - Where are your tie-died t-shirts when you need them? The area was totally remote, most coves and beache...

We arrived in Kaikora, booked into a hotel called Donegal House (must be Welsh) and set off to the harbour (they call it the Whaleway Station - corny). We had heard that a man called Captain Ahab was looking for crew to join him in his quest for a whale - He had a wild look in his eye and a patch over his other eye, his first mate had only one leg and a missing index finger from his right hand …… They looked dodgy so we signed up with a guy called Jason who...

Heading for Glacier country on the west coast of NZ, we meet our first day of rain and did it rain - It was relentless for the whole trip, obliterating the obviously stunning scenery but as they say "every cloud has a silver lining" and in this case the rivers and waterfalls which were filling fast looked the most spectacular we had seen. We stayed at Fox Glacier (named after the mint perhaps) and took a hiking trip onto the glacier (the helicopter trip was too...

Leaving the conquered mountain behind us, we set off for Queenstown and had a stopover in Wanaka …. One needs careful pronunciation when saying it out loud. Our Youth Hostel was once again in prime position being lakeside and our en-suite room overlooked the lake and the beach. The town itself looked like it was set up to party but we found problems finding a bar open after 10:00pm. Queenstown had a strong alpine ski town feel to it, except of course it didn...