The lady at the campsite had said it was going to rain, so we were very pleased when we woke to find the sun shinning again. The coast road from Greymouth to Westport is one of Lonely Planet's top 10 best drives. It is a very rugged coast with lots of stacks and the sea is very wild making it quite spectacular. At a place called Punakaki the limestone rocks are particularly spectacular with large blow holes and are they are known as the Pancake Rocks and is a...

A short morning run in the town saw that the tourist coaches were all departing from the hotels by 8am so no holiday lie-ins for all those pensioners. We departed by 9am and had a leisurely drive north passing part lots of beautiful lakes and scenic areas but resisted stopping at every view point. No wedding photo shoots either! We stopped at a town called Ross which was an old mining settlement, there was a heritage walk to the old gold mines and apparently ther...

We set off fairly early and hit the west coast. The road meandered between mountain roads and coast. We stopped to see what the beach was like and were amazed to see the whole of the coastline in covered with piles of driftwood. It's a flower arrangers paradise! I selected one small piece of wood to bring home which would fit into my bag it makes a very cheap souvenir. We arrived at Fox Glacier and chose a walk through the rainforest to see the glacier. We c...

Although our little campervan isn't the height of luxury, we seem to sleep really well and always wake up later than planned. We hired our cycles from a nice shop in Wanaka and the young assistant was keen to tell us about his brother had gone to watch the rugby at Twickenham because one of the All Blacks lives in Wanaka and had given him free tickets, also that NZ won! Graham now wants to move to Lake Wanaka and not Noosa in Queensland. Skiing in the winter...

We thought we had better see a bit more of Queenstown before moving on so I found an awesome walking track which took us up a mountain with some 360 degree views over Queenstown. We were well inside the suggested 2.5 hours for the walk. Not a course PB as we were passed by a couple of runners! We then ventured off to Wanaka - (home to Lake Wanaka Ironman). The road took a mountain pass which twisted and turned as it climbed, the sort of road that I don't d...