New Zealand South Island

We embarked on a tour of the South Island by Road. Although we missed out on two of the main tourist sites: Marlborough and Queenstown, we saw some remarkably varied towns and landscapes. The great scarcity of road traffic was a real bonus.

After Christchurch we travelled to Kaikoura on the east coast.

Our next stop was inland to Hanmer Springs, rather Blackpool-like with a number of warm to hot pools.

We then crossed to the west coast through Lewis Pass over the main divide. Here we saw, the first time, astonishing tree-fern forests. Our destination was Westport where we visited The Buller River Gorge, including a jet-boat trip, and Charleston Glow-worm Caves.

The next port of call was the Franz Joseph Glacier, passing, on the way, the Punakaiki pancake rocks and more Tree-Fern forests.

We then passed on to Wanaka via Haast. From Wanaka we visited Dunedin (where the weather was very like its Northern counterpart, Edinburgh). We then made our way back to Christchurch, for our onward flight to Fiji.