Sorry about the long pause between updates but WiFi in the South island has been hard to locate. The system seems to have been down on the West Coast for a couple of days.We have now reached Wanaka so will try to fill in the gap. We stayed at the Honest Lawyer in Nelson (he seemed to be buried out the back!!) and clearly there are no others left. The first day was rather overcast while the weather recovered from what seems to have been a tremendous storm. We explored the town in an old London red double decker with the driver telling us lots of stories about the town and its people. We then called briefly into the Founders museum to see old settlers houses and got way laid by a set of enthusiastic train drivers. They were running an old engine and carriage down a short piece of track they had restored. We had to have a ride and here all the problems and plans of course. A steam engine on the track is the next aspiration apparently.The next day was bright and sunny and we departed by jet boat up the coast to Tonga (a beach in the Abel Tasman Park not the island). A short but quite hard walk took us on to a café and lunch before we went back down the coast to catch a boat. This proved a little worrying as at least two boats arrived and said they could not take us. Wait for that one they said, pointing into the far distance and we thought about being marooned for a while before the boat did come along and with a cross sea and a fair amount of wind gave us a lively ride back.The next day we had along slog down the coast to Hokitika. This proved to be a great stop off and we were sorry we had only one day to admire the sands at the front of the hotel and the views of the mountains at the back. The next day we set off again down the coast with a stop at Ross to find about the gold mining and also to visit a greenstone carver who fascinated us with tales of jade and its origins and fakery. The weather was glorious as we arrived at franz Josef so we took the opportunity to visit the glacier straight away to see landscape in the sunshine. There was a little problem with getting right up to the ice a large stream of meltwater and no way of crossing without paddling. I braved it for about his shoes and socks off but refrained from trying the temperature. Cowards both we retreated and took photos instead.The hotel was really good and we were able to enjoy a real Xmas Eve and exmas Day dinner there rather than in the cafes in the village. Everyone was very friendlyand the food excellent. Peter is talking about returning soon for another breakfast!! Sadly Xmas day's weather was cloudy but we managed to see the Fox Glacier much closer to the ice edge after clambering over a lot of moraine.Today we left in another rain downpour but were lucky as we passed through the Haas pass the weather cleared and we had a spectacular ride through to Wnaka. Now I am looking at snow capped mountains against a blue sky quite something for Boxing day.