We met with friends in Blenheim on Sunday morning before driving to Christchurch after lunch. There were many of Joy's relatives that Mum and Dad wanted to meet up with so Monday was spent visiting Ken (Joy's Brother) and Marilyn his wife, Andrew (Joy's nephew), Juline (Joy's adopted daughter) and her family before driving to Geraldine and having a lovely meal with Warren (another of Joy's nephews), his wife Sherrie and children Savannah, Lincoln, Fraser and Luella. Sherrie's parents were also there from Canada and Joy's sister-in-law Jean. We had a great time with them and parked our vans in their driveway for the night. We left after a pancake breakfast and headed for Mount Cook.

The weather was great that day, we were lucky as Mount Cook is so often covered in cloud that only 30% of visitors usually see it. We had sunshine and blue skies and could see it even as we drove past Lake Pukaki. Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki were an even brighter shade of turquoise in the sunshine than they were when we drove by them the previous week. We went to Mount Cook village at the base of the snow covered mountains where we took loads of photos and visited the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre.

Christmas Eve was another beautiful day and we drove from Omarama, where we had stayed the night to Te Anau. We stopped for an hour or so in Queenstown on the way for Mum and Dad to look around there and had to drag Mum out of the souvenir shops! Christmas Day dawned cloudy but brightened up as we neared Milford Sound and there was even a few patches of blue sky. We had arranged a cruise on the Sound as a surprise Christmas present for Mum and Dad, the scenery was fantastic. We had barbequed minted lamb chops for our al fresco Christmas dinner with a difference!

It was then time to start making our way back to Christchurch as the end of our time in New Zealand was getting closer. We drove part way and stopped in Wanaka over night, finding some time to go to Puzzling World, a place of illusions and a 3D maze - childish maybe but good fun! We returned to Christchurch and to Ken and Marilyn's who invited us to stay at their place despite Ken having a broken vertebrae in his neck after a motorbike accident and Marilyn having a broken foot!! We went out for a drive up the hills surrounding the city, Martin drove Ken's Toyota convertible which was great as it was a beautiful sunny day. We left their place after Sunday lunch to head for Sydney, saying goodbye to our campervan that has been our home for the last month, after travelling 6600 kilometres in it.

When we planned our trip we allowed ourselves a month to explore New Zealand, but this wasn't really enough and there were many more places we would have liked to have visited. And so we leave New Zealand, after discovering that: There are not as many sheep as there are rumoured to be and many more cows! There are no traffic jams, the roads are just about empty. New Zealanders' idea of a traffic jam is to have someone in front of them at traffic lights! This is no criticism of New Zealanders though, they are lovely friendly people who have a more relaxed pace of life.