Christchurch is as English as Dunedin is Scottish and is spacious, green sunny and altogether very pleasant.It is the third biggest city in NZ with approx 110,000 people, all of which (judging from the ones we met) seemed 'jolly nice'.Very little of interest happened whilst there; handed back our van, bathed and wandered through the city and the Botanical Gardens and repacked for the flight to Oz.We did get to catch up on my Aunty Colleen, my cousin, Ben (for t...

With two days to go we had to make up some miles, first traveling up the coast to Oamaru then inland to Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo.As soon as we left Dunedin the clouds began to disappear in our rear-view mirror and blue sky appeared in front of us and our spirits rose.We made two brief stops on the way north; first at Moeraki Rocks which are a group of nearly perfectly round rocks that sit on a beach and to me looked like some weird creatures climbing out of t...

After the Catlins was the town of Dunedin, which thinks it is Scottish.Dunedin is Celtic for Edinburgh, there is a statue of Robbie Burns in the square, the public buildings are straight from prosperous Boarder towns and they even have tramps drinking Special Brew in the street and shouting at imaginary friends.Again it was very wet and the combination of the architecture and weather did not give the impression that, as voted last year, it was the most beautifu...

Invercargill is very much a working town, rather grim and is so far south that the local government offers free tuition to Uni students, just to get people down there.Obviously going south in NZ is the same as going north in UK and by the time we hit Invercargill we had traveled about 4,000 km, mostly south.This means that it is bloody cold and very wet. However, an area known as the Catlins starts near the town which is a lovely place to spend a day or two.It ...

Weather really does make all the difference.In the sun, we spend time in beautiful wildernesses, in the rain they are muddy fields.When the evenings are warm, the camp sites we stay in are full of happy smiling people, doing things outdoors and chatting to all who pass.In the rain they resemble post war British holiday camps, full of miserable people grunting at each other as they dash to muddy floored, cold and damp toilet blocks.When the campervan and the o...