If you want to get from North to South Island New Zealand, take the ferry! The way into Picton South Island is just awesome.

If a bit chillier than what we’re used to .. but hey at least the sun was shining!

It’s $50 each to get across the straits without a car .. and they don’t give you hassle for the amount of luggage you have – good times!

After so many problems with our Jucy car in Australia .. you would think we’d be idiots to go for them again. Yeah, we had one waiting for us in Christchurch. After a few sneaky phone calls to our good Jucy friends in Brisbane ( who we were now on first name terms with), reminding them of just how many problems we had over there .. we had a price slash off the van so we were sold!

To get out of Picton, there’s a train which takes about 5 hours down to Christchurch. That may seem a very dull prospect, but i couldn’t recommend it enough! it was awesome! You can sit outside in an open air carriage, watching the snowy mountains, vineyards, waves, seals and all sorts pass by.

Jucy Brucy round 2 worked out to be a great idea.. as I said before, you can be somewhere with no-one else about for miles and miles.

enjoying the sunset at the foot of Mount Cook at Lake Punkakiki

the view from our van – the best room with a view you can get!

We took Jucy Brucy round Lake Tekapo, Punakiki, before hitting Wanaka – one of the many Ski resorts here in the South. After seeing the snow sitting on the tops of mountains all round here .. temptation to stay for the ski season was crazy! Once we hit Queenstown, having no money to do any exciting activities like skydiving or bungying, we did a mish up to the Remarkables ski resort.

wheres the snow then ey? we wanted to play!

This place is full of so many hidden beauties, people would never know they existed unless they decide to climb up like us …

After a good 3 hours scrambling up the side of the mountain, we got to the top!

You don’t need to spend a fortune to see New Zealand from the top. Just get wrapped up, take some water and climb!

I’m getting a bit sentimental just sat here typing away about the place … you just need to see it for yourself to really appreciate the place! No matter how many times I say it’s amazing, its amazing, it’s amazing.. you gotta be there to experience it!

Driving along the motorway in the UK, the most you’re going to see is a few trees, HEAPS of development and far too many cars on the road. Would you come across somewhere so beautiful as this while driving at home?

This isn’t even an attraction to go see, just some random gorge that doesn’t even have a name on the map. The day I see that colour water in England, with not a piece of rubbish floating down it…!  

Our travels took us through Wanaka and Queenstown, down to Milford Sound. Every person we’d met had emphasised the importance of heading down to the ‘gorgeous amazing wonderful brilliant beautiful Milford Sound.’ We did the drive down there, only to find we couldn’t see a damn thing because it rained so so much!!

It would have been a great trip down … if we could have seen something other than greyness!

The rest of our west coast experience consisted of the same rain, wet, mist, cold .. unable to see a thing! We tried to see the Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers .. it certainly felt like we were near ice .. just couldn’t damn see it!

After a few days of being sat in the van in miserable weather, enough was enough and we drove back to Christchurch.

 Only a few more days and we’ll be ripping up Fiji!! Excitement is an understatement!! I’m missing tropical climate a bit down here.