New Zealand - South Island

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We arrived in New Zealand at Christchurch, known as 'the Garden City'. It is quite a small city but picturesque. It has punting boats and trams giving it an old fashioned feel.

After a couple of days in Christchurch we picked up a campervan so we could drive around the South Island. The van was very small but we soon came to call it 'home'.

First stop in the van was Oamaru where we went to see the Blue penguins we had heard about. Before seeing the smallest penguins in the world we stopped off to see the world's rarest penguin, the Yellow-Eyed penguin. We only got to see them from afar, as they wandered onto the beach we watched them from the clifftop above.

The Blue penguins we got to see much closer up. We went to the viewing station to watch the penguins 'coming home' to their nests after spending the day fishing at sea. More than 120 penguins waddled up the beach and across the auditorium to their nesting area. After most of the spectators had gone we were lucky enough to see some of the tiny babies come out of the nests to wait for their parents to come home and feed them.

Next day we drove to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world. We spent Mark's birthday there and as a present he did a bungy jump on the first ever commercial bungy site, Kawaru Bridge. After that we had a posh meal overlooking a lake surrounded by mountains.

Our next destination was Milford Sound. The drive out there was very scenic and on the way we saw some Keas, notorious New Zealand native birds. When we got to the Sound we took a boat trip around it which was nice.

Once we were back in Queenstown we went white water rafting on the Kawaru River. It was actually a bit tamer than we had imagined but we enjoyed it all the same. We were pleased that the raft didn't tip us out but we jumped in the water anyway- it was freezing.

The next journey took us to the Fox Glacier where we went ice trekking which was brilliant fun. The weather was cold and wet and by the end of it we were almost frozen solid. While in the area we also took a walk up to the Franz Josef Glacier which was very similar.

To thaw out we headed to Hamner where we jumped in the hot springs and thermal pools.

As we enjoyed the place so much last year we just had to go back to Kaikoura. After swimming with the dolphins there last year, this year we decided to go on a whale watching trip. We were lucky enough to see three Sperm whales as well as pods of Dusky dolphins and a Wandering Albatross, the largest bird in the world.

Since we just can't get enough of dolphins, we went to Akaroa to do another dolphin swim, this time with Hectors dolphins, the smallest kind. Mark had the dolphins playing around him but unfortunately Lorna braved the cold water for nothing as they kept their distance from her.

After parting ways with our campervan, we spent Valentine's Day in Christchurch before heading up to the North Island.

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