It should only take us a couple of hours driving to make it to Invercargill and on the map it looks about as direct as any of the drives so far on the Grand Tour. Again the day has dawned clear and crisp and the forecast is clear for all day. It was a bit sad to be moving on from such a comfortable and well appointed apartment but the adventure on Stewart Island beckons. One would think there was no other highway to take us down to Invercargill but Highway 6 which we have been on since Nelson. There really isn’t another option as we start out from Queenstown, so 6 it is! Sometimes when you are speeding along the highway you can’t pick up the name of any little side road that you pass ... read more

The Grand Tour was always all about revisiting old places we had been to in the past but more importantly about discovering new locations, many of which we expected we might have been so close to previously but never actually got there for some reason now faded in the past. And today was to be one of those occasions with Bannockburn, a small settlement, just outside of Cromwell. We are sticking with Highway 6 still, as we have since leaving Nelson all those days ago, and heading for the Kawarau Gorge. Now if you live in this part of NZ you would have no trouble pronouncing ‘Kawarau ‘even though you say it not quite the way the word looks. I will leave that over to you to check that out on Mr Google to get it ... read more

We had had exactly 12 hours in bed when we awoke this morning. That is what can happen when there is no cell phone coverage, no internet and no television in your overnight accommodation. It wasn’t that we slept for 12 hours as we did have our kindles to read which passed away some of the time last night after our dinner in the adjacent restaurant, And Gretchen did get to check the emails at the reception in the lounge bar. So heading onto Queenstown today and what promised to be an upmarket apartment will be like coming back to civilisation after a one night stay in a remote location. It was only a short drive in comparison to others so far into Queenstown so getting on the road before checkout time of 10am wasn’t a ... read more

As we had hoped when we headed for bed last night, this morning has dawned with clear skies overhead making the chances of getting reflections of the mountains in Lake Mathieson a reality. Together with the clear skies at this time of the year, you also get a frost….of course! We needed to make a quick getaway for the lake about 6km away so that we made sure we were around the lake before any breeze on the water happened to spoil the hopeful reflections. There was thought of the use of the ‘good ole credit card on the frosted windscreen trick ‘but this method can give problems in the use of the credit card in the future so we opted for a trickle of water and the wipers in slow motion and hey presto the ... read more

It is ANZAC Day and back home we would have already been to and arrived home from the Dawn Service, had we been at home! Instead we have woken at 7am in the Hokitika Seafront Hotel with our first decision to be made for the day to be what time should we go down for breakfast. The 48 seater coach that had disgorged the over 60’s on their tour was still in the car park which meant that probably the passengers were in the restaurant having their breakfast. It was a simple decision to therefore not be too quick to get down to the restaurant to let the place empty out. By the time we had showered and readied ourselves and set off from our first floor room we could see the bus had departed and ... read more