Sheila writes: We spent the day today tramping in the Abel Tasman National Park, the smallest national park in New Zealand, in the north western corner of South Island. It's so beautiful - located where rolling mountains clothed in dense temperate rainforest meet the sea. All along the track there are glimpses and views of turquoise sea and little bays and beaches, interrupted by rocky headlands. There are no roads in the national park and all visitors have to e...

Sheila writes: Kaikoura on the east coast is in a wonderful setting - on a peninsula backed by snow covered mountains up to 2000m high. It's famous for being the whale-watching capital of New Zealand - so of couse we had to do a whale watching trip. Offshore immediately south of the peninsula, the continental shelf is cut into by the really deep (>1600m deep) Kaikoura Trench which causes oceanic upwellings in which fish and shellfish flourish and attract wh...

Sheila writes: Arrived in Christchurch hotfoot from the mountains. Clare spotted that a northern coastal suburb was called New Brighton - so of course we had to go and visit! It turned out to be a siamese twin of our own much loved namesake on the Wirral (except for the wet-suited surfers). It even had a pier, town hall, community centre and, since it was Easter Friday, a little fair with swings and rides! We celebrated by having an ice cream (but were a bit...

Sheila writes: Got up to find it had snowed overnight and the mountains (through the low cloud) were all white. We hurriedly had a porridge brekkie (!) and went out to walk to the snout of the Hooker Glacier while the weather was dry but still very misty. When we got there the most amazing thing happened - the mist lifted and we got a brilliant view of Mount Cook across the glacier. We felt tiny surrounded by mountains on all sides with summits ranging in e...

Clare writes: Ok, I'm cheating here by writing this in retrospect and then back-dating it, but we have to say something about Dunedin and make sure it's on the map - it is, after all, Gaelic for Edinburgh and Sheila had a laugh spotting street names from her home city which were all there but in the wrong order!! So there was Princes St, George St etc... and the kilt-maker and the Scottish Pub and the feeling that at any moment you would hear bagpipes... And d...