Annamaria and Michael were going to catch up with us later in the day at Coles Bay in their campervan so we headed off with a list of places to visit along the way. Heading east past the airport we stopped at Sorell to get groceries and wine for the next two days. From there we passed where we should have stopped at the Tasman Bush Gardens, but, never mind, we could do that on the way back in a couple of days. Next we stopped at St John The Baptist church (built 1820’s) at Buckland to look at the stained glass window dating back to the 14thCentury from Hastings Abbey in England. The building is made of the local cream sandstone and the glass work on the other windows is superb especially the flowers. The ... read more

After staying at Neal's father's house in Seatoun Heights overnight, we were up at 4am for a taxi to the airport and an early morning flight out of Wellington. Unfortunately, overnight a huge storm (weather bomb) had brewed up over the middle of the country bringing heavy rain and high gale force winds. We boarded the plane on time but sat on the tarmac bouncing about for about an hour waiting to leave. Eventually, they towed the plane to a more sheltered location so that the bags could be loaded. Surprisingly enough once the bags were loaded we were able to leave despite the high winds. We flew out directly into the wind and with a bit of turbulence eventually cleared the clouds into calmer weather. Air New Zealand endeavours to make sure you have the ... read more

From the Valley Camp we walked back to the Cricket Pitch and climbed up the hill and along the old pack track to the fencer's camp in Shingley Creek. The pack track was used for carting fencing gear and mustering in this part of the station. Along the track was an old snow fence built in the the 1930's to stop the sheep getting too high in the mountains. It remains in remarkably good order and not as rusty as one might expect. From the highest part of the ups and downs of this part of the track we eventually wound our way down and around a valley and onto our destination of the Bush Hut just over 8 kilometres from our start. Parts of the track are fairly slushy after rain so it pays to ... read more

Karilyn, Neil, Corrine, Dougal, Anne, Joce, Lindsay and I left Richmond at 1pm and headed south stopping first at Maruia for a coffee and then on to Hanmer Springs for dinner before continuing south to Hurunui where we turned inland towards the Alps. We travelled 20 kms on the Amuri Plain alongside the Balmoral Forest before turning north from the Hurunui River along the Dove River through steep sided valleys with steeply dipping greywacke cuttings until we arrived at the Hurunui High Country Track start at the Island Hills Station. Here we were met by Mandy Shand and shown our quarters for the first night at the old Cook House. The building is split into several rooms consisting of a shower, large kitchen and lounge, four double bedrooms, a bunkroom and two outside toilets (flushing). Since ... read more