We left the south island in a bit of a hurry and a bit of a strop. On reflection, maybe we should have hung-in for a few more days in Picton to do a great wreck dive and get some yacht sailing in. Squiffy wouldn’t have typed that last sentence — she’s had it with […]

The world’s largest passenger ferry shipwreck is sunk just off the coast of the south island of New Zealand, near Picton. As a scuba dive, it sounds like a really cool dive. The local dive companies will even take people into the dining room/ballroom to see the drinks bar, screwed-down tables and the chandeliers hanging […]

Folk in Ballarat, Australia, use the phrase “save water, drink wine” rather a lot. Perhaps they should bung the south island of New Zealand a bunch of money to pipe them some of the rain that we’ve experienced whilst here. Problem solved. We’ve now in Blenheim in the Marlborough region, one of the finest wine […]

If you’ve been following this blog since we left home over nineteen months ago, you’ll probably have noted the many photos of us sat in thermal springs around the world. I love going to open air spas with a view, and taking a few photos to remind me of the location. And recently, I like […]

Still buzzing from our helicopter flight and glacier landing, we pointed our diminuitively-sized “microcamper” (read: small estate car) towards the thermal baths at Hanmer Springs. The water at Fox and Franz Josef is a curious, yellowish colour and so with the childhood phrase “don’t eat yellow snow” ringing in our minds, instead of filling our […]

The rain followed us from Queenstown to Wanaka, where we spoilt ourselves with two nights in a well priced, rather nice ski lodge just out of town. Rather than get even more wet, we rejoiced in the shelter that four walls and a roof provide and caught-up with our blogs. Next stop, Glacier Country. We […]

Since leaving Dunedin, it’s been a few days since we’ve seen a place with much life. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Queesnstown was a buzzing alpine town, set between a lake and pine tree covered mountains. It had plenty of restaurants, shops and internet cafes to keep us entertained, and the only let […]

First off, let me tell you that Milford Sound is actually a fiord (or fjord, if you’re Scandinavian). What’s the difference? Fiords are carved by glaciers, sounds are not. Or something. Oh, I don’t know so I’ll refer to the information on the Real Journeys website: What is the difference between a sound and a […]

We’re in glorious Te Anau, the closest town to the Milford Sound fiordlands. The Top 10 Holiday Park here, whilst relatively expensive, easily wins my “Best Campsite” award, globally. The ultra-shabby Torquay Foreshore Caravan Park in Australia would do really well to pick-up a few hundred tips from these guys. To boot, Te Anau’s a […]

Not many people carve out the time in their New Zealand road trips to drive too much further south from Dunedin. Rather they bomb across to Milford Sound or Queenstown and head north again. Not us though; our guidebook rates the southern coast as potentially the most beautiful area of the country. We only stopped […]