Masterton to Napier - The Long Way Well, what can we say? It's one thing to make a plan and then revise it, and change it again but.... We got up early, left our lovely B & B and headed off back over the mountain to North Wellington and Heretaunga. The weather was going to be good, but not yet. Nevertheless, we saw a bit more of the mountain than we did last night! We arrived at the godparents' house at 10.30 (Iain had told them we'd be there about 10.4...

Blenheim / Picton / Wellington What a great trip to Wellington! (Can you hear the echoes of hollow laughter?) It began to go wrong before we even got up this morning. We'd set the alarm for 6am, having carefully calculated how long we'd need to drive to Picton and be at the ferry port an hour before the ferry left. Having woken long before the alarm went off, I was mentally computing what time we would have needed to get up if we'd had to take the 8.25am ferry (...

I must discover and use a greater variety of superlatives in this blog or it's going to be just too repetitive! We had a very nice Indian meal last night (and I only had a starter as my main!). The food was good but the service was appalling, with bits of the meal arriving at different times, my meal arriving long before Iain's, etc. But everyone is so nice that you can't be annoyed. The restaurant is literally only round the corner but we took the car as it was...

We'd set the alarm for the excruciatingly early time of 7.30am, which is just wrong when you're on holiday, but we knew we'd have to have breakfast at 8.30am and get an early start for our trip to Blenheim. Paul said it would only take about four hours, but we wanted to stop off at a couple of places of interest on the way, The road north, almost as far as Charleston, hugs the coast and the views are gorgeous. Unfortunately, the day was cold and overcast, with r...

What a fabulous day we've had today!! We'd booked in for our helicopter flight at 1pm, so left around 10am to leave enough time to get petrol and cash before doing the 2-hour drive south to Franz Josef. The roads were as empty as we've become used to - where IS everyone? - but the weather was pretty overcast and, as we neared the mountains surrounding the Glacier, the cloud seemed to be getting heavier and lower. We'd convinced ourselves that the flight would be...