The first half of the journey was pretty boring, with the weather as miserable as it was we couldn't see much. However, as we got closer to the south island James had a look outside and even though it was cold and windy the views were really nice. We were getting closer to Marlborough Sound. We had a quick stop off in Picton's iSite where we got information about the Queen Charlotte track along the edge of the sound and we were on our way. We were headi...

Not so windy welly It was a long drive the following day down to Wellington but as always in New Zealand we got to see some great views and listened to a lot of Ricky Gervais for the duration of the trip. We made it to Wellington in good time and the weather was glorious. We found a campsite in the centre of the city that was a little expensive but the location couldn't be beaten. The city centre of Wellington is really small and we pretty much covered most o...

Napier, Hasting and wineries Our next stop was Napier but we got a bit excited before we reached the town when we came across a winery. It was recommended in the book so we had to stop. It was called 'Esk Valley' and after a few tasters we bought a bottle of red and got to Napier town. The campsites were a little out of the way so after a short mooch around the town and a drink we found the nicest looking site and hired bikes for the afternoon. We only plann...

Kiwi had given us some advice on where to stop along the way and one of them was just before Gisborne, or Gizzy where we had planned to stay for the night. We had a lovely picnic inside Monique because it was so windy, looked at the rock formations as we are good and Kiwi had told us too and then we went for a walk up a very steep hill to see Captain Cooks bay. It was his first sighting of New Zealand and I must say he had a pretty good view, I can see why he h...

The views around the East Cape are spectacular and it is really remote. The majority of people that we saw were of Maori descent and the villages were merely a few houses maybe a school and even rarer was the sighting of a shop. We had filled the car with food and Monique had enough diesel that this was not a problem, we could cruise around enjoying the tranquillity and beauty. We stopped at some tiny towns along the way and had a few minor issues. As I got ...