A very early start today. We fly to Melbourne at 6 am, so need to get up at 3.30. To be honest, I’m too old to go without the requisite 8 hours sleep. But the flight is on time and and I get to watch The Greatest Showman (twice), so it could be worse. Entering Australia is a special challenge for the short sighted. The first instruction, on entering the E-gate, is to remove your glasses. The second is written on a screen 20 metres away. I can’t even see there’s an instruction let alone read what it says. Despite my unbeaten run of failing to use an E-gate with assistance, we’re in Melbourne by 9. We head to our hotel, hoping we can leave our bags there, but they are able to check us in ... read more

Our last driving day in NZ as we head 100 miles north to Greymouth. Our motel for the past 2 nights was all the reviews promised; damp, smelly and uncomfortable and it’s a relief to be on the road again. We leave North Southland and enter South Westland, or something like that, it’s all starting to blur a little. We take a break in Hokitika a small town at the mouth of the River Hokitika. A hundred plus years ago it was a boom town, epicentre of the gold rush. Now it’s struggling to find some sort of raison d’être. It seems to have settled with being a pleasant place to stop on the way to/from somewhere else and has rebranded itself coollittletown.com. We take a walk along the beach, where someone has made the word ... read more

Day 40 – half way through our trip. Today we have a 180 mile drive north to Franz Josef Glacier. It didn’t sound far when we planned it, but NZ roads are narrow and windy with few passing places. Add in the bus loads of Chinese tourists and the RVs full of British pensioners and basically 180 miles means driving all day. First I go for a jog round Lake Wanaka. I plan to run to Wanaka’s top attraction; #ThatWanakaTree – it’s a tree growing in the middle of the lake. I wonder if I will be able to locate a lone tree in the dawn half-light but I needn’t have worried, it’s easy to spot the ring of photographers on the bank. The wind blowing across the lake is intense. A century ago some mad ... read more

Today we have booked a cruise round Milford Sound. To reach the sound (which is actually a fjord) we have a 70 mile drive through the mountains - literally, as it includes a 1200 metre mountain tunnel. According to my guide book, sometimes the destination is the journey. And it is indeed a spectacular drive surrounded by mountains, lakes and waterfalls. We stop at Mirror Lakes where you can see the reflection of the mountains in the still water. The ducks haven’t read the script and their diving means the water is somewhat more rippled than in the brochure pictures, which obviously involved some serious duck scaring before shooting any photos. After 60 miles comes the Homer Tunnel, hewn through the mountain. On the other side of the mountain it is raining. Our cruise company has ... read more

So much for coming to the Southern Hemisphere to escape the British winter. It’s the same temperature in Dunedin as Bournemouth. First task today is to unpack my fleeces which I put at the bottom of my suitcase thinking they were no longer needed. At least it’s stopped raining, which is good as we have a lot to fit in today. We start with a whistle stop tour of Dunedin. We walk round the octagonal city centre dominated by a large Robbie Burns statue (one of the first Scottish settlers was his nephew). It has some impressive buildings courtesy of the 19th Century gold rush. We visit the cathedral with its colourful stained glass windows depicting St Paul surrounded by penguins, seals and albatrosses. Then on to the art gallery, always a risk with the old ... read more