I've now reached Dunedin, and have sometime to catch my breath and gather my wits.

Last Wednesday, based on the weather forecast, I decided to stick to the West Coast. This turned out to be a good choice in that Christchurch (on the East Coast) subsequently suffered flooding from the heavy rains!

On the West Coast,the first stop was Fox Glacier. I arrived late afternoon, so booked myself a days hike for Thursday, and used the rest of the day to do a stroll around Lake Matheson. The Lake is beautiful and when completely calm provides a perfect reflection of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook (the two biggest mountains in New Zealand). Although it wasn't that calm, it was still a lovely stroll to close out the day.

The glacier day was great. I've never used crampons before, but the grip they gave on the ice was better than the grip I've had on a soggy Lake District fell. The most dangerous part of a glacier is the "terminal" (leading edge), so to avoid it you always get on to it from the side, in this case a series of steps carved in the ice by the guides. I've heard glaciers described as "a river of ice", but the guide explained it much better. He said it was better to think of it as a rapid - but going very slow. This is because, as with rapids, the ice follows the contours of the bed in which it travels. There was even an ice "water fall", where the upper glacier flows over a large drop and it breaks away and then reforms as the lower glacier that we walked on. You know you are doing something different when your guides say "just hold on here for a bit while we figure out how to get over this bit". They carved steps and strung out ropes as they took us up the lower glacier to the ice fall. Great guides and a great walk.

Immediately after the walk, I jumped in the van and headed further down to Wanaka. Wanaka is a nice small town (I had some great lamb chops there), but unfortunately, the poorer weather caught up with me there so, after another look at a forecast, I decided to slip past Queenstown and head straight to Te Anau ready for a trip along Doubtful Sound. The drive was, again, very beautiful, but this seems to be the norm around here. One place I did stop at briefly was Arrowtown which is a mock gold rush town for the tourists. I always have mixed feelings about these sorts of places. They are very quaint, but the once real town has now been overwhelmed and a kind of caricature left in its place. Anyhow, I had a quick ice-cream and pushed on.

Te Anau is another nice little town, mostly set up to accommodate tourists on their way to Milford Sound. Since I was going to Doubtful Sound, I had to slip back along the coast to Manapouri. In the 1950, a hydro electric power station was built at the end of Lake Manapouri to take the waters down ~170 meters (generating the electricity) and then along a ~20 kilometer "tailrace" tunnel into Doubtful Sound. The day trip took us on a boat across Lake Manapouri, then a quick trip down into the turbine hall for the power station, 22km in a bus on a winding track through the rain forest to Deep Cove (permanent population: 1), then out across Doubtful Sound in another boat. All along they way the guides are pointing out wildlife, bird sanctuaries, water falls, oh and places considered for or used in the Lord of the Rings films. A couple of interesting notes:

• the name "Doubtful" came from Captain Cook who sailed passed the seawards entrance, but was uncertain whether he could sail in and out given the prevailing Westerly winds. In his log book he wrote "Doubtful Harbour", and the name stuck.

• Although called a "Sound" it is really a Fjord. The difference (apparently) is that a sound is created by erosion which tends to result in V-shaped valleys whereas a Fjord is created by glaciers which tend to give a U-shaped valleys.

• The area suffers from tree avalanches. The rocks are covered with about a foot of moss in which the trees grow. However, with such unstable roots, the trees are sometime pushed over by bad weather or other falling trees; a kind of humongous domino toppling event. There were white scars down the sides of many hills that were the aftermath of such events.

In truth, we didn't see much wildlife, but that maybe because the air was so clear. This area of New Zealand is one of the wettest (hence the rain forest) with rain for 200 days a year giving as much as 9 meters of annual rainfall. Fortunately, this day the weather front had gone through and the air was crystal clear with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. Perhaps the clarity allowed the wildlife to see us coming and they scarped.

Again, straight after the cruise, I jumped in the van and drove back to Queenstown. I'd been looking at the long, Long lists of activities that you can do in Queenstown and settled on a Jet boat ride and a White water rafting. Of course, the other big event was the Rugby World Cup Final. Also, as I wander around, I discovered that they were having a Jazz Festival that (labour day) weekend.

The Jet boat ride was a blast. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel half your age (and half your IQ). I did the section from Queenstown, along the Kawarau and lower Shotover rivers. The first part was a little choppy, so had us bouncing in our seats. When it gets going, the boat travels at about 40mph, and at that speed it skims ("planes") along the top of the water rather than pushing through it. When the boat turns it doesn't cut the water, but is more like drifting a sliding car. And when the put it into a full turn, it simply spins right around, often ending up going backwards. Oh, and there is a bit of a splash that goes with it . We all got out fairly soaked at the end. (I also managed to bend my glasses a bit, but the nice Irish lass at Specsavers was able to twist them back into shape.)

The All Blacks decided to make it a tense final for the Kiwis. There was no FanZone in Queenstown, but every bar had a large screen and the place was pulsating with the events in the game. It was a low scoring game, but with the final score being 7-8 to the All Blacks, there was no respite until the final whistle - at which point the place erupted with cheers. I think that most of New Zealand stayed up to party that night while I crawled off to bed (with the years lost on the Jet Boat coming crashing back on me).

The White water rafting I did on the upper Shotover river. There were 2 inflatable rafts with 7 in each raft; one skipper, one trainee skipper, and 5 punters all arms with their own paddles. Additionally, there was one guy in a kayak to help out if anyone got into trouble. Each person got a wet suit and buoyancy jacket that made us look like Michelin men. The first bit was very calm when the skipper gives you a bit of training on the instructions he will use; Forwards, Backwards, Jump Left, Hold On. Then you are into it, and the half hour goes by very quickly. We had several rapids, finishing with a 200 yard tunnel and a little waterfall. We all had a good soaking and a smashing time, and the hot showers at the end were a god send.

Queenstown is a place you could easily spend a lot of time and a lot of money. Its kind of like Las Vegas as a Wow place, but where Las Vegas is mostly indoors, Queenstown is all about the outdoors. I could easily have stayed there a week and burned a whole bunch of budget, but I decided I needed to carry on and allow the plastic in my wallet to cool down, so after the rafting I jumped back in the van and came to Dunedin.

And now I'm up-to-date. Dunedin is the most southerly I expect to get on my Round-the-world trip. Getting somewhere cooler was nice after the heat of Fiji, but I've cooled down enough now and am looking forards to getting back to warmer climates.

Sorry about the long blog, but it has been a busy wee while.