Up early and after being wait listed again got onto whale watch trip. Saw 10 whales , which was more than usual sightings. Amazing trip. Lots of people were sea sick, but we managed OK with a good supply of ginger tablets! We found it so difficult to capture the beautiful whales on camera though! Walked around Kaikoura and then decided to take off again up the coast towards Nelson via Blenheim. Had our tea in beautiful harbour at Havelock, which we found quite by...

Hi folks After being very cheeky and chatting to the guys in the van depot in Christchurch on our way passed again ( tosort out air lock in our sink) we set off with clean sheets and towels, extra cups and glasses and our oil and water checked for us!! Drove on to Hamner Springs for hot spa pools, ranging from 36C to 45C. Very relaxing and surreal sitting in the pools surrounded by mountains. Treated ourselves to delicious lamb shanks in the local pub recomme...

We spent the night at great expense in the caravan park at Franz Josef and made good use of all facilites!! The next am , we were up early for our quick heliflight up the glacier and our walk on the ice, only to find that it was cancelled due to weather! We were gutted but put ourselves on standby for the nexty one 2hrs later. We decided to drive to the base of the glacier and do the base walk to use up some time. It was far dirtier than we thought but still very...

Hi Everyone Early start, drove to TeAnau. Beautiful trip through fiordland NP, with snow capped mountains. Arrived in Te Anau, parked van, jumped onto coach for trip to Milford Sound. Spectacular views, trip through 2.1 m tunnel (just higher than coach!) with traffic lights every 15 mins! Onto boat for 2hr cruise on Milford sound. Weather improved on the return journey, so scenery beautiful. Next day, was a laxy day. had a walk around Te Anau lake and did the gl...

After a shaky start, we are now on our way. We were about to leave Christchuch, when Pam got a bad dose of food poisoning and took to bed for 24hrs. then we had to return to base as fridge not working and got an upgrade on the van, so were well pleased! It was a big relief as we weren't sure about our first one's ability to climb the mountain passes! Then we lost the van key for an hour, which became very frustrating! We began to think we were destined to stay in...