Compared to the last few days a fairly dull one today. After unpacking & repacking the car I headed off to the Queenstown sky ride, a cable car/gondala which carries you 300/400m up to 'Bobs Peak' a mini mountain overlooking Queenstown. Luckily for me the rain hadn't moved in so the views of lake wakatipu (the 77km long lake upon which Queenstown is situated) and surrounding mountains were quite good early this morning. I left there around 10 and drove 30km ...

What a day! First off it had finally stopped raining!!! As I ate my breakfast there was beautiful blue sky over the beautiful Lake Tekapo. Was a gorgeous sunny day - so I never expected to have to scrape ice off the car before I could head out!! Since I wasn't going to have time to go see the glaciers I'd decided to book a one hour flight over them instead, and it looked like I'd picked a good day for it. I drove the short way out to the airport and the guy co...

It had finally stopped raining when I woke this morning. I checked out of the hotel and had a quick wander round the town in search of breakfast. The town is quite small, just one row of shops - mainly over priced boutiques trying to attract tourist $s. The town is quite old fashioned, colonial even, reminded me of some parts of America, and with the fall colours of the trees it could have been America. I was soon on my way towards lake tekapo, a 3-4 hour drive....

Although I was up in time for sunrise today, it was grey and raining so was little to see. The drive to Milford Sound takes 2 hours but all the advice says to set off at 8 and allow 4 hours because it's so beautiful & there are loads of lakes/hills/mountains/rivers/waterfalls etc to admire (and a conga line of tour bus companies along the route). Unfortunately the only views I could see were most, fog & clouds! Still, the guidebook say rain is what makes ...

Today, despite the howl of the wind and rain around my 'Friday 13th horror movie end of the world' hostel I woke up before dawn in the hope that I might see penguins down at the beach. It was still very dark when I got down there, like last night I could barely see anything! As it became lighter I walked along the beach and only found penguin tracks, from the sea to the grassy sand dunes :( The sunrise was beautiful, and the wind and rain had finally stopped mak...