Left Westport bright and early again no chance of lie in for me!!! First catastrophe of the day hair dryer blew up whilst using it in the van.......looks like bad hair days for rest of holiday!!! Visited seal colony saw lots of seals no blue penguins tho. Had lunch with the ducks and bees by the lake. Arrived in Marlborough region early afternoon.......bring on the Sav Blanc. Just missed William and Kate by 2hrs locals all raving about them. Lovely drive through ...

Left Franz Josef to travel up the west coast to Westport. First stop For coffee Hokitika nice old town beautiful beach. Next stop shanty town panning for gold......didn't make our fortune no nuggets few grains of gold only. Looks like we will have to go back to work!!!! Travelled up the coastal road to pancake rocks, voted one of the top 10 coastal drives in the world was pretty impressive. Stayed in Westport quiet seaside town yet another beautiful sunset.

What a great day. Helicopter ride up the glacier and landed on the snow. Got some amazing pics tried to have snowball fight but difficult to make snowballs out of ice!!!! Hired bikes and cycled up to Peters pool which has great reflections of the glazier. Ann now being cultural and gone to watch movie on the glazier while I sit in the sun with a cheeky glass or 2 of Sav Blanc. Hope it's not a long film lol.

Long day driving from queenstown to Franz Josef. Left bright and early at 8:30 didn't get far !!!! Needed to fill up with diesel couldn't open the fuel cap between us so had to ask a nice kiwi guy to help us. All set to go then warning lights start flashing van needs service!!!!! Called the hire company not a problem so finally set off. Stopped in Arrowtown small gold mining town didn't find any gold so moved on quickly. Beautiful drive up to Franz Josef scenery...

Early morning.....clocks went back 1hr. Ann off hiking round the lake!!!! I joined her for coffee and bacon butties in a lovely cafe by the lake. Then off on our adventure to skippers canyon. Thought we would be traveling in style in 4WD but oh no in a minibus!!!! Thank goodness the driver knew what he was doing pretty scary driving across the mountain on a single track. Scenery fantastic saw where lord of the rings was filmed. Drove down the canyon to the shoto...