After our morning walk around Lake Matheson Alison was feeling a little under the weather so as we drove off towards Fox Glacier she lay in the back of Muriel like Luke's mother in Cool Hand Luke. I wandered up to the face of the Glacier again which, while spectacular, was pretty similar to Franz Josef so we drove up a side road to walk through the woods, across a little river that we basically had to jump across, to a spot where we were all alone looking down on...

This was probably the highlight of New Zealand so far. Having camped in the car park we awoke at day break to try to beat the rush of tourists visiting one of the most beautiful spots on the South Island. Lake Matheson is a fairly small mirror like lake which offers amazing reflective views of Mounts Cook and Tasman in the distance. With only a senior couple on the path in front of us we were able to reach the 'view of views' before anyone else and watched the mi...

The Franz Josef Glacier is one of the few glaciers in the world that is not receding having shifted down the valley in the last 30 odd years. That said as you drive up to car park you pass a sign which says the Glacier was here in 1750ish which is a pretty impressive stat as it was a long long way from where the glacier is now. We were able to walk up to the face of the glacier, or as close as the barriers, and get a good look at the mass of ice. We then clambere...

We carried on driving down the West Coast and reached the town of Hokitika, which was a small town with not a great deal to do. However, we decided to drive out to the river estuary to have a look at some white baiters. White baiting is a big deal in New Zealand and we are here in peak season. Unlike whitebait we know these are tiny little fish, almost like tadpoles, that leave the ocean in the spring to make their way rivers and in doing so have to pass the bulk...

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...