We've just returned from an AMAZING two week tour of the South Island, which was full of laughs and spending, as well as drama, which amounts to great memories. We took 1200 photos and have dwindled them down for you guys to get a glimpse of what we did/seen and hopefully the photos will explain things a bit more.

In brief; we headed for Wellington and took the Interislander Ferry to Picton (South Island). We then drove the picturesque Queen Charlotte's drive (apparently there's an alternative walking track which we opted not to take) to Nelson, where we found not much going on so continued onto Abel Tasman. Here we spent a day exploring this stunning National park by kayak and foot.

From here we drove to the west coast and down along it (named, with good reason, in the Lonely Plant as one of the top 10 drives in the world!), taking in Pancake Rocks, detouring inland to Arthur's Pass and then onto both Franz-Joseph & Fox Glaciers.

We drove Haast Pass to Wanaka and Queenstown where we stayed for a few days to indulge in the adrenaline activities on offer.

We took a cautious drive to Milford Sound and cruised to see the sights. On our return, our beloved space-wagon died leaving us stranded in middle of nowhere with no phone coverage and hitch hiking to the nearest town. This threw a massive spanner in the works as we had to return to Queenstown via bus to arrange a hire car and buy a tent which unfortunately resulted in us having to miss out on the Catlins (place famous for it's dolphin and penguin viewing L).

Space-wagon gone and Geoff (our hire car) in toe we drove to the Otago Peninsula where we seen our first (and only) penguin! From there we explored Dunedin, where we ate not so amazing cheese rolls (everyone raves about them, basically it's a slice of bread rolled up which has cheese in it and you pay $3.50 for the privilege!!) and then some very amazing Vietnamese food.

We detoured inland to visit Lake Tekapo and Mt. Cook, NZ's highest mountain. Unfortunately for the first time on our trip the weather was unkind to us; Mt. Cook was hidden in the clouds and Lake Tekapo although blue didn't have the glow we were hoping for (it's famous for it's turquoise colour).

We visited Christchurch the day after its one year anniversary of the quake and much to Tim's insensitive disappointment we did not experience an earthquake. We didn't hang around there too long opting to go Hanmer Springs (thermal pools & spa) where we soaked in various pools ranging between 37˚ - 42˚, two of which were sulphur pools and therefore smelled like you were bathing in rotting eggs….yum!

It was then back to Picton to make our way to the Interislander ferry. Our hire car was not allowed on the ferry, so we'd to somehow pack all of our stuff into 4 bags for checking in and go on as foot-passengers! Thankfully the Interislander have taken no tips from Micheal O'Leary and we got on with too much luggage without any fuss.

On our arrival in Wellington we picked up our new hire car, which was a 'free' upgrade. Staff were dismayed by my complaints about it…

So we're now back in Raglan, car-less and broke but with incredible memories. We did meet a couple who had travelled NZ and named Raglan there favourite so really we can't complain…which begs the question; why would we want to go on holiday when we already live in 'paradise'!?