With reluctance we left the top of the South and headed for the West Coast, stopping at Murchison on the energetic edge of the Buller River. Lack of day light and hungry children called for a stop at a campsite that straddled a cemetery and thanks to Jon's ghostly stories - only Jon slept well! An unplanned stop at the Buller Gorge Swingbridge r...

The morning sunlight cast a surreal glow on the mountains near Kaikoura as we got up. The fresh, crisp air of autumn, with a slight frost in our breaths, heralded the imminent arrival of winter. For breakfast, there was an assortment of toasts, cereal, and breadspreads. One spread, in particular, caught my eye. It was a salty, dark brown food pa...

Our trip to New Zealand didn't start well when our luggage failed to arrive with us from Sydney and we had to fly on from Auckland to Christchurch, in the South Island, empty-handed. It was no surprise to us, mind you, judging by the chaos in the airport in Sydney before we took off. In the end it didn't really delay us, although we were pretty ...