We arrived at Franz Josef Township that afternoon. The sun was out and the weather was reasonably warm. We checked into the Rainforest Resort motor park, which had its own bar with meal deals. We parked Red Dwarf in amongst the foliage and went to suss the place out. We had read a leaflet in Greymouth about Franz Josef Glacier, and had decided to do a glacier valley walk the following day with a guide. We went to reception to book it, and the girl advised us to pay a little extra and go on a half day glacier walk on the next glacier, Fox. The glacier valley walk we could do ourselves. So our plan was to walk the Franz Josef valley the following day, and then head down to Fox the day after, on ... read more

We droveoff the ferry at Picton after a lovely crossing. The ferry sailed through Cook Strait which made for great views as the sun was going down. It was dark by the time we got to Picton so we found our holiday park and checked in before cooking dinner and chilling out before bed. We were planning on driving to Nelson the following day. Next morning, we set off on our drive to nelson which is a great little town. Our campsite was 4km outside Nelson in the valley, and only cost us $6 each for the night. Cheap as! It was still bright when we arrived it was still bright so we went for a walk in the valley and hiked up one of the hills. It was pretty cold but the views were nice. ... read more

We arrived in Ohakune that evening- it was a friday- just in time for the beginning of Mardi Gras to mark the beginning of ski season. Since we couldn't get tickets to the Ireland-All Blacks game in Hamilton, we decided to go skiing instead (turns out it was the better choice!). That evening we just relaxed at the campsite and saved our energy for the following day. We headed up to Mount Ruapehu the next morning for a half day of skiing. Mount Ruapehu is a huge volcano. We parked the car and headed in to get our gear. We got ski boots, poles and skis. We headed out to the slopes- only the beginner slope was open because of the stong winds. Dave had been skiing before, but I hadn't, so it took me a ... read more

So we made our way North from Auckland in Red Dwarf. It was dark by the time we arrived in Pahia so we just cooked some dinner and had a few games of cards. There was a big family from Australia staying at the campsite who had been to a wedding, so the kitchen area was pretty busy and noisy! They were a nice bunch though, and even offered us some mince they had cooked (think they looked at our beans on toast and fell sorry for us!). We set up the car- which is a spacewagon with the back seats removed. Instead is a big chest with storage for dishes, food and bags and a fridge. The matress just went on top of the chest to make the bed. Red Dwarf also had a DVD ... read more

We got a transfer across the Bolivia/Chile border which was basically a bloke called Oscar driving a pickup truck. THe drive took about half an hour, and, like the salt flats, the landscape looked like you were on another planet. Straight away we noticed Chile was bit more civilised than Bolivia- they had roads- tarmac roads! We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama about 10am (we got up at 5am to go to the hot springs so it felt like lunchtime at this stage). We had to get our passports stamped at the migration office, so we joined the queue which took forever. Once we got our stamps, Oscar dropped us to the TurBus office, as we were planning on getting an overnight bus (yes, another one) to La Serena, a small town that is known ... read more