New Zealand - South Island

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The South Island normally gets rave reviews and during our 3 & half weeks traveling round in our van we would only add to the positives people say when you mention this place - stunning in every way shape or form, spectacular like you cant imagine and sometimes bloody freezing!!!

Since there is too much to write, im going to summarise most of this bit!

Kaikora - Its where the seal pictures came from! Literally hundreds of seals playing in the sea!

Hamner springs - We drove up to the alpine town of Hamner and took a dip in the thermal springs. Walking from each spring was so cold on your feet and most people tried to casually walk, and then sped up a little before admitting defeat and running as the frozen floor kicked in!

Fox and Franz Joseph glacier - we only walked up to the glaciers since the weather was awful and most people had been waiting to climb them for a couple of days! Great Vibe in Franz Joseph though as we drank lots of beer by the log fire!!

Wanaka - We did a couple of walks here - stunning alpine town.

Queenstown - Adventure capital of the world, where we were hoping to do a bit of snowboarding, although there was no snow. We did quite a few walks here and went on the luge (basically a tea tray with wheels) which was good fun!

Milford sound - we drove down to milford and boarded one of the many cruises round the sound, which was unbelievably gorgeous. Apparently the best time to see it is during one of the many downpours as there are more waterfalls and the thundery sky gives you a more real idea of this place. And it poured down while we were there!!

Dunedin - we climbed the world steepest street here, and ached for days afterwards.

Omaru - Penguins! What more can i say. After deciding against paying to sit in a hive and watch the penguins come to shore we drove to the one beach that there was penguins normally and wasnt disapointed. The 'shy' penguins normally run a mile and dont come a shore if they spot people around, although we found one sitting on the footpath and was almost posing as we took hundreds of shots.

Mt Cook - this is where it got really cold. We drove up to Mt cook after having some time to kill, and we'd been noticing the weather getting cooler the longer we'd been in the south island. Then we get Minus 6 in the van - it was chilly!! We managed to find a place that had a log fire TV room which we sat in for most of the evening until it was time to brave the cold.

Akaroa - Akaroa was nice, but the highlight of this trip was the break in a town called little river on the way for cake!! Chocolate brownie cheesecake.........surfice to stay i made sure i was driving on the way back and stopped in again to replenish the van!!

Mt Hutt - the only ski field open in the south island and there was lots of snow. Bex managed to learn quite a lot in one day (all the time we had left) and was turning and starting to look like a 'pro' by the end of the day, albeit with a few knocks to her head!!

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