We arrived late evening to Christchurch so decided to go straight to a campsite. We found a very posh top 10 holiday park with a heated pool and a fancy kitchen. After dinner we set about planning our south island trip. Christchurch. We were expecting stratford without the shakespeare from the description. It certainly felt much older and distinguished. We walked along the river to the park and walked around some really cool old bookshops and a really ...

We arrived early morning in Kaikoura, we came straight from Picton from the ferry. The weather wasnt good and we were shattered so we were slightly pleased we couldnt go on the whale watch that day, we were booked on for 9:30am the next morning, with worryingly bleak weather prospects. We stayed at a holiday park which was quite nice. In our amazingly lucky way the weather in the morning was glorious. On the trip we saw 5 giant sperm whales who spent a...

We arrived in Wellington in the pouring rain and went straight to the Bluebridge ferry port. We decided to book onto the 3am crossing for the next day. We went to the museum which was really good, and interactive museum all about newZealand, we experienced an earthquake in a simulator thing. We then went and bought some fush & chups and went up on the hill overlooking the city and camped there till 2am. The crossing was very calm dispite the weath...

We arrived in Palmerston North, just in time, the locals werent impressed with a slow old van at rush hour. We arrived at Auntie jane and Uncle Dougs but no-one was there, we sat for a while then a car pulling a big sign on a trailer saying Re-Elect Mark Bell-Booth (Mums cousin) for Mayor. We were welcomed into the house and then Jane arrived and we all sat and chatter over a nice brew and some great cake things. Sue and Mark came over to say hello but the...

After a coach ride back up to Keri Keri we picked up Delia and headed straight South for the long journey to Palmerston North. The first night we ended up camping wild as we couldnt find the campsite on the map (just south of Auckland). We eneded up in a ditch under some trees hoping a farmer wouldnt scare the hell out of us in the morning. We set off as soon as we woke up and made our way to the Waitomo caves to see the glow worms. It is a huge limes...