The Lodge On Chertsey Methven

... up above the hill on us that we walked through. Tried to do a tour of a whiskey distillery, but it was closed. Toured the Whitestone cheese factory. Did some tasting then bought some Totara Tasty Vintage Chedder and Highland Blue. Went north along the 72 inland highway and stopped at sharplin falls. Allergies kicking my ass so I didnt do the hike. Had a campfire before early top bed.

... stop was Lake Tekapo, so beautiful we stayed 2 nights. On the first night we got $10 tickets to the Mount John Observatory (apparently it's the year of Astronomy NOT Astrology which I told someone!) the astronomers were really keen and showed us some constellations and gassy nebulas but it was a pretty cloudy night!! The following day we walked up to that hill and around the lake it was so windy, but a great view point from the top. After all that activity ...

... accommodation, explored a bit, spent some time laying in the sun at the side of the lake (another beautiful warm day!) before retiring to our motel to have our first home-cooked meal for - we can't remember - but a long time! Day 41 Today we drove via the Haast pass to the Glaciers - Fox and Franz Josef (in that order). We stopped off a few times at waterfalls and beaches ("Haast" beach - which looks a lot like a Scottish beach) before arriving at Fox Glacier ...

... Tracy Tuschling and her family in Tuesday night. They've settled in really well and love Christchurch. Unfortunately with the recession Percy hasn't found a job but Tracy is doing a course at Uni and is going to be working part-time for Women's Aid. Both girls have settled in really well and both love their new schools. Tara (the eldest) has lots of new friends and has a part time job but she misses the Scottish accent! It was really nice to see them all so happy! (for ...

... near Christchurch, for our last night in the camper. We were quite sad to be leaving our camper lifestyle, it had served us well. Akaroa, a pretty little fishing town on the peninsula pretty much hated campers. There are signs everywhere telling you you canīt park, probably because they spoil the view or something ...

... residential street!! Rather than stopping en route to Christchurch at Timaru, we decided to do all the 250km drive. The beauty of the South island is that whilst all roads are single carriageway there is not a huge amount of traffic around so you make progress quite quickly. Arrived at Christchurch just before 6.30pm and checked into our site. First problem was that the swim with dolphin tours in ...

... an der Cookiefactory. Es waere besser gewesen wenn wir nicht gefruehtstueckt haetten. Mmmmmhhhhhh waren die frischgebackenen Cookies lecker!!!! Um 11 Uhr sind wir dann in Methven angekommen und dann ging's erst mal zum Skiverleih, denn wir als Backpacker hatten ja alle keine Skiklamotten. Witzigerweise gehoert der Skiverleih einem Oesterreicher und seine Angestellte ist auch Oesterreicherin =). Nachmittags machten wir uns ...

... guard rails - nothing! But the views were amazing. Unfortunately being in a bus the windows were fogged up and pictures did not really turn out. Part way up the mountain the bus stopped and the driver put on the snow chains. There was a parking lot where everyone had to pull over and put chains on. They also had attendants that you could pay to put your chains on for you. After the chain station the road did become worse. However no worse than some roads at ...

After a short flight down to the South Island we met Nath (Martin's friend from school) at the airport and headed into Christchurch for some brunch before driving to Methven to dump our bags and work out what we were going to do for the rest of the time. We walked into town to get some late ...

... about 150 playful and curious "Dusky" dolphins (only found in the southern hemisphere) Sarah managed to get many great photos plus video - while Greg had the thrill of face-to-face encounters with these wonderful creatures - even learned to "squeak" away as they were told to do to attract them to the surface. They were all fully garbed in a wetsuit (and snorkel and flippers) as the water temp was ...