New Years Eve had quickly approached and with no plan as such the self proclaimed "adventure capital world", Queenstown promised to be a good place to stop. It was a nice drive between Wanaka and Queenstown, very little traffic and picturesque, it all changed however as we arrived into town. The place was unbelievably busy, like Asda car park on a Saturday, horrible! To make things worse we didn't have anywhere booked for the night. We spent an hour ...

We were up early as we hadn't slept and the car was getting very hot with the sunlight. Next we packed the wet tent which was thankfully still just about standing but had to call off the morning walk. Instead we hit the road nice and early to Wanaka, a very popular tourist town. We soon found out why, again stunning, unfortunately so thought the rest of New Zealand and the town was packed. We managed to grab a pitch on a mega full campsite sat just off the lake, ...

We looked at a couple of the walks that were available around the lake but after speaking to a Swiss guy decided the walk to the Observatory on top of Mount John sounded spot on. The walk up there looked over and the views of the surrounding area From all 360 degrees, across the lake, over the village, and west to the southern Alps,again amazing! Feeling tried after the hike we grabbed a sneaky shower and used the kitchen at the YHA (having already checked out...

We packed up the tent pretty quickly with the sun out which made things much easier. We'd heard on the local radio about a horse race taking place at the local track so we arrived there a few hours before the races started. The clouds soon covered but it was good fun getting involved. We stayed for 4 races but didn't manage to win back a single dollar of the entrance fee, cutting our £5.50 loses we left mid afternoon, back on the road for a few hours. We knew...

It was finally time to leave the hostel, having enjoyed our time there it was time to move on. We headed south in search of somewhere to stay within reasonable driving distance. We'd been told by the tourist information that for the majority of January we might struggle to get onto campsites as most of the month is holiday period for the Kiwis. Rachael drove as Tom had had a little too much to drink the night before, Tom slept most of the way and a couple of h...