Ferryy across islands Wellington Botanical Gardens As we were about to check out, one of the hotel staff came over and returned our camera which had been found for us and returned to the hotel. While the physical damage to the camera isminimal, it's full of water and mud - And is therefore stuffed. Fortunately we now have the memory card back - and our insurance covers damage & I had individually insured it, so we shouls be able to claim most of...

Quad biking Able Tasman National Park First thing - out to "Happy Valley Adventures" for some quad biking. As it happened we were the only ones booked in for the morning run, so it was just us and the guide - so it made for very personalized service. The weather was perfect, had poured with rain the day before - however today was clear - but there was still heaps of puddles and mud on the tracks. After passing on the trial track - we were ...

Drive to Nelson World of Wearable Art (WOW) Another day on the road. The couple who run the Sails motel continued their very friendly service, running out in the rain to give us a couple of good coffee shops we could stop at on the way and fare welling us. The drive to Nelson proved interesting… stack behind a truck for the first 100km, it seems many of the truck drivers refuse to use the slow vehicle sections of road, and given the roads are all...

Drive to Kaikoura (via Hanmer Springs) Hanmer Springs - Hot pools Seals - Walk around limestone cliffs Another day on the road - first to Hanmer springs, about 1.5 hr our of Christchurch & in-land. Here we visited & enjoyed the Hot pools - essentially a much larger version of the hot pools at Lake Tekapo, with literally hundreds of people, and a large selection of pools from 36 - 41 degrees. We relaxed in the pools for a bit over an hou...

Adrenalin Forrest (high Ropes) Movie (Up - 3D) First thing -off to adrenalin forest. This was somewhat different to what we expected… It's a high ropes course with 6 courses within in - with a total of 100 different challenges (i.e. each course has a heap of actual challenges within it). What made this different to anything I've ever experienced in Australia is the relaxed nature of the operation. We turned up just before 10am only 1 staff person ...