What was all the hype about South Island being incredibly beautiful and all that? Ok, they're right. Broadly speaking we drove down the East coast and back up via the west. We started our South Island adventure by visiting Blenheim and hiring bikes to take us around the Marlborough wine region. This area gets pretty much more sun than the rest of NZ all year and the weather was warm but not too hot for tastings at 3 different wineries. The Sauv blanc was particularly good. We spoiled ourselves that night by eating out at a steak restaurant. Next stop on the coast was Kaikoura, a unique peninsula due to the underwater sheer cliff face where the sea depth increases from 80m to over 1000m in the space of a minutes boat ride. All this gives great opportunity to see Sperm Whales, dolphins, seals, penguins and a whole host of other wildlife which we duly took the time to see. The highlight has to be the boat trip we took to see the Sperm whales, basically we chased them around waiting for them to surface every 45 minutes or so. Huge creatures and so very glorious in their movements, especially just before diving. The sea was a bit rough and we only got to see them as an extra sailing was put on in the afternoon after all the proposed morning sailings had been cancelled due to inclement weather.