We started our tour of the south island where the inter island ferry left us in Picton, a cute little port town. We had some great fish and chips but didn't spend long here as we were heading to Christchurch to meet Chris and Diana, friends we met in Bolivia. It was great to see them again and swap travel stories, and of course reminisce on the Bolivia mountain experience where we last saw them. Thankfully, Christchurch is pretty flat so there was no need to re...

We had an inkling before we arrived, but the fact of the matter is: New Zealand is not in South America. Slightly unfairly perhaps, we held this fact against the City of Auckland upon our arrival. It was slightly colder than we had got used to, but, worse still for us, the airport, street signs (same colour, font and of course language), bus and general ambience had the whiff and efficiency of Stansted airport about it. Surely we don't need to explain the connota...