Tranzalpine express to Greymouth, freezing in the observation carriage - open sides Fancy dress in bin bags at the poo pub with yum food put up by Les All party pics stolen from Madeleine

Not much to do in Hokitika, other than shopping for Jade. There was a nice beach art we checked out before we got going. *** WORLD CHANGE STARTS WITH EDUCATED CHILDREN! Give a girl the life long gift of education! Support my appeal 100 GIRLS BACK TO SCHOOL! Donate at: www.justgiving.com/100GirlsBackToSchool . Your money goes directly to ROOM TO ...

Tuesday What have we done since last entry? We left Hanmer and drove back towards Christchurch but skirting the city on our journey to Banks Peninsular, our destination was Akoroa. Banks Peninsular was formed by volcanic action and the peninsual includes to beautiful harbours formed when the volano erupted. Akaroa is the settlement at the head o...

You can't imagine anything competing with the size a depth of Milford Sound (fjord actually) and indeed its a sight unlike any other, but leaving there and heading back to Queenstown we decided to avoid the coast and go up instead to mount cook and lake tekapo. As the road snaked up top the mountains we levelled out onto an area of plains, vast ...

Wow. Not only did the weather continue to hold but the drive to Hoki over Arthur's Pass was stunning. Arthur's Pass was named after a surveyor back in the day who was the first to survey the pass declaring it a good spot for farming. His brother went up to survey for building and farming referring to it in his report as Arthur's pass. Since then...

We left Franz Josef this morning and arrived in Hokitika at about lunchtime. Hokitika is very famous for it's Greenstone, also known as Jade or Pounamu to the locals. We went to several shops in town today... and lets just say we spent a lot of time and money in one of the Jade Factories. Stu bought me a lovely Greenstone necklace and Greenstone...

I'll think we'll give this place a miss. Not very exciting. Got to watch the rugby, well what I could see of it anyway! Off to Fox Glacier.

Once again I awoke to the sound of the ocean. It just doesn't get better than this. After a relaxing breakfast (we get fed A LOT on this tour) we headed to our morning hike which was called Three Mile Lagoon. The hike started on the beach. I went with the other guy in the group, Tom. Unfortunately, neither one of us paid attention when the guide...

We left Franz Josef glacier to head to Hokitika, the next decent sized town along the West Coast, to find a pub to watch the rugby again. This time it was Lions v NZ Maori and we lost it narrowly 19-13, but we did make some new Kiwi friends in the process. After the game we then drove towards Greymouth to find a spot to camp. Graham managed to g...