Rather than staying any longer in Wellington we decided to go straight to Whakapapa Village which is where we would stay whilst we tackled the 19.4km Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The walk included a long ascent up to the craters of two active volcanoes. It was hard work but the views were incredible. You could see for miles and the rocky surroundings could be likened to Mars! You could tell the volcanoes were active as there was steam rising from the red crater and...

We spent a lovely afternoon and morning in Picton wandering around and enjoying the sunshine before boarding the ferry to Wellington (North Island). The crossing through Marlborough sounds is supposed to be one of the most picturesque ferry crossings in the world. It was definitely beautiful and was also very very windy!! When we arrived in Wellington we battled through rush hour traffic to a car park at a marine reserve along the coast. We had heard you can sta...

After a great couple of days in Kaikoura we travelled north to Abel Tasman National Park. We firstly stopped in Nelson to have some lunch which was very nice, before heading to Marahau which is the start of the Abel Tasman National Park. On our way from Nelson we stopped at Kaiteriteri and explored the beach. It was amazing what the cyclone had dragged up including sea urchins, giant muscles, star fish, wood and an array of shells. Continuing along the road to Ma...

We spent today dodging the cyclonic weather. We first went into Hokitika where we visited a jade factory and saw how they went about carving and polishing jade which was very interesting. We spent the rest of the day travelling to Kaikoura through very rainy and windy weather and we saw some very dramatic skies. At one point as we came down through the mountains on very narrow and winding roads we went through a thick band of low cloud which made driving conditio...

Today we made the gruelling drive to Franz Josef Glacier which was very long and very hot. Our camp site made up for it though as it was set in the rainforest and even had a hot tub! We decided to try using our rear awning as it was a calm night and meant we could have a bigger bed. This was a bad idea however as some manner of creature made some awful sounds during the middle of the night before proceeding to jump onto our car. It scared the lights out of us as ...