Buscot Station

After Dunedin we decided to revert to plan A and camp. We headed up the coast to Omaru and grabbed a pitch in the Top Ten Holiday Site. They provide a McCamping type experience. Sadly it started to rain around 7pm and didn’t stop until we left at 10am the following morning. The bargain tent…

Dunedin

This travelling lark isn’t all glamour you know. Even in a great country like New Zealand. When travelling through Central Otago on our way to Queenstown the girl who served us the fruit ice cream mentioned that she hailed from Dunedin. When we asked what it was like she told us not to go there…

Queenstown – Outdoor Capital of New Zealand

I was really looking forward to getting back to Queenstown as it was my first chance to get back on a mountain bike. To get there we had to travel through Central Otago, which was an area made to sound fairly bland by the guidebook. This wasn’t the case, as our drive meandered through rolling…

Earthquake

Thanks Ryan for updating the blog and thanks for the concern shown.  We were far away enough from the quake to not feel it, but watching the footage on TV has made us feel very lucky. We were due to be in Christchurch in a few days to then fly out to Auckland and on…

NZ Earthquake – We are fine

A quick update from family in England. Mark and Claire were 100 miles away from the earthquake in Christchurch and were unaffected. They are visiting “Narnia” today. I’m sure they’ll update as soon as possible.

Curio Bay and Porpoise Bay

They say the best things in life are free and it’s so true, as we had one of the most memorable experiences of our trip the other day and it didn’t cost us a penny. After a night camping at Colac Bay and lunch in Invercargill, we headed to Curio Bay as Mark said he…

2 Lakes, a Flying visit to Queenstown and Milford Sound

After the Glaciers we started to make our way down the remainder of the west coast in order to reach Milford Sound. We camped 2 nights, the first at beautiful Lake Wanaka and the other at Moke Lake near Queenstown. On the way we also stopped in Queenstown for a morning to search for a…

Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers

The weather had deteriorated thus reducing our desire to camp so we ended up staying at a hostel in Franz Josef, the location of one of the two glaciers which attract tourists on the west coast. All was not lost though as we roomed with Everett, the Canadian Backpacking Grandfather. We had the usual sharing…

Barrytown Knife Making

We are using the Guide Books less and less but Barrytown Knife Making was a guide book recommendation that stood out and appealed to me. A day spent making my own knife with Steve and Robyn. I set off from our Hostel leaving Claire to explore Greymouth, as she didn’t fancy making a knife. Barrytown…

Abel Tasman National Park

As you all know, for us Thailand was always our chance to enjoy fine beaches and swim in the sea. So it was a big surprise to find beaches in New Zealand that were more stunning than anything we saw in Thailand. From the port at Picton we headed to the beautiful Abel Tasman National…

A Quick Update

Internet continues to be hard to come by here in NZ. We are sat in a laundrette at the moment! We have made our way right down the west coast of the South Island, which has been amazing all the way. The weather has been bad at times though. A proper update will follow just…

Wellington

The night before our final night on the North Island we checked in to a hostel just outside Wellington. Again we had intended to camp but the weather put paid to that idea. Not before we had driven 15kms up a dirt track into a national park though. The u-turn and return was a little…