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Hi.
We have now been on the South Island for just over a week and it is spectacular! The scenery is stunning and although we are spending a lot of time on the road it has been really enjoyable watching the changing views of mountains and lakes.
We really liked the Malborough area of the island, and not just because of the wine! The area in and around Nelson and Blenheim is particularly beautiful with it's vineyards backed by snowcapped mountains. We went further down the east coast to Kaikoura for one of the highlights of the whole trip - whale watching. We were lucky enough to see five giant sperm whales and got close enough to see the barnacles on their back. We also got to see some dolphins, seals and giant albatroses. Our next stop was in Akaroa, a small town on the coast, originally settled by the French - very picturesque although full of French tourists!
After that we travelled inland to Lake Tekapo and Twizel, on the edge of the Mount Cook National Park. The drive was especially stunning - surprisingly straight and flat despite being surrounded by mountains. Hopefully the photos will do justice to the views. From there we went on to Dunedin on the edge of the Otago Peninsular. The city is historic - by New Zealand standards - with a Scottish background, hence the only castle in the Southern Hemisphere is to be found nearby. However, Larnach Castle is very disappointing by British castle standards, looking more like something you might see on Footballer's Wives (Damian is still upset about the $20 spent to get into the grounds)!
We have spent the last few days back in the mountains in Te Anau, in the South Fjordlands, and took a trip down Milford Sound. The coach drive and boat trip was through stunning landscape and got us up really close to remains of winter avalanches, glacial waterfalls and even some penguins. On the coach journey back we stopped for some short walks through the forest, tasted the glacial melt water directly from a stream and saw some keas, which are the only alpine parrot.
We arrived in Queenstown last night and are planning a bungy jump, whitewater rafting, a sky dive and a jet boat ride all before lunch! Or we might just go for a walk instead - a difficult decision!
See you soon.
K & D X
The authors of this blog wish to apologise for the lack of photographs of New Zealand so far. This is due to operator error of the photographic equipment resulting in the loss of 'several images'. We would like to reassure you that all efforts are being made to recitfy the situation. However, we are pleased to confirm that above mentioned photos from Kaikoura onwards are safely in existence and will appear on the blog in due course.
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