It has been over a month since my last blog. This employment thing can really put a damper on the frequency of my travel blogs. The Marlborough Sounds are amazingly beautiful and I savour my moments on the balcony with my morning coffee on clear days. I work 5 or 6 day weeks, 45 to 60 hours between two restaurants. So most days are slightly different then previous one. Life is different out here in the sounds. Firstly we have to plan our trip to Picton so we buy what we need. This requires a 15 minute ferry ride through the sounds to the little town of Picton. There I usually load up on food, beer and something to read. Usually you are picking up beer for other friends too. This requires a grocery store staff ... read more

After my skydive, I picked up Ralphy in Franz Josef after his glacier hike. Now gasoline is expensive in Franz Josef, in fact a whopping 189.9L. So with a little better then a ¼ of a tank I decided lets fuel up later. The sun was shining and the early evening drive was beautiful. We stopped in a little town called Haast to find the fuel store closed. It was just a little past six. We had a decision to make, it was about 140km through the mountains to Wanaka and we had less than a ¼ of a tank of fuel. I said “Yes lets see how far we can get”. So with one worried passenger and an unconfident driver we took off. Under the setting sun and the winding switchbacks of mountain roads I ... read more

I believe Takaka is where I left off. We were hoping to catch some sunshine or even some non rainy clouds to enjoy more of the Golden Bay area. This did not happen, so with dampened spirits and dampened roads we just started driving again. As always our plans were vague, “let's drive someplace with less rain and maybe even some sunshine”. So over 500 km later and probably over 6 hours of windy roads we found ourselves once again at the end of the road. This time a place called Karamea, which is just a little town on the Tasman Sea that has lots of great hikes nearby. We found a good place to set up for the night. It was near the beach and had the cover of a large tree. We cooked up ... read more

Monday morning came and Raphael and I were dragging our bags through the streets of Christchurch, looking for the Wicked Campervan offices. After I very hard 15 minute walk (I am out of practice at dragging around a backpack), we found the Wicked offices. After some paperwork and an introduction to our new home for the next 17 days we were picking up some food supplies. I have no camping experience and don't have two clues on what we really need and what we don't. We fueled up and hit the road, driving the streets of Christchurch without any idea which way north really was. So after some backtracking and a friendly guy at the traffic lights who told us which way was north we were on our way. While we were driving we decided we ... read more

Thursday was a beautiful sunny day here in Lake Tekapo. Sofia, Melisa and I had decided to have a little picnic out at Lake Alexadrina. We spent the day just laughing, joking and making plans. Somewhere in one of these conversations the topic of taking the Mt Cook scenic flight popped up. We knew we got a locals discount so why not. Upon returning into town we found ourselves in the Air Safari office getting prices and flight times. The 50% off discount helped encourage our decision and we decided Saturday morning was a good day (depending on weather and flight availability). After a quick phone call on saturday morning, we were on our way into the Tekapo office then put into the van and driven out to the airport. The weather was beautiful, with no ... read more