On Easter Monday we travelled through The Catlins, a scenic reserve which was mainly a mixture of Devon and the Yorkshire Dales type country, not stunning enough to take photos except of Nugget Point and from Bluff lookout; Bluff is a singularly uninspiring place given its prominence as the last town before you fall off the end of New Zealand! Invercargill calls itself a city but was very "Hill-Billyish". Luckily "Waxy O'Shea's" was a more than average Irish Bar and we had an excellent meal including Bluff Oysters (about the only thing ever to be called "good" out of Bluff, other than the road North!) and Guinness.....heavenly! We thought about going to Stewart Island but it was uninviting and the ferry company had done their best to put us off! On Tuesday we followed the Southern Scenic Road through beautiful scenery up to Lake Manapouri and on to Te Anau, the most touristy place we'd found so far. Doubtful Sound was booked for the morning so we had a late lunch and bumbled the rest of the day away! The photos say it all about the contrast of warm sunny weather in Te Anau compared with dull damp conditions over the Lake and Wilmot Pass (by bus) and then onto the cruise boat for the "Wilderness experience". Grey and green are the two prevalent colours of Doubtful Sound and if the photos look bleak then they don't lie! We saw no signs of wildlife (they had more sense than to parade themselves for us on such a cold wet day!) except for a few Fur Seals who were too lazy to get off the rock they'd found! 'Nuff said! We ate Chinese back in Te Anau and then left the following morning to travel up to Queenstown, stopping at Kingston to get photos of the Kingston Flyer (steam train, sorry!) and let the local sand flies have lunch....on us! Travelling up the side of Lake Wakitipu was truly awesome and hopefully some of the photos reflect this; then we went towards Glenorchy (at the base of the Southern Alps, were the road ends) before running back to the base here in Queenstown. By the time you read this we will BOTH have ridden the "Shotover Jet" (Jill's having kittens even thinking about it! Look it up on the internet if you want a preview of what we're subjecting ourselves to!) and may well be on our way over the Haast Pass and into the wilds of the West Coast and glacier country. It might be next week before we reach civilisation again so bear with us if you get no more before we reach the top of the South Island! We're still together (!) and having a great time, missing the family a bit but not too much. Our weather, most recently, has been very pleasant (20C+ in the sun) but it won't be long, we suspect, before you're getting better than us. We trust you're all well and send our love from the other side of this amazing world. Big hugs all round and God bless you one and all. Richard & Jill xx