Blogs from Southland, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

A bit late in posting this but......onwards from lovely Dunedin heading south towards Invercargill on Route 1. We won't be going down to Invercargill as we are pushing time and need to 'catch up' a few days, besides, we have read up on the southern tip and at this time of the year decided to give it a miss...maybe some other time! Taking our time driving south from Dunedin we stopped for a cuppa and snack in the van at the top of a scenic hilly road and watched some cattle being herded across the busy Route 1 as the farmer decided to 'close' the highway much to the frustration of drivers in a hurry. We were not. We are to see more of this as we progress throughout the south, particularly with sheep! On down ... read more

We left Queenstown since it was raining and drove down to the Catlins a day early. Wonderful coastline and waterfalls galore. We got our own personal audience with seal lions basking by a lighthouse. They were all males and the largest male (with the lion mane) was teaching the other males how you court the ladies. It was rather hilarious. Then we went to see a fossil forest with Yellow Eyed Penguins walking around in it. One pattered right by us!! It was fantastic. We also had a nice camp spot perched on a cliff over the ocean. The next day we went and visited some more waterfalls and went to another lighthouse where we could see elephant seals (we think). More things happened but I only have two minutes left so on to the next ... read more

Fjiordland and Milford Sound; Drove out to Te Anau, which is a really nice small lake side town. Then I decided to head further into Fjiordland and up to Milford Sound for a cruise. This was probably one of the hardest drives I've ever done, because its such amazing scenery its really hard to keep you eyes on the road. Eventually got to Milford Sound, which was a bit foggy unfortunately, then chilled out while I waited for my cruise. Went on the cruise which was amazing! Probably the most amazing landscape I've ever seen despite the sideways rain. The sides of the fjord are completely vertical, including Mitre peak, the highest sea cliff in the world. On the way out to the edge of the sea the weather was pretty horrible but luckily it cleared ... read more

As you probably know I’m working on a farm in New Zealand at the moment. I thought I’d just write a little bit about the farm and whats happened on it since I’ve been here. It’s a dairy farm and we milk 750 cows twice a day, through a 50 bale rotary parlour, it takes about 3 hours all together. The cows are outside all year round and they aren’t milked (dryed off) for about a month in the winter, during this time they are normally fed, hay, silage and feed crops like fodder beet and swedes. The cows calve in the spring (August-September) and last year they were having 40 calves a day on the farm, the calves have 3 days on the mother and then we start to milk her again. It takes 3 ... read more

We’re back! OK, first off, we got lucky at Lake Takepo; we had heard from several people how windy it is there, but while we were there it was calm & sunny. On top of it, we woke up in the middle of the night and went outside for a minute and saw probably the most dazzling display of stars either of us has ever seen. The milky way looked like it had a billion stars in it, each a brilliant point of light with no fuzziness…I thought if I reached out I could grab one. Truly incredible. Monday morning we woke up, ate and hot the road, heading for Mt Cook, and we found out what a windy day in the area is truly like! A lot of the are on the Eastern side of ... read more

Well been in New Zealand for nearly 4 months now and still absolutely loving it, probably more than ever at the moment. A lot has happened since my last entry so I'll warn you now, your probably in for a long read. After my last entry I hitched down to Turangi and after a day waiting for the weather to clear, walked the Tongariro alpine crossing, and also climbed Mt Ngarahoe, which is Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. After this I managed to hitch all the way back down to Paraparaumu on the Kapiti Coast where my Aunt, Judy lives. This was on christmas eve and I still wasn't feeling very christmassy, christmas just doesn't work in the summer I've decided. On christmas morning I got up and went for a swim ... read more