South

Been a while since the last blog update, even including the very short "TV one" I did when we had only about 2 minutes to do do an update. It probably made no sense to anyone but me and Marie.

We are now very close to finishing the New Zealand part of the trip which is a bit sad because its blooming lovely in New Zealand, even when the weather isn't great. Its been a bit of a whistlestop tour so, in that spirit, heres a whitslestop low down:

After 3 rather drizzley days in Wellington we headed over to the south island on the Bluebridge ferry. Its was still rather miserable so we couldn't appreciate the scenery as it was mostly just mist and cloud but it was uneventful (no sinking!) and we arrived in Picton for our bus to Renwick on time. We spent a couple of days in Renwick (very small place near Blenhiem) and hired some bicycles and cycled around the surrounding wine country. We even did a spot of beer tasting at a microbrewery and bought a couple of "Moa's".

We then headed south to Kaikoura and went whalewatching which was good although the whole thing ran like a military operation (onto boat, off boat, outside, inside) and was a bit rushed but was still a good thing to do. We stayed in the Adelphi - but no-one was heard shouting "Just cook will ya!"

We then had a couple of days in Christchurch, which seemed a nice city although not much to do but wander around and we spent two nights in jail. It was then an early start to get the TranzAlpine across the Southern Alps over to Greymouth on the West Coast. This is when the rain started again.

The rain didn't stop for over three days - and it was proper rain too - not that namby-pamby North Island drizzle. After a quick night in Hokitika (which might be nice - we'll never know as we were holed up in our -admittedly lovely- hostel) we headed to Franz Josef to see the glaciers. Only you couldn't, because it was raining. I went on a Glacier climb which was really good (if wet) and poor Marie spend two whole days there without seeing even a glimpse of a glacier!

The rain finally stopped once we left the West Coast and headed into the mountains and to Queenstown. This is where we are now - its much nicer than I thought it would be. We have been luging (again!) and yesterday had a 13 hour round trip to Milford Sound. To say its impressive is an understatement. Sheer vertical cliffs, the height of two Empire State Buildings, shooting out of calm waters and then continuing up to snow capped mountains was just awe inspiring.

All of which brings us up to now- an Internet Cafe in the local shopping mall, waiting for our bus to Dunedin - our final stop in NZ before heading to Perth. I just hope that Oz is as good as NZ - its got a lot of live up to!

Also, I'm painfully aware theres not many photos on here which might be dissappointing for you (whoever you are) but hopefully once we get to Oz we'll have plenty of time to upload the photos and I'll post some on here for your delictation.

Blog soon
James