The west coast was a pretty spectacular drive with wavers crashing into the cliffs and carving out spectacular rock formations and the further south we got the more of the Southern Alps we could see with lots of high snow-capped peaks in the distance. We drove enjoying the views until we reached the Punakaiki Pancake rocks which are rock formations which have been eroded to look like stacks of... you guessed it, pancakes. We weren't there at high tide when the oc...

Having been driven from Rotoroa by the sandflies we drove towards the west coast following the Buller River, stopping at a scenic spot for breakfast where the Buller is joined by the Blackwater River, we then headed into the town of Westport where we went for a swim to get a good value shower and did shop refuelling. We then headed out to Cape Foulwind where we had a little walk out along the cliff tops and clambered out for a lovely little lie down in the sun. ...

Arrived in Nelson, left camera with guy, had sushi, picked camera up unrepaired, told it had to be repaired by a panasonic service centre, grumbled expletives about panasonic, bought new camera (number 3 with charger about number 6) - not panasonic, left Nelson quickly. Picture above not taken in Nelson as had no camera, grumble.

After our detour to Nelson we set off to the Nelson Lakes National Park arriving at Lake Rotoroa early evening, despite there being a campsite we decided to camp alongside the lake which was very peaceful (although there was some drum and bass coming out of the car next door later on) but the wildlife weren't quite so welcoming. We had our first encounter with New Zealand sandflies which are little midges that swarm and feast on your legs, they are pretty persist...

Whilst we had had a great time in Abel Tasman you won't need to guess what had happened, we had more camera trouble with our 3 month old camera deciding to stop working (no more panasonics ever again). Not wanting to miss out on getting records of the spectacular scenery we were expecting to see we decided to take a little detour and head back to Nelson to see if we could get the camera fixed. We couldn't get there before the shops closed and found a really nice ...