As we drove back up towards Havelock the weather got better and better. By the time we had turned off onto the Queen Charlotte Road the sun was high in the sky and there wasn't a cloud to be seen. This walk is 57km long and is meant to be taken over several days, as we only have a few hours we drove to one of the lookout sections and climbed the mountain to the top. From the top we had perfect views across the whole of Queen Charlotte Sound. We also had great views of the forthcoming cloud that was [View Full Entry]

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Our intention was to dive to Havelock and walk some of the Queen Charlotte Track. This was billed as one of the nicest walks in the country. The weather however didn't fit with our plans. By the time we got to Havelock the clouds had closed in and it was raining hard. We got to the hostel which was a lovely house overlooking the lake. Apart from an American man with his son that was staying in the chalet behind the house we had the place to ourselves. It was like having your own holiday home for the evening. We managed [View Full Entry]

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We got into Nelson a couple of hours later than planned and returned to the same hostel. This time it was totally different. The place was deserted and we got this grotty little room that was no where near as good as the last one we had. Knowing that Nelson was a pretty uneventful town we headed up the only hill in the area to get a panoramic view of the place. The rest of the evening was taken up getting boring stuff done in the town. It didn't matter that Nelson was boring as it was the starting point for [View Full Entry]

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Abel Tasman National Park isn't far from Nelson but to get there you have to cross over a very large mountain. Just like all the other mountains we have crossed the road takes the most in-direct, winding and steep path it can find. After an hour and a half Carol Anne started to feel quite sick but by this time I had honed my slalom technique down to a fine art. The first places we stopped at was Motueka which is a town at the start of the Abel Tasman Track. We booked into a hostel called Kiwiana. It turned out [View Full Entry]

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Nelson was the biggest town we had been to in some time but it soon turned out to be like all the other places in New Zealand - completely full of nothing much. This isn't a bad thing it’s just that big towns aren’t very big. We checked into our hostel, Paradiso, and then went for a walk round town. We spend that night in the hostel playing pool and talking to the other people staying there. The following morning we headed towards the Abel Tasman National Park. We left Nelson in a hurry to get to Abel Tasman for the [View Full Entry]

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By now it had really started to rain and we began to realise just how much of an outdoor place New Zealand really is. Throw a bit of bad weather in and you become lost as to what to do. We stopped briefly in Hokitika for a coffee and a trip to yet another massive beach that was covered in driftwood before heading on up to Greymouth. The plan had originally been to go down Arthur’s Pass. This was the road heading inland between Hokitika and Greymouth. It is meant to be really scenic and have lovely views of the mountains. [View Full Entry]

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We reached Te Anua with just enough petrol left. We stopped here just to have a coffee before heading back up to Queenstown. We passed straight through Queenstown and finally stopped in Wanaka. It was not going to be possible to do the whole journey in one day so we stopped here for the rest of the day and evening. As we had already explored Wanaka so we just had a lazy afternoon and evening involving ice cream and then boring stuff like laundry. We did manage to bump into an annoying man from Australia in our Dorm. He was in [View Full Entry]

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Coming up from Stuart Island the weather got better and better. We stopped for a few photographs at Lake Manapouri and Te Anau but we wanted to get to Milford Sound before the weather changed. Milford Sound is a dead end along a 120km road. If you forget to fill up with petrol at Te Anau you will be pushing the car out, and after seeing the mountains you have to cross you don’t want to be doing that. As we drove into Milford sound it was getting towards the end of the day and dozens of tour buses were coming [View Full Entry]

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It was an early morning to catch the 9am ferry to Stuart Island. The guy was right about Bluff, absolutely nothing there at all. The ferry was a half full catamaran which skimmed across the water in just an hour. Stuart Island has 400 residents, plenty of posh holiday homes and a small shop and pub. We got to the hostel to find it shut. While we waited we were subjected to the thoughts of this so called experienced hiker from England. He was about 50 and spent about 10 minutes criticising everything about New Zealand and everything about the people [View Full Entry]

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The road down to Invercargill was meant to be very scenic. The map failed to show just how bendy it was. With speeds of little of 40km/h this trip could take all day (and it did). This area had a whole section in the guide book dedicated to beaches, waterfalls, lookouts etc etc etc…. It turned out that although there were some lovely beaches the New Zealand tourist board had gone over the top with what they considered to be worth seeing. Each place of interest would normally be found by turning off the road and continuing for miles down gravel [View Full Entry]

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