The South Island

Oh look there is another breathtaking  view!

The ferry over from the North Island was wonderful, we sailed through a a few little islands and past a salmon farm! the views where just incredible. Its a bit cold though!

Our first stop was Nelson, we stayed here for two nights. The drive there was epic! We drove across Queens Charlotte's track which was marvelous! So many huge mountains , darling harbors and little coves. We really enjoyed our time in Nelson, was a bit like Wellington but on a smaller scale! Very Artsy Fartsy.

We took a little d-tour to experience a piece of the Abel Tasman National park, we just had a little day walk through a popular track. It is really nice, and is the most Northern part of the South Island. We saw a lot of interesting looking birds and the beach was lovely, covered with rocks and crystals.

Then we decided to go wine tasting in Marlborough.. however wine tasting is expensive and vodka is not.. so vodka won and we had a bit of a night out in a nice little hostel in Blenheim.

The highlight of the South Island so far was probably Kaikoura. There is a lovely pebble beach in Kaikoura and lots of cute quirky shops. We also went whale watching. This was one of my favourite life experiences! It was just incredible, we saw 3 Sperm whales coming up for air and then diving back down. And they all had individual names as the whale people can tell the difference between each one as the shape of their tale is as unique as a human fingerprint.

On the way back to the harbor all my childhood dreams came true as we were surrounded by hundreds of dusky dolphins, all doing acrobatic tricks and chasing the boat! It literally brought a tear to my eye.. and I am not an emotional person! Nick and I were also lucky enough to see the Hexi dolphin which is apparently very rare, there were two of them, right on the shore, almost on the beach!

After Kaikoura we visited Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook whilst en route to Wanaka. Lake Tekapo is amazing it is a turquoise colored lake, something to do with glaciers.. it’s magical!!

Mt cook is also quite spectacular.. its huge (biggest mountain in NZ)! We had a little walk around the bottom of it, over some pretty awesome bridges! Not really much to do there though, unless your climbing the mountain, so we didn't stay long. We also stopped over in a place called Geraldine for some Fish and Chips and saw the world’s largest Jersey and largest Tapestry.. they had a Guinness world record and everything.

Wanaka is lovely, the views over the lake are incredible, showing snow capped mountain ranges as far as the eye can see. We explored Wanaka via bike.. we did a 15K bike ride, around one side of the lake and then through a forest, we were by the lake the for the ride which was pretty awesome.

We are in Queenstown now, and again, it is another amazing place that New Zealand has to offer. When you look in the sky people are jumping out of air-planes and paragliding all over the place! And the view is spectacular, mountain ranges in every direction. We will hopefully be working on one of them soon!

Sarah

xxx