On the road again We picked up our car in Queenstown and, after a visit to the local Saturday street market, set off on the road to Wanaka. Wanaka is a beautiful town having a wonderful setting on the shores of a lake and surrounded by mountains. We ate a picnic lunch on the beach and then went for a walk around the wooded shore. Lots of locals were out enjoying barbecues and the afternoon sunshine. We met an older couple who had emigrated to NZ in 1957 and had...

Queenstown is the prettiest town we have ever seen. Set on a deep lake of light blue waters and on the boundary of three mountain ranges - one of which is called the Remarkables because it is very remarkable. We had our first sight of Queenstown from the top of a mountain pass where there had only been a drove road until the mid 70s. The lake has a 100 year old steamship running trips on the loch. Until recently it was used to transport sheep from the lake shor...

Before leaving Rotarua for Christchurch we had time to spend in a Maori village. In this place the earth's crust is only 4 km thick. This manifests itself in boiling water pools, geysers, steam spouts, bubbling mud pools and belching hydrogen sulphide gas. In this charming environment the local tribe of Maori people have chosen to make their home. It has 2 advantages - free hot water for bathing and free hot water for cooking. Put your veg in a bag, drop th...

Kia Ora as we say in New Zealand. I'm not offering an orange juice, I'm saying hello in Maori. We attended a Maori cultural evening last night and had a wonderful time - but more of that later. There were two highlights of our third day in New Zealand. The first was breakfast on a farm and the other was a caving experience. The farm was run by an elderly, slightly eccentric couple and a dog - Colin, Jan and Minty. They supplied us with a fabulous breakfa...

New Zealand is a very different place from Oz. The countryside is green and the geology seems to be completely different - the country seems to be dissolving and collapsing in on itself. Did you know that there is only one indigenous mammal here - it's a bat. If an animal doesn't swim or fly then it never reached here. Sallie met us at the airport and brought us to her beautiful house in the Bombay Hills to the south of Auckland. It is set in 6 acres of roll...