As we left Christchurch early in the morning the clouds lifted and we were greeted with glorious sunshine. Our route had us heading down the east coast to try and get the best weather and as we hit the coast we were surprised by the sight of huge mountain ranges in the distance capped with white snow. They looked like they had been dusted with s...

The drive from Kaikoura to Methven took us on the inland scenic route, through lots of greenery and plenty of hills all around. It was very pretty. We stopped once on the way at a river where several boats run tours up and down. We dipped our toes into the water to test the temperature and let's just say we didn't fancy a swim! We arrived in Met...

Drove out of Oamaru into the town centre where we bought a new bag for Fi and I (Rich) also paid my speeding fine at the local Westpac bank. Only cash accepted (?). The staff were very sympathetic which made me feel better. Drove on through Timaru and Ashburton, both quite large towns relative to most we have been through lately. Went through a ...

Hello, We have been lucky to have some great weather the last few days as you can probably see from the photos. After leaving Dunedin we headed north towards Oamaru Stopping off at Moeraki to see the ancient boulders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_B oulders). This might not sound that exciting, but they were actually pretty fascinating as...

We awoke early after all getting a great nights sleep at this lovely hotel -to what looked liked a gorgeous autumnal day - perfect blue sky, mountains rising to the west and the ocean sparkling in front of us as far as the eye can see! Greg wanted to "swim with the dolphins", while Sarah went along too, but as a photographer! With the perfect co...

Despite going to bed quite early, we didn't feel refreshed at all the next morning. It must have been the extremely soft matress which made you "jump" if the other half moved ... ;) ... On a brighter note, we were awaken by "live music" coming from the nearby park where bands were playing bagpipes. After a cuppa, we checked out and cruised along...

Now that we are bright eyed and bushy tailed, yeah right, here's the rest of the adventure. We woke up very cozy in our new Kathmandu sleeping bags and found that it must have been -600 degrees outside and there not just condensation on the inside of the van but it had frozen so there was ice IN the van. But we managed to haul ourselves out of b...

the map will be wrong at this point. we left franz joseph going north for 2 hours before we could cross the Southern Alps over Arthurs Pass. This was surprisingly easy. Most of the pass was along the river valley and only climbed towards the plateau later, we'd anticipated lots of turns and twists as the normal roads are! At the smal village we ...

What a day today was, what fun and what pain! Today was our first snow boarding lesson. We were up even earlier today as I was cooking up a breakfast of eggs, bacon, beans with sausages, mushrooms and toast. Thought this might set us up for our days snow boarding. We had also booked a little 4wd shuttle bus to take us up the mountain instead of ...

Early was not quite the word to describe the time we got up, bloody early would be more accurate. Our alarm went off before 8am, horrible! But we had to get into town to get kitted out with ski gear and equipment in time to catch the 9am bus from the visitors centre. A quite trip to Big Al's sorted us out with the full kit and caboodle, another ...