Blog 73 Leaving lake Wanaka took us on one of the most scenic drives of the trip. A photo stop and a campervan caffetiere overlooking the lake made for a contented Bryn. A 3 hour stop off in Wanaka town was started with a step climb up Mount Iron to be rewarded with views of the snow topped mountains. Somehow even reading back this blog will not come close to recounting that emotional feeling of looking out over those hills and turquoise glacier filled lakes...

Blog 72 Sunrise over the snowy mountains was enough to get us out of bed and wrapped up ready for our walks upto Franz-Josef and Fox Glaciers. After a short walk through the valley we got our first glimpse of the hunk of compressed snow and GCSE geography became the favourite topic of conversation... Morraine, U-shaped valleys, hanging valleys, cravases and erosion. After several people getting avalanched upon a few years ago, we were only able to get within 2...

Blog 71 After a well rested sleep in the warmth of a van with a fan heater we had a grandma's morning in Hokitika which involved a visit to the jade stone factory and a glass blowing workshop. We manned up and fixed a fuse in the van and found ourselves glacier bound. On route we popped into a wee village called Okarito, which was the setting of a book which Bryn read on his travels, The Bone People, which was nothing like he imagined and in all honesty a bit ...

Blog 70 This morning we woke up with frosty noses and pulled our camper curtains back to an icy winter wonderland. That was a cold nights kip. A long long drive and we found the Pancake Rocks in Punakaki. This place is a rock fanatics wet dream and even for the less geologically mined its still pretty bloody interesting to look at. Photos taken and back into the camper and down to a campsite just south of Greymouth to pull up the handbreak for the night. Th...

Blog 69 The taxi boat we sat aboard drifted slowly out over blue Abel Tasman water. Once deep enough the engine was powered up and we whipped our way along the coast, 22km north to be precise. The boat dropped us of at Bark Bay and waved cheerio. Now it was our job to get back to base, on foot. This beast of a walk brought us past perfect coves, through wonderful woodland, over muddy estuaries, creeks, gullies, gorges and culverts. Today we walked barefoot t...