daveandmary

We are now back on north island staying at Wanganui for 4 days. Hope to kayak down the river tomorrow. Since our last update we visited glacier country in south island, walking to the faces of fox glacier and Franz Josef glacier. both really spectacular especially Fox. after the glaciers we travelled back over to the east coast via arthurs pass stopping at a few places along the way and even staying a night in Springfield, saw Bart skateboarding down the street and Homer having a cold one in Mo's. Sorry just made all that up, but Springfield was realand one of the best value sites we have stayed at. Next stop was Hanmer springs for a look around didnt venture into the spa. After that we had a few days left to lie on the ... read more

We left Akaroa on 02/01/2012 but not before we experienced 16 earth tremours in the night. 6 of which rocked the van, the largest being 5.6. No damage in the area fortunately. Headed for Mount Cook and camped near the village almost in the great mountains shadow. Weather was good so we had great views of the snow capped summit. Went on a few walks in the area, to the Hunter glacier and Mueller glacier, the first one was a bit of a hike in 26C heat and a stoney dusty track, great views though. Saw a couple of small avalannches high up. Next we explored Dunedin and the Otago peninsula and hunted fruitlessly for yellow eyed penguins. Next stop was a few days touring round the Catlins, Kaka point Curio bay, Nugget point. It was ... read more

Merry Christmas to all our friends and relations reading this. We are in Kaikoura and the photo is taken on Christmas day, very hot but there is snow on the mountains in the background, so we did have a white christmas. Yesterday we went whale watching and saw 6 one stayed on the surface for a long time allowing us to to take lots of photos. Hope you are all having a great time we will be thinking of you. Dave and Mary Mum and Dad Nana Mary and Grandad Dave... read more

Today we are in the top of south island having travelled from Picton at the ferry terminal. We are officially staying in a state of emergency area due to heavy rain causing flooding and landslides. We drove thru quite a few floods and had to go on a number of diversions especially around Nelson the worst hit town. weather improves tomorrow. We spent a good few days in wellington the highlight of which was seeing a pod of Orcas in the harbour. We saw them on the 19 km marine drive around the harbour, they swam parallel to the shore and we kept driving ahead and getting out to look at them swim by only 20m from shore. all this after Paul told me a few days ago that Orcas had been spotted off Treyarnon last ... read more

Just finished travelling around the Coromandel. We started at Miranda hot springs and while there went to the bird sanctuary on the thames estuary and saw many migrating birds including a wrybill. From there we stayed at Coromandel town on Shelly beach then on to Hahei where we stayed a few days. From Hahei we walked to Cathedral cove but unfortunately the sea was not clear enough or warm enough to snorkel. Next we moved to Sapphire springs near Mount Manganui here there where nice thermal pools and a lovely stream we camped next to with good bush walks. We spent one day on Mount Manganui beach which was sunny and I managed to get in the sea and dive through the waves, avoiding the many surfers out. The water was not too cold here. Off ... read more