We have enjoyed travelling up the West Coast from Franz Josef. We spent a day at Shanty Town just outside Greymuoth which was an old mining town you could walk round and look at the old buildings as they would have been. We also went on a steam train and gold panning, we found some gold, not enough to make us rich though.

Today we have spent the morning hiking on the Franz Joseph Glacier. We decided to do a half day hike. We started at 8.45 this morning arriving to collect our trousers, jacket and boots and taillons. We drove to the glacier and walked for one hour to the glacier face. We stopped to put our tailllons on our boots and we were onto the ice. There are steps cut away in the ice which they do in the morning. We walked up and up and up, it hurts your legs, when we g...

We left Queenstown and headed to Wanaka. Here we spent the afternoon in Puzzling World which was good fun. We then went to a campsite with a Spa Bath and spent an hour in here. During the night there was a earthquake, only a little one but it woke us up because the van was shaking. We drove on to Haast then on th Foxs Glacier stopping on the way for the lovely views. We arrived in Fox Glacier on Wednesday. On Thursday we spent the morning doing th...

We have spent the last three days in Queenstown. We spent Saturday walking around the town and sitting at the harbour. We decided to go and look at the Jet Boating and went that afternoon. It was fantastic the driver would drive towards the rocks and swerve at the last minute. We were doing 360 turns on top of the water. Yesterday we drove to Glenorchy and then onto Paradise along a unsealed track driving through fords, our poor campervan. The picture on...

We started driving to Milford Sound on Thursday, we stopped half way along the road and camped in the forest next to Lake Gunn, it was so beautiful, you could see the mountains reflecting in the water. We woke early the next day and continued the drive to Milford Sound. We went on a cruise. Unfortuntely the weather wasnt very nice and it was raining. The cloud was very low and you couldnt see the top of the cliffs. We couldnt really appreciate the true...