We arrived in Kaikoura and stopped briefly in town before heading to our hostel...only to realise that we weren't going anywhere - the car wouldn't start! Aaaarrrggghh! We called out the AA to find that the battery was dead...this caused us to panic momentarily (remember Kim leaving the lights on and the flat battery in an earlier blog?) Could we be blamed for battery death????? Thankfully the AA man got onto the hire company to tell them that it was old and need...

Some fairly poor planning on Kim's part saw us drive past Mount Cook to stay at Lake Tekapo and then doubling back on ourselves to then visit Mount Cook (a 3.5 hour round trip). However given that the weather on the first day was terrible and the day we visited Mount Cook was gloriously sunny Kim now categorically states that she had a sense about the weather and it was all part of a grand plan... The drive to Mount Cook was stunning, past milky turquoise lakes...

Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand so entering into the spirit of things we....did nothing adventurous at all! We did treat ourselves to a few beers and a nice meal in town with the best garlic bread we've ever had... a whole freshly baked loaf appeared, drizzled in garlic butter with more garlic butter on the side - we have never smelled so much in our lives! We got chatting to a nice Geordie couple who were doing both Oz and NZ in 4 weeks (ti...

The drive to Milford Sound was a long one - roughly 8 hours drive time on winding mountain roads. We broke the journey in Te Anau with time to visit the local Christmas fete...complete with Bagpipers...random! The drive down to Milford Sound itself was stunning with fields of lupins, glacial lakes, waterfalls and even snow in some places. We had some further run-ins with the destructive Kea's (mountain parrots) who fixed their beady eyes on our pristine, shiny r...

Leaving the glaciers behind we drove to Lake Wanaka stopping to admire the views, explore the Blue Pools (very clear mountain pools with blue water from the glaciers) and scramble across the odd rope bridge or two. Lake Wanaka itself was stunning and the little town was reminiscent of an alpine village in Austria or Switzerland. We spent the afternoon at Puzzling World a bizarre place with a giant maze (which we got lost in for about an hour), various illusion ...