A day in the wilderness. Because holiday lodges are not being kept full by overseas people we have found that the restaurant at our motor lodge is not providing all meals, as advertised. This meant that a local cafe run by local people have benefitted so it's not all bad. Due to Covid19, a large contingent of 140 Kiwis boarded the Real Journey's Doubtful Sound vessel at 10.00am. We thought that without all the overseas tourists there wouldn't be huge number of people on the boat but we were wrong. What we're finding is that New Zealanders are filling the overseas tourist spaces particularly on the popular activities. It's lovely. It's like it used to be years ago when we didn't have to compete for space. Good for us but not so good for some business ... read more

We visited the most amazing garden we've ever visited before. In fact, so amazing, that it was daft! How could anyone create something so huge, so beautiful and so much work? So, some details...... Maple Glen is a 74 acre garden about 40 kms out of Invercargill, near Wyndham in the Hokonui Foothills. It was reached through really nice dairy farms and past a huge Fonterra Factory at Edendale (Edendale is where Lindsay's grandmother grew up). The property appeared quite ordinary as we arrived but as soon as we entered into the garden it stretched out into the distance with masses of beautiful trees and plantings. The more we walked, the bigger the garden got. One pond became many ponds, each with their own plantings. There were large areas of just rhododendrons, dells of special trees, ... read more

A good and bad day. Firstly, the bad. I've had bad toothache for the last few days and despite many tablets it is not improving so the first thing we did today was to find an emergency dentist and made an appointment for 3pm. That was good as it gave us time to visit the places we wanted to see. My tooth needed the root canal done so the initial treatment has been done and further followup will be needed when back at home. My, that one tooth can sure spread pain about! Our estimate of the Whistling Frog Resort is that it is well located but needs further updating. It was also very expensive when compared to other places we've stayed. We left the Whistling Frog and continued 3km up the road to the McLean ... read more

After a sunny, warmish day yesterday, today has been raining off and on all day and we're back in our winter clothes. However, that wasn't to be a worry as we had already determined that we'd visit some museums today. Our first visit was to the Otago Museum which was modern and very impressive. Our main area of interest was the Natural History section on the top floor which had everything from earth sciences, animal, insect and plant information and local human history. My main interest was the paleontology exhibits which were fantastic! There was a huge pleisiosaur, a mososaur, sharks, whales, penguins, seals, fish, bones, shells and plants remains. As well were rocks and some minerals. It was gratifying to see how much I already had in my home collection even if my samples weren't ... read more

After travelling from NP to Christchurch to Dunedin, we picked up our rental car with it's superb but difficult to set, GPS. Our destination was Port Chalmers where we wanted to visit the Maritime Museum. It was a cold 10 degrees! What happened to summer? Our destination was the Port Chalmers Maritime Museum which we'd seen on TV before. It was well worth the visit and a credit to the community in recording the maritime history going back to the time of original immigrants and refrigeration ships in the mid to later 1800s. There were many models of old sailing ships, the history of Port Chalmers, ship wrecks, port development, the hardship of early immigrants, and the original exploration ships to Antarctic by Scott, Shackleton and Byrd. Also there were the relics taken from the ships ... read more