Day 34 - Wellington to Martinborough Another lovely sunny day. Today we pickup the hire car we will keep for almost the rest of our time in New Zealand. It's been nice not to have been driving for the past three days after 12 days of non stop touring but as my feet feel like they have very little skin left on them it will be a welcome change to get transport again. Left the Museum hotel at around 11am after our last breakfast and a couple of phone calls home; I ...

Day 33 Wellington Last full day in Wellington and weather has deteriorated somewhat after two fab days of sun, sun, sun. It's cloudy and has been raining so we decide that a visit to the Te Papa museum was probably a sound idea. This is New Zealand's national museum and shows about the culture, geology and inhabitants of the country, on land, in the sea and in the air; really informative. When we came out around lunchtime it had brightened slightly so we decided...

Day 32 Wellington Another sunny day in Wellington, two on the trot, given the weather in New Zealand so far I don't believe it will last. Took the cable car up to the botanical gardens this morning, one way this time so we can walk back down through the gardens. Before we set off we went into the cable car museum and discovered that this is not the only cable car in Wellington; such is the small amount of available land in the city there are many houses built ...

Day 31 Picton to Wellington Well here we are on the North Island. The trip over on the Islander ferry this morning was perfect, calm and sunny, what more could one ask for. They said we might see whales or dolphins, well no whales sadly but we saw a huge number of dolphins in the calm waters of Queen Charlotte Sound. There must have been 30 or so of them fishing. Our only complaint was that the ferry was going so fast we were past them before we could get any de...

Day 30 Nelson to Picton Ohmigod I think I felt the earth move last night! We woke in the middle of the night to a really loud noise and a lurching to the van, like something had either fallen on or against it. On checking there was no one around and it was a relatively calm night with a starlit sky, also no trees in the immediate vicinity. Later on I also felt a shuddering sensation similar to going over a cattle grid which lasted for only a few seconds - was...