Kia Ora, possums! Kia ora is Maori for ‘hello’, but we could also have said Tena Koutou as we are greeting three or more of you. Woooooh, clever aren’t we? But enough of the smart chat, and down to the juice. It felt really excellent to be heading away from Nelson, and get out on the road and see more of the cool sights of the South island. Honestly - everywhere you look there are stunning views of mountains, pine forests, rain forests, turquoise milky waterways, dried up wide & winding grey stone riverbeds, and the sunsets are something else. We shifted Beryl into gear on Tuesday morning, and headed south towards Nelson Lakes for a relaxing woodland overnight by Lake Rotoiti at St Arnaud. St Arnaud has a Maori translation of ‘Sandlfy City’ - not ... read more

Howdy doo di? We’ve just had a couple of nights in a place called Picton, situated at the North East point of the South Island. It’s a nice enough little town; a few nice beaches in the area &some small cafes and bars, although its main pulls are A) it’s where you catch the enormous ferry to the North Island, and B) it’s very close proximity to the Queen Charlotte Sound Walking track. We didn’t have enough time do any tramping on this occasion as we needed to get back to Nelson for our second sailing course, however we didn’t want to waste our time here either - so in the end we plumped for a 5 hour cruise on a mail boat delivering letters and parcels, groceries and other provisions to the remote homesteads and ... read more

Hi all - tar V much for all your lovely comments on the last blog. It was dead exciting logging in and seeing that there were some extra messages there. The home page just tells us that there are un-reviewed messages, so then we have a flutter of anticipation while we wait to see who has been sending us little love notes! Good also to see what you were up to while reading our last update. Our personal favourite on this occasion has to be Morvern - what a super high class career girly you are - reading our blog on the train on your posho laptop! Bet everyone who got on at Falkirk was looking at you thinking you are a top executive - but we all know that really you work on the bin ... read more

As Chief Inspector Barnaby sat sipping a cool refreshing Chardonnay at the close of a long, hot mid-summers day, Sgt Troy came dashing through the patio doors alerting..."Sir, you'd best come along with me to the village green, there's been at least 4 seperate, but completely related, killings in Upper Middle Witchellton!!!!!!". .......Phew, sorry about that - for a moment we could have sworn we were back at home watching an episode of Midsommer Murders. It's just that Christchurch looks exactly like that. Check the photos if you don't believe us. Also kinda reminds us of that song we sang as kids ... 'What do you do if you're bursting for the loo in an Engish Country, Gaaarden? Pull down your pants and suffocate the ants, in an English Country, Gaaarden'. You know the one, we're ... read more

Hi lovely readers - here's our last Taz blog. So, there are two things that this blog is about: 1) Visit to the Tasman Peninsula (bottom right as you look at the map) to experience the Port Arthur historical penal site (convicts, not mens' bits). 2) Trip up the top of Mount Wellington on a sunny but windy day. In keeping with our recent tradition of being Blog Lazy, we're mostly doing photos and keeping it tidy on the story front, but we have a couple of things to say up front. Port Arthur is famous for two reasons. Firstly, it ws an early settled convict outpost, which was famed for either completely reforming through trade skills, or totally breaking the men who were sent there, from the UK. There were various methods of punishment ... read more