At 09.30 we were off for the final leg of our journey with the motorhome back to Christchurch. We headed around Lake Brunner and continued until we joined Highway 73 which crosses the South Island via Arthur's Pass. We quickly started to climb as we headed into the Aurthurs Pass National Park with the road generally following the Otira River, there were quite a lot of heavy lorries with trailers on the road making slow progress up the steep slopes and U bends, t...

After breakfast when the traffic had cleared we headed out of town on Highway 7 towards Lyttleton and the Christchurch Gondola. The temperature was in the low 20's with a gusty wind. Before going up in the gondola we were warned that due to the wind that it may be necessary to delay or suspend operations. We had only got a third of the way up the 945 metre slope when the good laugh stopped and we were left swinging in the wind. After a couple of minutes however ...

A later start this morning and after breakfast we went on a forest walk and it eventually took us to the village where we stopped for coffee before getting back on the road. On the first part of the journey we retraced our steps of the previous day. Temperatures hit a balmy 29 degrees as we continued towards Christchurch via a very mixed landscape and further large areas devoted to winemaking. Ask we neared the coast we stopped for lunch at Leithfield Beach - we ...