We waved goodbye to Wellington and the North island on the morning of 15th April and jumped on the interisland ferry across to Picton in the South island. Once we arrived on dry land we met up with our new coach and travelled a few hours south to Nelson, this was to be our first stop in the south island.

Our south island journey includes the following:

NELSON - We spent two nights here as we were hoping to spend some time trekking across the Abel Tasman National park, unfortunately the weather didn't allow to! This left us with a rather small choice of things to do as Nelson doesn't offer a great deal but is still a nice town to wander round (albeit whilst wearing a rain jacket).

WESTPORT - Before we reached Wesport we stopped of at a the stunning 'lake Roiti' where we followed a short, to be honest, rather pointless trail into a forest which led us back to a picnic area overlooking the lake.

The town itself was rather small and I think the coach only stops here as its on route to more interesting places, one night here was more than enough.

LAKE MAHINAPUA - On the way down to this next stop we visited a place named by captain cook for its extreme weather conditions 'Cape Foulwind', he certainly got that right! We spent around 45 minutes walking along this blustery coastline before reaching 'Tauranga Bay' which is known to have one of New Zealands largest seal colonies.

From there we headed to Punakaiki where we stopped for lunch and visited the pancake rocks and blowholes, the pictures should explain the name.

After all that we finally arrived at our destination where we met one of life's characters 'Les'! An 83 year old man who said what he thought and didn't hold back. Les cooked us all a fantastic steak meal including a large portion of his legendary venison stew.

FRANZ JOSEF - From Lake Mahinapua we headed further south stopping off a place known for making a range of roadkill delicacies including the famous 'Possum pie'! Unfortunately it was too early in the morning for either of us to sample anything as we had not long had breakfast, instead we both enjoyed wandering around the strange collection of humorous (mildly offensive) items on display including a range of letters of complaint followed by quick witted responses from the owner of the shop.

From before we had even booked our tour of NZ we were both looking forward to what Franz Josef had to offer, it didn't disappoint.

We arrived in town slightly behind schedule leaving us with only a few minutes to check ourselves into the hostel and make our way to our first activity, Kayaking on lake Mapourika. The lake was overlooked by both a rainforest and the southern alps, making for some amazing views. We spent a total of 3hrs paddling across the lake and through a narrow river leading us into the depths of the rainforest and challenging my steering capabilities as the kayaks foot pedals where out of sink with rudder!

Having worn our upper bodies out whilst co-ordinating paddle strokes the day before we decided to exhaust the lower half of our bodies on a breathetaking yet challenging full day glacier hike!! The day started with us having to pack a backpack each with all the necessary extra layers and food we would want on the glacier. We then made our way to the tour depot were we were kitted out with even more warm clothing and a set of crampons each to carry around in a rather fetching red bum bag.

We then made our way as close to the glacier as the roads could take us, by means of a red coach, and then continued or journey with a 3km trek over some rather rocky terrain. Once we finally reached the base of the glacier it was time to attach the crampons to our walking boots, an interesting experience, and start our steep ascent up the face.

Although steps had been cut leading up the glacier it was still a lot of hard work climbing and trekking our way through some incredible scenery. Our guide was constantly surveying areas of the glacier and going on ahead to find safe new routes for us to discover.

The pictures only start to show how impressive the glacier looked up close and this will most definitely be one of our most memorable experience from the trip, well worth all the aches and pains that followed for the next few days!!!

WANAKA - With our entire bodies still feeling the result of the previous couple of days efforts the last thing we wanted was an early start however this was just what we got, leaving the hostel for Wanaka at 7.30am!

We stopped off for (a second) breakfast at a cafe situated by 'Lake Matheson', the lake is famed for providing a perfect mirrored reflection of 'Mount Cook'. When we arrived at the lake we realised we had the option of a 45 minute walk around it or, going by the provided map, a much shorter walk to a prime photo spot. With absolutely no intention of going for another long walk so soon after the glacier we opted for the much shorter journey to the prime photo spot. Having walked for about 25 mins and not reached our intended destination it became clear that the map had actually been drawn way off scale and we would have been better off walking in the opposite direction! So we carried on round and 45 mins from when we started we made it back to the coach, ready for our legs to seize up!!!

Having got back on the coach we headed south and reached Wanaka mid afternoon giving us just enough time to wander down to 'Lake Wanaka' and take in the beautiful views.

QUEENSTOWN - We left the hostel feeling slightly more awake than the day before with muscles gradually returning back to normal. Our first stop of the day was only just outside Wanaka at an interesting place called 'Puzzling World', an eccentric theme park full of illusions and things to make you think.

We spent around 45 mins wandering around a large maze having to find all four coloured corners and then the exit. There was a room of inverted faces that seemed to follow you around wherever you moved, a room where things appeared to run up hill (we couldnt spend too long in there tho as it made us feel quite sick for some reason) and even the toilets weren't quite what they appeared or at least the mocked up entrance to the toilets that is, see pics.

The first place we stopped in Queenstown was at a bridge over the 'Kawarau river' where a few people from our coach decided to pay money to throw themselves off, with essentially a large elastic band tied round their feet (Bungy), personally not my thing but Jean-Marie seems to have been entertaining the idea! (Fair play to anyone who has done it!)

We didnt do a great deal whilst here other than visiting the lake, catching up on emails and taking the chance to have a lye in while not traveling on the coach for a day.

DUNEDIN - We had planned to spend two nights here but our coach timetable would only allow for us to stay one night or four! We chose four nights as we wanted the chance to settle down for a bit really, that and Dunedin seemed like a reasonable place to stay. The first day we arrived in town our driver guide took us to 'Baldwin hill', the steepest hill in the world so they say, this was a good reminder of our time spent in San Fransisco! We didnt really plan on walking all the way up but after some confusion as to where we would be meeting up with the coach afterwards we decided to huff and puff our way to the top, a rather pointless experience but apparently you can actually get a certificate to say you have done it!!!

After the hill we checked in to the hostel and made our way down to the local 'Speights' brewery for a guided tour. The tour lasted about a half hour and some of it was quite interesting but as with any tour of that nature its probably fair to say that everyone is more interested in the free samples at the end! We were given a small glass each and had six varieties of Speights beers on tap to help ourselves to, unfortunately they limited our time but we still managed to squeeze a few in. (I say we, Jean doesn't actually drink beer!lol)

The next few days were just spent relaxing and planning the next part of trip although I had hoped to have a nosey round 'Carisbrook Stadium'(home to the All Blacks) it was a little to far to venture on foot.

INVERCARGILL - Our actual time spent in Invercargill itself was very limited as we didnt arrive here until about 7pm and left mid morning the next day but we had a day full of jumping on and off the coach on the way to the town.

After leaving Dunedin we headed to an area of NZ known as the Catlins, this is an area known to be home to some amazing and rare wildlife.

Our first stop was at 'Roaring Bay', this is about as far south as we are ever likely to go, next stop would be the South Pole! There is a nice view, from the now retired lighthouse, of a group of huge rocks in the sea known as the Nuggets (something to do with the way the sun reflects off them making them look like chunks of gold). The Nuggets are home to a large group of sealions but they are a long way down so you wouldn't be able to tell that from our photos. A couple of dolphins were playing around in the water beneath us, which was nice to see, although not quite as acrobatic as the ones we saw in Vegas for some reason.lol.

We then travelled round the coast to a spot called 'Surat Bay', where we got much closer to the sealions as they had scattered themselves along the beach (see pics).

The next place our guide took us to was 'McLean falls', we had to take a short but fairly steep and scenic walk up to see it but it was worth the effort as it was quite impressive (see pics).

Our final stop of the day, before we reached Invercargill, was at the 'Fossilised forest. This is were a forest once stood, during the Jurassic period, but was wiped out by a volcano and all thats left is a strange collection of what looks like tree stumps and felled tree trunks but is actually a solid volcanic rock cast of what was left behind all those years ago. The main reason for us stopping at the fossilised forest was because this is home to a small group of rare 'yellow eyed' penguins. They nest in amongst the plants around the edge of the forest and go out hunting fish all day only to return when it starts getting dark, we waited around for about an hour and managed to catch a glimpse of two of the timid little guys. (Not bad considering there are only about 6000 of them left!)

TE ANAU - MILFORD SOUND - QUENSTOWN (again) -

Well our journey into Te Anau made for a pretty boring experience as did our stay in the town itself so I think ill spare you all the details. Having said that on our way to Te Anau we did stop off in a town called Tuatapere, 'NEW ZEALANDS SAUSAGE CAPITAL'!!!! (so glad we saw it before we left)lol.

After spending the night in Te Anau we made our way to the coach ready for a long day of jumping on and off the bus.

Our main stop of the day was a place called 'Milford Sound', if you buy a travel book of NZ don't be surprised if its got a picture of this place on the front cover (mine has).

En route we stopped to take pictures of a few waterfalls and mountain ranges, one of our stops got us up close to a KEA bird whilst he hopped from car roof to roof causing mischief! (pecking at the rubber seals and nibbling on windscreen wipers).

Milford sound is a picturesque fiord with mountains rising straight out of the sea creating some stunning 360 degree views while we made our way along it and out to sea on a small ferry (the boat on the right of the photo, not the one centre as we thought when we were taking it!)

Having seen the fiord we jumped back on the coach for our long journey back to Queenstown to complete the lower loop of our trip.

CHRISTCHURCH - Our last stop in the New Zealand! We arrived here quite late in the day and didn't really have many interesting stops on our way here, although there were a few scenic photo ops that our driver let us hop off and snap away at.

Often referred to as the most English town outside of England, its easy to see why, with some typically English sounding road names and the general architecture of the place.

We allowed ourselves 5 nights here so we had time to get ourselves organised for our hop across to OZ and take in a few sights. On our second night in Christchurch we went to a Rugby match, a Super 14s game between the Crusaders (local side) and the Sharks (South African side). Before the game they put on some great entertainment in the way of singers, cheerleaders and even a group of guys on horse back dressed as crusaders riding around the outside of the pitch!

Unfortunately the weather tried its best to make it a fairly miserable experience with hail stones and rain through out the match and the stadium being rather open to the elements but it was still enjoyable and the locals won 18 - 10, after some fairly dubious decisions from the ref it has to be said!

On our last full day in NZ we decided to try and see a live Kiwi bird as it was our last chance and we were not going to see one in the wild so unfortunately it had to be in an enclosure. It was strange to see the little creatures running around in the dark looking like they had their arms permanently stuck behind their backs. I'm glad we got to see them but it was a shame it wasn't in their natural environment and we weren't allowed to take any photos so cant really share that experience with the rest of you.

Overall we have both really enjoyed our time in New Zealand, its a shame its so far from home as its a great place to visit!

NEXT STOP: Australia - where we will live, work and travel for the next 6-7 months.

PS. CONGRATULATIONS if you read the entire blog from start to finish, don't feel bad if you got bored with it and skipped to the end tho!lol