Helloo, well we hav been very busy scince our last blog. . .

we stayed the night just outside Franz Joseph then headed north - our last blog was from the lovely seaside town of Hokitika. We carried on driving to Greymouth and stayed the night in a little glorified garage forecourt, greymouth was a little un-inspiring but i did get a bit of beach time in the next morning so thats cool. the sea here on the west coast is too dangerous to swim in - the waves are so strong they had shaped the pebble beach into huge steps about 7ft high.

So after some sun worshiping we headed for Barrytown - a dot of a place a bit further up the coast to stay the night beffore our Thursday all day activity . . . well we failed a little and ended up staying north of Barytown in Punakaiki. which was beautiful - they have a rare example of 'pancake rock' formations that they have yet to explain how they were formed. we wandered on the black sand beach and picked up pebbles and stuff for the evening.

Yesterday we went back to Barytown for . . . a knife making course!!!!! we spent all day forging and gluing and bashing and sanding and polishing and sharpening and staining our own kives! they are beautifull and completely unique. Graham you are going to be jealous . . . sufficed to stay we are planning to move house when we get back so we can fit a forge in the back garden.

Having finished the knife making at about 5pm we drove a little way to camp in sand fly hell once again - made better by the two pre-cooked chickens we picked up on the way!

Today we have been driving cross country on our first rainy gray day in a month to Blenheim. Tommorow we will drive up to Picton to get the ferry over to Welington. Not long left now!

Claire x