Today we had a long drive ahead of us, up the west coast and then across the country to Blenheim on the north easy coast. We set off fairly early as we wanted to drive north along the scenic Coastal road, through Paparoa national park to Punakaiki. Punakaiki is the location of the pancake rocks and blowholes. Essentially these are large limestone formations carved by the sea and erosion over millions of years. They were an impressive sight, especially against t...

Today we drove to Greymouth, leaving Twizel on a foggy, chilly morning. Our route for the day would take us through Arthurs pass National park and then on towards the west coast. The area is very popular with hikers since many of the mountain peaks are over 2000m. Also, the tiny Arthurs pass village is a stop off for the famous and scenic TranzAlpine train journey that travels daily between Greymouth and Christchurch. As we headed out of Twizel the fog started ...

We left Omarama early for our drive to next stop Twizel. On the way, our plan was to head to Mount Cook National park to see Mount Cook which is the tallest mountain in Australasia at 3754 feet. The drive to the National park is very scenic, especially when you reach lake Pukaki at the start of the park. It was another fantastic day weather wise and it was a lovely contrast seeing the snow capped peaks against the blue sky and occasional low cloud. After a coupl...

Today we left Queenstown which was a shame as it was one of our favourite stops to date. We were headed to an overnight stop in Omarama (don't go, it's rubbish). It was another lovely sunny day so we decided to stop on the way at lake Wanaka. When we got there we changed into our summer gear, took out the outdoor table and chairs and sat in the sun with our lunch whilst looking out at the lake (better give us the bus passes now!). About 2pm we packed up and hea...

Today we decided that we needed to save some money so our activity was free of charge. We opted for a hike of moderate difficulty on the Fernhill loop trail. It started with a punishing climb up an extremely steep slope where we had to scramble over large boulders and cling onto trees to stop from falling back down the bank! I immediately wondered whether we had bitten off more than we could chew and was starting to wonder whether we were going to last the course...