The reader will be unsurprised to hear that the day's ride to Franz Josef presented stunning views of rainclouds. Nor will it be a surprise that we were unwilling to let this ruin the atmosphere (although it is getting a teensie bit irritating). We looked into a bushman's centre early on, to see why deer were almost as bad a pest as the possum (until Germans started eating them). Possum pie is very nice, too. Killer pool competition in the evening was the high...

Another washout today, but still it cannot stop us! We started off by heading to Cape Foulwind to go seal-spotting. And spot we did, although most of the pictures don't really distinguish seals from rocks. We didn't, however, spot kangaroos (despite being as close to Australia as NZ gets). Continuing alongside the Tasman Sea we stopped for the Truman Track and Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks (said to look like pancakes) and blowholes. At last the weather ...

Well we timed that well - it's been raining all day. Lake Rotoiti was still nice, but not exactly spectacular. Plenty of walks all day though, and really worth doing even in the rain. Westport didn't really happen today. Everything is cancelled because of the monsoon (I'm not even in India yet!). We have had a chance to watch the LOTR trilogy though!

Time to leave the North Island, and the vessel of choice is a ferry very similar to the ones used to cross the English Channel. Ah, this country continues to remind me of home. A very smooth crossing, taking only 3 hours to cross the Cook Straight (it has been known to take upwards of 10 hours, although the Captain was in a lot of trouble for that one). From Picton and the Marlborough Sounds, we drove through Marlborough Valley, which is largely covered by vin...

Early morning in River Valley means getting out onto, unsurprisingly, the river (the Rangitikei). Lots of good rapids on this trip (better than Mission Beach, for anyone who's interested) many of them grade 5. And you can really see the river in action along here - the former 'arch rapid' has been renamed 'new rapid' and is currently impassible after heavy rains, erosion et al caused a rockslide to dump a large number of even larger rocks in the way. Got off the...