After leaving Queenstown I travelled back north with a quick overnight stop in Christchurch before stopping in Kaikora. On the way we crossed back over the Southern Alps for the final time, this time via the Lindis Pass, with a perfect setting for lunch overlooking the aqua blue Lake Pukaki.The next day we arrived in Kaikora by lunchtime to find the sun shining and it was even warm enough to reintroduce my legs to the world and get my shorts back out. After admir...

After my relaxing evening first stop the next day was a bizarre place called Puzzling World. Basically it has four rooms?full of illusions to play tricks on the senses and make for some great photos. It also has the world's only three dimensional maze - a real back to your childhood experience for a few hours.Then on the way into Queenstown we stopped at Kawarau Bridge for some brave souls to bungy 47m into the river below. To prolong their agony a bit furthe...

After leaving Christchurch I boarded the first of my Kiwi buses to spend the next five days travelling down the west coast of the south island towards Queenstown. I'd heard various reports about the whole 'Kiwi experience' bus mentality and was wondering if I'd made the wrong decision about the way to travel here, but I soon found I had nothing to worry about. The nightmare of a bus full of 18 year olds never materialised and right from the start ...

The first thing I noticed when I arrived in Christchurch was how English everything was. Even on the shuttle bus from the airport I seriously thought I'd stepped off the place in the wrong country and somehow arrived back home! The houses all looked English, the streets very green and full of trees, we passed an old college that looked just like it was in Oxford or Cambridge and I even saw an old Sierra Sapphire (anyone remember those?!).So I wasn't surpr...