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.

Today started with long showers which meant I could catch up with my blogs but had to put off my run! The photo is a memory of our trek - the beach at Masons Bay - lots of clean golden sand. If people don't want to trek in they can fly - they land the planes on the beach - but you have to choose low-tide arrivals! The other memory -the sand fly bites required germolene during the night and were still itchy during the day requiring additional hydrocortisone cream ...

I awoke with the dawn breaking - just after 5ish - but lay in bed until 5.40 before getting up. Thank goodness I had slept in a long top otherwise I would have been nibbled all over by the carnivorous mosquitos and sand flies - the latter being more itchy and menacing! It had rained overnight and was still showery but we were hopeful it would clear before we left. We packed our bags and had breakfast - no butter so I had pain au chocolate - fruit bread I had wr...