We definitely like the South Island, its such a lot prettier than up north, but there are about 5 people on the whole island, so you can drive for quite a while and not see any towns or houses or anything. Mark has even managed to stomach the local delicacy of whitebait (a fish you eat whole, bones, eyes,tail and all) not me though, ewwwwww.

When we left Golden bay, we headed down the west coast to a place called Westport, which prides itself on being typically kiwi, the way the towns used to be. To me it seemed like the rest of the world had passed it by. Dusty streets and old boarded shops. We didn’t stay here long enough even for a cup of tea, and drove further south to a little beach cove for the night.  Unfortunately we got eaten by the sandflies (mini mosquitos) here which are so itchy!! In a typical fashion I had a bad reaction to a bite and my foot swelled up and wouldn’t fit in my shoe. It was still itchy a week later, and I think I will have a permanant scar on my foot now!

Futher south the next day ( Sunday 23rd) We made it to the Franz Joseph Glacier
which was truly awe inspiring. It’s like the slowest avalanche down a hillside, which is thousands of years old. It took around an hour to walk across the dry river bed to the face of the glacier. We sat here for a bit (not too close!!) watching peices of ice slipping forward and rocks falling from the top. You could see where the ice had scraped big ’s’ shapes out of the rock walls on its way past. We decided to stay in Franz Jospeh for another day, cos Mark was itching to go on the cross country quad bikes here. This was really funny, bouncing around the rivers and through the forests, and getting some fantastic views of the mountains.

We moved futher south again to Haast pass, where you can get through the Southern Alps without having to climb any mountains, and arrived in Wanaka on Tuesday 25th (i think). Unfortunatley, on the way into town we had a tyre blow up, there was literally a massive hole in the tyre, which we think was dodgy to start with. Of course it happened while I was driving so it was my fault! Poor Mark had to change the tyre on a steep hill, and got covered in dust muck and grease.

When we finally got into town, we made ourselves feel better with the BIGGEST pub lunch I have ever seen. Mark ended up with a full rack of ribs i.e half a pig and roast potatoes, and I had a ploughmans lunch with a whole loaf of bread! So we spent the rest of the day lazing in the sun with big fat bellies!

In Wanaka we also had our first rude awakening by a council traffic worker, who told us off for parking on the street overnight – they want you to pay for a campsite everytime, so we had to drive around at 5 in the morning to find somewhere quiet. We haven’t had any problems with that before. After having a flat tyre we took the van in for a service, so had a whole day with no home, and decided to try the jetboats whilst in Wanaka, which we had heard a lot about. This was loads of fun. They take you out at high speeds and do lots of spins and swerves around rocks and things. Mark sat at the edge and got wet and cold hehe.

On Thursday we headed to Cardrona, one of the ski resorts in the Southern alps, which is supposed to be good for beginners and intermediates. After a few mishaps ( I dropped one ski off the chair lift, twisted my ankle and fell over at the top of the mountain trying to get off the chair lift, and then both took different ski routes to each other by mistake) we had lots of fun!! The snow is a bit slushy now, as it is getting warmer by the day, but it was enough to get by on. We have both got a bit of sunburn now. We drove onto Queenstown, where we are now, and had a few beers to get over the muscle aches!

Queenstown is really lovely, yesterday we spent a bit of time walking around town and having a nosy in ye olde sweet shoppe, where we had vimto ( I forgot how much I love this! they dont have it here!!) the town is set on another lake, with mountains all around. It is very modern, and another contender in the top ten of places to live in New Zealand. We even went up the gondola to Bobs peak to get a good view of town. They took some really silly pics of us going up, which I will add on when I have the access codes ( they email to you) At the top is a luge circuit ( little carts you sit in and steer like a bike) so of course we had a go!! Mine was broken and kept stopping, and all the little kids were laughing at me thinking I was scared There were bungy jumps from the top of this peak as well, but we aren’t brave enough yet! We are staying for another night here, so you never know!! I have updated some pics here so have a nosy if you can.

Hope you are all well, Happy Birthday Vicki, hope you have a good un!
Missing you all,

Gill and Mark
xox