Heading south in record time

The Marlborough Sounds
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There were a few things that hit us when we got to Auckland. The weather, it was cold. The lack of people, we could run and not bump into people or get run over. The fact that no one was hassling us to buy things, people just smiled and walked past us and the cost - How much to hire a car? How much for that tent???

Despite these things it was nice to be somewhere that felt like home. Everyone spoke English, everyone smiled at you and we were on the next stage of our trip.

As nice as it is being free on the road there is nothing like a long bath!

Montana vineyard
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The first night we camped in a town called Hamilton which was just a 40 minute drive to Rotourua. At Rotourua we relaxed in the thermal mineral pools, had a drive to the mud pools and geysers and then continued onto Foxton. We spent the night at Foxton,a small coastal town and the following morning we drove to Wellington, where we spent most of the day in the museum.

The following day we took the ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton and after picking up our hire car we took the short drive to the beautiful Marlborough Sounds. Here we pitched our tent overlooking the lake and had a short walk on the Queen Charlotte track.

The snow covered Mount Cook
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The next day we headed to the valleys of Bleinheim for wine tasting at the vineyards.  We had a tour at Montana and at the others we just tasted the wine, well Pod tasted all of the wines I only had a few as I was driving!

We were so keen to get to Simon & Jo's house in Queenstown that we set off at 3.30 to cover as much ground as possible. At 8pm we had got to Christchurch and were planning another hours drive when Pod decided we should pick up a young girl that was hitching. I wasn't too happy about it but he made me feel guilty and so we picked her up.

Wind swept in Kaikoura
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She was a young French girl called Emily living in New Zealand studying at Dunedin and was on her way home. We drove to Lake tekapo and arrived at 11.15pm to find the campsite closed. Pod and Emily decided we should camp illegally and so we spent another hour trying to find a picnic spot off the main road. We eventually found a quiet place, pitched our tents and slept. In the morning we opened our tents and looked out onto the stunning mountains of Mount Cook.

We had quick stop at Twizel for breakfast we drove straight to Queenstown, dopped off Emily and found Simon and Jo.

Picture perfect views everywhere
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As nice as it is being free on the road there is nothing like a long bath, a home cooked meal and your own bed every once in a while. For our welcoming night we had a famously good New Zealand BBQ, a glass of wine and admired the view from their balcony overlooking the lake of Queenstown. For the next few days the most strenuous things got were a game of pitch and put and a trip to the shops! It was nice just taking it easy for a while!