South Island - Wanaka and Queenstown 6, 7, 8 February 2009

Kingston Flyer on turntable.

Julie's pub.

Bungy jumping leap off near cable car Queenstown

Strange sky over Lake Wakatipu - bushfire smoke from Australia.

Pass between Wanaka and Queenstown

Glacier in Mt Aspiring National Park. Top of Rob Roy Valley track. Tricky sandwich.

On the track.

Swing Bridge at start of the Rob Roy Valley track.

Rent a Dent en route to Mt Aspiring National Park.

Ship Creek, Haast. A great forest walk, so called because the carcass of a ship which was wrecked off Melbourne ended up beached near here.

South Island - Hokitika and Franz and Fox 4th and 5th February 2009

From top - trying to see Mt Cook refelected in Lake Matheson - no sign of the mountain let alone reflection, but a beautiful place - and a good (new) restauarant.

Fox Glacier

Franz Josef Glacier

The open road - wonderful!

The ony sock machine museum in the world - one of Hokitika's claims to fame, but the sunsets and fish and chips were very good too, especially taken together in the car with a bottle of Martinborough white sipped through a straw.

South Island - Picton and Abel Tasman National Park

Walking through Abel Tasman National Park from Barks Bay to Torrent Bay having taken a boat from Kaiteriteri which picked us up later.

Picton Ferry Port

Leaving Wellington

Wellington

It seemed strange and familiar at the same time to bump into Dick at the Wellington station where he was waiting for us. It felt almost like a coincidence.

I hadn't seen much of downtown Auckland so Wellington was the first New Zealand city seen up close. The first and most striking feature is the setting around what looks like an almost perfectly circular harbour - you know it's the sea but you can't see the entrance channel from most places around the city. It all becomes clear when you walk around the shore.

As the government centre it has a white collar sophisticated air, but all this sounds like a quote from Lonely Planet. The best part was to spend time with Dick, Hilly and Matthew. Going off to the winery area at Martinborough was great too. But let the pictures speak for themselves. It was sad to leave.

Overlander

One very surprising thing about New Zealand is that it's hot. Perhaps not always, but to get sunburnt wasn't what I expected. So when one afternoon in Waiheke we went fishing offshore I didn't expect to be peeling a couple of days later. But so it was and the price was small for the excitement of being out in a little boat with someone who knew what they were talking about/doing and actually catching fish! The technique for the amateur is to bait 2 hooks above the sinker with small fish and let the sinker drop to the bottom and then haul it up a few inches. At the first place it didn't work,so we sped off to another favourite spot - nothing much visible on the surface to indicate it - and during the next hour or two we had magnificent haul of snappers - 16 in all plus the one that got away which was much bigger than all the others. L had caught it and we held at the surface while fiddling with the camera to get a photo. But they're bright, these fish, and so he was gone. No fish, no photo.

26 January - This was the day of the Auckland Regatta, including a tugboat race won by the oldest steam tug. The others, modern diesel tugs, said they held back to give it a chance. We had a fantastic view of it all, but like Cowes Week, once the small boat races start it's impossible to tell what's going on. And then:

27 January - The train from Auckland to Wellington takes 12 hours and leaves pretty early in the morning, so Chrissie arranged for us to stay in Auckland for the night so we could be at the station in time. The taxi picked us up at 6.15 just as Mike was arriving from Canada where he had been ski-ing. We literally had tme to say hello at the corner of the street and then off to the station.

(We had left it as late as possible before leaving Waiheke for Auckland on 25th - just time for a pizza in the evening - and leaving a tropical island was predictably difficult.)