We awoke early after our lay by camping to a cloudy day, we set off straight away heading along the Queen Charlotte Drive and the cloud was slowly burnt away to reveal a glorious day. Feeling a little grubby we pulled over at a campsite in Momorangi Bay and took a shower we then had our breakfast sitting next to the water in what was a simply stunning setting, it's hard to imagine life being much better than this.

We reached the town of Blenheim, which is the heart of the Marlborough wine region, just as the weather began to take a turn for the worse. After a quick internet, petrol etc stop in the town we decided to take a drive along the coastal road that winds along the the marlborough sounds. Even though the rain was coming down it was great to wind our way along the little inlets, these were formed as the sea flooded the valleys so in most places the forest stretches r...

Driving north from Kaikoura we passed some amazing scenery with mountains on our left and beautiful blue oceans on our right, we hadn't read much about this part of the South Island which got us wandering if this place doesn't even get a mention what will the famous scenery be like. We found our way along another side road to Marfell beach which was an even better spot than the night before. We were able to back the van up so that we could look out onto the ocean...

We stopped off in the town of Kaikoura which is famous for it's whale watching trips. After a bit of umming and awwing we decided against doing this trip as it was very expensive and the seas were a little rough causing Alison to reminisce about her nights of vomiting in the Galapagos. Instead we had another stroll along the beach, saw our first whitebaiters (more on these guys later) and looked for suitable bits of driftwood to use as walking sticks. We then dr...

We made good progress on the road north from Christchurch and decided to turn off the main highway and head for the beach, after one dead end we found the pretty little settlement of Motunau, while we weren't allowed to camp by the beach there was a small basic campsite where we parked up and had our first night in the van. After leaving our payment for the campsite in the honesty box we drove down to the beach for a bowl of porridge on the shore, it really was ...