New Zealand. North Island.

The ferry landed in Wellington at 10 on Sunday night. The sat navs in all our devices failed us. Our hippy van's petrol gauge was on red. We had no map. How were we going to find our Travelodge? I hailed a taxi and followed it to our hotel via a service station. A bargain ten dollar ride.

In the morning we headed north. On route we stopped at a second hand bookshop. We got back in the van and the battery was flat. What to do? Luckily there was an old bicycle lying by the roadside and so using that, wire, yoghurt pots and sticky backed plastic I was able to fashion together a small generator to recharge the battery. Also we phoned an emergency number we found on the windscreen and were soon back on the road.

Lots of people had told us that the scenery in the South Island was so much better than the North. Maybe so. But the North Island was also very beautiful. Rolling hills, volcanic mud pools and geysers, lakes and snow-topped mountains.
More family. More memories. We were made very welcome in New Zealand. Lots of lovely people. Thank you all.

New Zealand, South Island.

We landed at Christchurch and took the shuttle to our hotel, a good five minute walk away. In the morning we picked up our hippy van and headed South to Dunedin. I've never been particularly interested in visiting New Zealand but so many people have told us how wonderful it was I was looking forward to discovering the attraction.

Dunedin was very nice. We stayed in a lovely B&B, ate well in a very English pub and drove down to the ocean, a stone's throw from Antarctica. (More of our adventures here on Jill's FB.) Then we headed north, winding through the mountains, stayed at Queenstown, situated in The Remarkables (great name for a mountain range) on Lake Wakatipu (great name for a lake) and continued on to Fairley, via the turquoise Lake Tekapo, and the next day arriving back in Christchurch.

In Fairley we noticed how many British birds there were chirping away in the trees. We saw thrushes and blackbirds and sparrows. How had they made the long journey from one side of the world to the other? By boat of course, brought by early British settlers.
The mountains and lakes of the South Island are simply stunning. This was the wonderfulness. Jill thought them even more spectacular than Yosemite.
In Christchurch we stayed with Jill's cousins, Colin and Erica, where we rode Molly, one of their Clydesdale horses. They took us on a sobering tour of Christchurch, still putting itself back together after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. Fallen down buildings, rubble, the horrors of liquefaction, but a feeling of resolution and hope amongst the people. Most moving, on a strip of flattened land in the city centre, 185 empty chairs, painted white. One to represent each person who had died.

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