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The rainforest walk

stayed at Franz josef top 10 campsite and there was a huge collections of vans and backpackers at the local youth hostels.

We stopped at the Franz Josepf glacier parked up and hiked the 1 hr to the glacier from the car park over a moon like landscape which was the debris the glacier had left behind before it retreated.

It was simply stunning and the kids did really well walking. Patrick and I posed for our Everton shirt photos in order that we could get them published in the programme or on the bluekipper website.

20 km away was the fox glacier. Two glaciers in one day. NZ has 100's. This time we couldn't get as close because there had been a huge landslide. We had a decision to make retrace our steps and travel back to Arthur's Pass or carry on and use the Haast pass the lowest in NZ and probably safer because it was after all winter. The haast route was much longer but we decided that we hadnt done any particular long stretches of driving and we wanted to explore so so we carried on and camped at Lake Paringa which was a DOC site. The night before we did a rainforest walk which ended up on a really beautiful deserted beach. It was guranteed penguins for 6 mths of the year but we were a week early and despitte searching for them they hadn't arrived from the artic. We walked over a great swing bridge. On the way back it got very dark and scary. Dad fell off a step. 2 inches and thought he'd fallen off a cliff.

We were glad to see the van.

We awoke to the best morning ever and got buzzed by a fantail which was a inquistive bird which wanted you to move around to that we disturbed the insects.

Last day on the west coast

The longest day in the van, we drove about 600km. Christchurch is one of the places we might settle in so we needed to get from the West coast to spend more time there.

magnificent along with the Lake Moeraki. The drive up the pass was breathtaking and the views from Makarora where we nearly ran out of diesel amazing. But the next hour from Makarora to Wanaka is the best hour of driving and views ever!

We stopped at Wanaka which is where New Zeleanders holiday and an alternative to Queenstown. Its grown alot in the last 10 years. We spoke to a retired couple who moved here 30 years ago and only 500 people lived in the valley. Every building looked new and you should have seen the views from the supermarket or petrol station alone!

We got to the Mt Cook viewpoint at dusk on Lake Pukaki took in the view and pressed onto Christchurch listening to National FM1 and the phone ins. Again we nearly stayed at Lake Tekapo but the roads flattenned out and we were making good time.

We stayed in Rakaia which has the longest bridge in NZ and the friendliest sheepdog playing fetch. It was a farming town but the day we arrived 3 men had died when their car collided with a train.

We watched Dodgeball on TV and it was funny because it was the first time we had watched a film on Channel 3 and the adverts really annoyed us. 5 rules.

dodge dip duck dive and dodge again. Its now become our game of choice but always ends in tears so I agree it should be banned or played with foam balls only