Had a bit of a lie in this morning did get going till around 9.30am, we are travelling about three hours to Dunedin today. We took a short detour to Nugget Point on the way which is famous for its seals. After an 8km drive along a dirt road and a 15 minute walk along the cliff face we arrived at the light house, at first we could see very little but after a while we began picking out seals basking in the sun and playing in the tidal pools. We could hear the pups squeaking and barking, it was unusual [View Full Entry]

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Out of bed at 5.30am it will take about 2hrs to get to Milford Sound, we passed through farm land initially then passed some huge lakes and alpine scenery. The sun started to come up around 7am and I had to drive through fog for some time. We arrived about 745am and were promtly eaten alive by sandfly's Ruth especially has bites all over her, by 8.30 there was still no sign of the kayaks so we rang the company who told us to gfo somewhere else which we did. On arrival at the lodge we were then told to go [View Full Entry]

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Its another beautiful day in NZ, we munched our cereal and headed about 7km out of town to the Shotover River for a go at the Jetboats, we put on the plastic cover all and our life jackets and stood in the sun for ten minutes or so roasting. We ended up in the middle of the boat which seemed the best spot to sit to avoid being drenched then after a few minutes we were off, and man what a ride. Sliding up against the walls of the gorges, bumping over sand banks and bouncing over rapids was exhilarating but [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at the Helihike place on time and the weather today is absolutely superb so we are confident we will be going. At 9am we walked to the Helipad where we kitted up and were put into groups, Ruth and I were in a group with most of the old people which turned out to suck a bit but the experience was still one of the best ever. I have been in a helicopter before but this was a little been daunting with all the cliffs and walls the pilots enjoyed getting so close too. The trip up took about [View Full Entry]

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Our first stop to day is Punakaika about 40km north of Greymouth, there is a short board walk along the coast here that allows access to some pretty interesting and unusual limestone formations. The rocks have a layered affect hence their name Pancake Rocks, there are also some impressive blow holes but we missed the tide so missed the show, but it was a beautiful place and very photogenic ofcourse. It took about 2 hours to get to our cabin Whataroa where we dumped our bags and headed to an information kiosk to book ourselves on a Helicopter Hike on the [View Full Entry]

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The weather is beautiful this morning with little wind so we are confident the whale watch cruise will go ahead today even though it rained all night. Had a good breakfast (included in the room price) before driving the short distance into Kaikoura, when we arrived at the Whale Watch place we were told the tour would leave around 10.30am so we went to check out a seal colony down the coast. First thing we saw was a fur seal sunning itself on the edge of the car park, how good was this? So we start tramping over the rocks looking [View Full Entry]

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350 km to Wellywood at least thats what they call Wellington now days, Lord of the rings and all that. About 10km out of new Plymouth we stopped briefly at Lake Mangamahoe to feed chocolate biscuits to the ducks and to take a few shots of Mt Taranaki its quite an impressive sight. The volcano is 2518m high and has been dormant for about thyree centuries and is due to explode some day soon. After a few more hours driving we stopped at a small place called Shannon to visit 'Owlcatraz', it was as eccentric as it sounded and a bit [View Full Entry]

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Again its up early, around 8am today we have much to do today, first up we are off to book some tickets to go into the two main tourist caves and to book a black water rafting trip for me and a horse riding trek for Ruth. The horse trek didnt work out, for some reason the place isn't open Friday to Monday so Ruth who hates rafting has decided to come with me. That taken care of we took off to Marokopa Falls, which were the best we have seen so far in NZ the bushwalk to the falls was [View Full Entry]

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Taupo is only a short drive from Rotorua but we stopped a couple of times along the way, firstly at Waiotapu, where there is a great geyser (Lady Knox Geyser) that erupts once a day with a little assistance from some soap suds poured down the hole on top. We also discovered Kerosene lake which is the best hot spring and some amazing mud pools that were accessed for free and surpassed anything we had previously paid for. The rest of thermal park was pretty good as well, took a few hours to walk around but was well worth the effort. [View Full Entry]

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We have a long drive ahead of us today 520km so we will stop at Whangarei along the way to check out a water fall which was extremely picturesque and then we had a look at another kiwi house and a museum which had a maori cloak made from Kiwi feathers. To get to Rotorua we had to go back through Auckland which wasnt a big deal as the we didnt have to leave the freeway. We only stopped once on the way at a place called Cambridge which is a big horse breeding area, I am trying to get certain [View Full Entry]

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