For those of you still reading we are alive and well in Australia, but have had a really hectic schedule to keep to, which has kept us away from our journal for over a month. Hopefully the break has refreshed us though, as a lot of people were wandering if we'd become writers for the Lonely Planet. OK, it did get a bit factual there for a while, so we apologise and will try to keep Rich's geekiness under control. It is hard to write literary genius whilst...

After the excitement of the blue penguins, we took a detour off the motorway to Christchurch so we could visit Lake Pukaki and Lake Tekapo, on the way stopping off to view some ancient Maori rock art. First we came to Lake Pukaki, which is a beautiful deep-blue coloured lake with Mount Cook and the Southern Alps in the distance. The colour of the water has been caused by glacial feed, so it is really stunning. Further along the road we came to Lake Tekapo, whic...

Today we drove on to Oamaru, a small historic town (in NZ terms anyway) on the east coast, and home to a colony of Blue Penguins, who every night return to their homes at dusk and cross infront of a grandstand packed full of people. The colony was set up after the harbour had been renovated, and people realised that they had displaced dozens of blue penguins (also called Little Penguins, as they are the smallest species of penguin), so some locals placed nest-bo...

Arriving in Dunedin, we had heard it was famous for 2 things, beer (Speights) and chocolate (Cadbury's). Being lovers of both we thought it would be rude not to get involved. Dunedin is Celtic for 'Edinburgh', we wondered why we kept seeing lots of ginger haired folk playing the bagpipes and tossing the caber! It's also freezing cold in Dunedin as well, think it rained every day we were there, so a definate reminder of Scotland. Our first trip i...

After stopping off at Bluff we headed back up to Invercargill where we could join the road to the Catlins Coast.This coastline was very rugged and so a refreshing change from the South Island's alpine and rural scenery.Our first stop on the coast was at Waipapa Point, where we were supposed to be able to see the rare Hookers sea lion. We got out of the car and stumbled up to the Lighthouse near the edge of the cliffs, it was really windy. At this point we cou...