As I indicated in my last blog, from Picton I drove down the Queen Charlotte's Drive (around the wiggly coast) to Nelson and their arts festival and Rugby FanZone. While there I saw:

• Johnny English Reborn (OK, so not very cultural, but a good laugh)

• The French beat the Welsh (Boo)

• The short gig at one of the arts festival venues

• "The Grimstones - Hatched" a beautiful piece of fantasy theatre told with giant books, old world marionettes and sign language. (It did what theatre does so much better than television; it engaged your imagination.)

• The Kiwi's beat the Aussies (Yeah!)

I also drove out through the Abel Tasman National Park and spent a little while in a delightful Rock Labyrinth. All in all, a great couple of days.

From Nelson, I've started south down the West Coast. Firstly I drove to Westport and then on to Greymouth. Westport is not particularly exciting, but it does have a top swimming pool complex so I took the opportunity to give myself and my gear a thorough wash. According to the Lonely Planet, it also has "One of NZ's best restaurants, the Bay House Café". Unfortunately, the guide is out of date and the place is closed down now. Anyhow, I was able to get a very nice meal at the Yellow House Café; fresh bread with dips, pork with crisp roast potatoes in a dark gravy, apple pie and ice cream. New Zealander's say that their produce is the very top quality, and so far I'd have to agree.

Although neither Westport nor Greymouth are very exciting in themselves, the drive down is magnificent. I don't have a camera that can do the scenery justice, and to be honest I was just so gob-smacked by it all that I wasn't really thinking about taking pictures. As with the journey to Blenheim, the route included bits passing though the mountains and bits along the coast. This time though, the seas were rougher and the vegetation looked almost Jurassic with lots of ferns and steep cliffs.

From here I need to make a decision; do I continue down the West Coast via the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers to Wanaka, or turn inland over Arthur's Pass and do a bit more of the East Coast. Either way, I hope to make it to Quenstown by the weekend for the Rugby Final. New Zealand is split down the middle by their Alps and they say that if the weather is poor on one side, then it will be fine on the other. I guess this is where the flexibility of a camper-van really pays off. Tomorrow I will check the forecast and decide where to go. In the meantime, I will just have to open my wine and tuck into some cheese and pâté. Life can be so trying at times.