We were picked up from Sydney Airport by our friends Rob and Maree and taken to their house in Ashtonfield near Newcastle. We found them both in much better health than expected and in the first week we managed a trip up to Hawks Nest a lovely quiet village on the coast, plus we also got Rob's boat out onto Lake Macquarie. It was the first time they had had the boat out for nearly a year due to their health issues. After being on the move for so long it was re...

We are still having problems with getting photos onto the blog so this time we are doing a blog write up first and will put more photos on later. The Wellington Hostel wasn't so good this time as it was infested with about 30 USA school kids on their way to South Island. They had filled the main dining room with themselves and bags but we only had 2 nights and we were out most of the time. Our main task in Wellington this time was not sightseeing but was shopp...

We left Queenstown early in the rain and it was the only place that we didn't get picked up right outside the accommodation door - typical. It took 2 hours to Te Anau and then another 2 hours to reach Milford Sound. From Te Anau to Milford Sound the scenery was spectacular and the Saddle over Homers Tunnel was unbelievable. After the tunnel we dropped into Milford but because of mist and rain you couldn't see where you were going only down into the mist from a...

We have travelled on from Nelson down the west coast to Queenstown, the activity centre of South Island. As you will see the weather is still gorgeous and the sun is still shining on us. We have just added some photos but unfortunately we uploaded more than intended thinking that we could delete some before sending it on the blog. This was not the case so hope you don't mind looking at them all, will try and do better next time - we are after all in holiday mo...

We have just added descriptions to the photos which we were going to do before but it sent them before we were ready. They are also now in order if you want to go onto the site and look at them again. We are back to Civilisation where there are pavements shops etc, and they speak a sort of English. We have been walking on the road in Easter Island where there was no traffic and what there was was slow, then Moorea on the side of the road but still not a lot of t...