The Final Leg After Dunedin we only had a few days left in New Zealand so managed to pack in absolutely loads. We camped for the night in a cute little town called Geraldine, amid forest and a rose garden. En-route we visited the Moeraki Boulders, large, grey and almost spherical they are found on a pretty beach on the tide line. They formed while deep in mudstone cliffs behind the beach and “fell out” when the sea eroded the cliffs. They were bigge...

The Windy Coast One word I would use to describe the South Coast is windy! A local told us that they’d had strong winds and heavy rain for the past three months but it was highly unusual for that time of year - summer! So we endured just over a week of grey miserable weather. It did clear up occasionally and strangely never rained at night, luckily! We only spent a night at Riverton so didn’t really see much of it but had a great evening at the camp...

Land of Lakes En-route to Queenstown we stopped for the night at Wanaka, on the shores of Lake Wanaka. It’s known as the next Queenstown and has superb lake views with the mountains of the Southern Alps reflected in the clear water. We camped at a lakeside ground and had a brief look round the town which was very pretty. We then drove over yet another pass which gave great views of lakes, mountains and Queenstown. Set beside a gleaming lake with snow-cappe...

A bit Grey  After the beauty of Arthur’s Pass we found Greymouth to be a complete contrast and also very aptly named; grey, drizzly and void of people. I expect if the weather had been better it may have been a bit more appealing but I wouldn’t bet on it. We continued south to find somewhere to camp for the night and settled on Hokitika which appeared to be similar to Greymouth but slightly better. By 5pm it was pouring with rain and we were worr...

East Meets West We thought it would take a while to drive the 321km coast to coast journey from Christchurch to Greymouth, crossing Arthur's Pass, "the most dramatic of the Southern Alps crossings" as up to this point the roads had been pretty windy and difficult to drive. So we set off really early intending to arrive, camp for the night and then do a walk the next day, only to arrive in Arthur's Pass Village, the main settlement on the pass, ...