Day 25: Rarotonga Another day, another couple of snorkelling sessions. There’s not much you can say about this pastime, really - we both love it, and as long as there’s a new venue we’ll be there. Having said a sad farewell to the top-optional Mazda Cabriolet, we were confined to barracks for our last day, which we used to exhaust the offerings of the lagoon adjacent to the resort. We finally found the giant clams (see Day 21) that were shown on the map. These had thus far proved elusive, insofar as that adjective can be applied to objects irredeemably rooted to the spot. Besides that, extremely large examples of flounder and trevally and huge schools of a kind of zebra fish were highlights. There are no transnational fast food outlets on Rarotonga - no McDonalds, ... read more

Day 20: Auckland-Rarotonga We were able to wake late and have a lazy half-day in Auckland after a long day’s travel yesterday, and with another long one today. The morning was taken up with the logistical task of repacking our case and bags, with everything we need for a Pacific island replacing kilograms of thermal fleeces and bulky knits, which we left with the hotel to be picked up on our return. We had brunch down on Auckland harbour, then set out for the airport in plenty of time. So we thought. Auckland must have one of the most confusing sets of street and freeway signage in the world. We took wrong turns on three separate occasions. The worst was caused by the fact that there is a minor airport on the way to the major ... read more

Day 16: Napier-Rotorua At last, a day of really bad weather. Not that we’re complaining - we led a charmed life on the South Island in that respect, and today every major road that we travelled on down there is closed due to extreme conditions, exemplified by snow down to sea level on the east coast. Christchurch is like a winter wonderland, the east-west rail line is down, the airports are mostly closed. We would surely have had an interesting time had we travelled a week later, but it would not have been exactly what we were there for. The North Island has had its share. Auckland was without power overnight, and there were gales and flooding around the place. All we really suffered was a bit of high wind and driving rain on the road. ... read more

Day 11: Franz Josef Glacier-Murchison We drove a few kilometres to the glacier and were struck by its huge size and the fact that unlike the Fox, this one is actually advancing at present. Apparently it depends on the accumulated snowfalls on the neve (snowfield above the glacier) from as long ago as five years. The glacier bulldozes the snow down the valley and the Franz Josef is presently increasing in size, its front moving at one metre per day. We spent a couple of hours in Hokitika, a small town notable as the centre of the greenstone (jade, sort of) industry - jewellery, sculpture etc. It was very very quiet there. That may be either the cause or the effect of a substandard coffee, at an ordinary-looking café, costing $NZ4.50. We drove on to Murchison ... read more

Day 7: Wanaka-Queenstown An early morning stroll revealed that Wanaka minus the heavy cloud cover looks even better. We had to hit the road to Queenstown, though, and that was spectacular. (It may seem repetitive, this enthusiasm over the landscape here, but it simply keeps on coming - even if each day isn’t better than the last, it’s different.) At one point we were treated to a view from a greater height than I can ever recall seeing from a car. Queenstown itself is as much a tourist creation as, say, Cairns, and we are here on a long weekend. Fortunately, the ski season hasn’t started, so it’s not as busy as it might have been. We’re staying a little way out of town, and we have another delightful view of another lake. Today we visited ... read more