Wellington - the capital of NZ but not the biggest city (that's Auckland). We arrived there after our rapid escape from South Island at 10-00pm in the dark. Fortunately we'd checked on internet & found a freedom camping site on the waterfront (the municipal swimming pool carpark !) - our first "urban" freedom camping site. It's not the best night's sleep we've had in NZ - but it was free & no-one had a problem with us being there. Next day th...

Abel Tasman National Park is the smallest but undoubtedly one of the prettiest in the whole of South Island. Perched right up the top of the island it benefits from the same microclimate that makes the Marlborough area so good for wine growing. Its lush tropical forested hills overlook beautiful sheltered sandy coves and in the shelter of the bay the sea is calm and crystal clear. Right on cue after the murky weather we'd had when travelling north the sun came ...

West Coast - the empty, wet part of New Zealand with it's magnificent rain forests & mountains. To be fair, as we left Wanaka & Lake Hawea behind us to climb over theHaast Pass & down onto the coast, it was already starting to rain and we spent our first night freedom camping by a river in the pouring rain which continued the next morning when we got to Haast - which looks on the map like a major town but with a population of 295 is a tiny place wit...

Fiordland Part2-the sequel ! The weather forecast was as good as it could be for a part of the world that gets over 200 days per year of rain so we set off on the 5 hours drive back from Queestown to Milford Sound on Saturday and spent the night in the National Park as close as we could get to Milford Sound (it was very cold & rained all night & there was even snow above 800M altitude, but the forecast for the next day was good). This was so that we cou...

Fiordland - famous for 2 things - incredible scenery & sandflies. As the latter tend to spoil your enjoyment of the former - a word on sandflies. They look like very small flies- but they bite. When they bite it hurts like a horsefly bite then goes away. Until that night……….. & for days & days thereafter……..when you spend your life scratching yourself until you bleed. This is a Stewart rant , only applies to him!! Unfortunately nobody tol...