I awoke around 3am and then had a fitful sleep until 5.30 - when the alarm, set by a previous inhabitant of the room went off -the alarm on my phone had been set for 6.15 and had now been made redundant. John made tea while I opened the curtains to see we had had rain overnight and the clouds were lying over the hills - the lovely sunshine of yesterday had gone. I have been addicted to the 5 day forecast for Milford - which seems to change daily - I think our one...

Breakfast at 8am so we could leave by 8.45 to travel the 280 kms to Queenstown - the roads were scenic but twisty so the journey wasn't fast; we finally got to the Remarkables shopping centre in Frankton for coffee at 12.45pm. Next stop was the hotel - thankfully they let us check in even though it was 1330. We quickly sorted ourselves out and got back into the car driving the 6 kms into Queenstown for some last minute shopping and our Ultimate Hikes briefing for...

Today we had a lie in - well anything would be a lie in after yesterday. The shops were open today after being closed on the first and second of January - they really believe in having Xmas and New Year breaks - some smaller businesses are shut until 6th January - at home they would be open and trying to entice people to the sales! My mission today was to buy a new pair of boots before our 4 day trek on the Milford Track as my old ones sprung a leak on the trek b...

We were awake before the 0315 alarm - not sure how - but we made a necessary cup of tea before getting ready for our 4am pick up to do a sunrise walk to see the very rare yellow eyed penguins. We met our fellow travel companions, Martin and Carolyn, from Manchester, who we're also staying at the bijou and uber comfortable Fletcher Lodge b&b, by the minibus and headed off to the Otago Peninsular with Richard our guide. It took about 20 minutes to reach the be...

We left Stewart island for Dunedin today - as it's a traveling day today's photo is one of my favorite photographs from Stewart island, I took it on Ulva island, it's the rear view of a Kaka, not the normal view you want, but it captured their beautiful plumage and shows how they truly blend into a forest environment.