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It’s pouring with rain, and damn cold.

We spent the last two nights in Picton, a small seaside town where the ferry leaves for Wellington. Both days were perfect - sunny, warm, and no tourists. I even managed to wear shorts and a t-shirt for the walk along Marlborough Sounds!

The walk was really nice - it was a 15 km walk from where Captain Cook landed to Furneaux Lodge, a small resort in the middle of the forest. A very pleasant day, and very remote - in summer it’s packed with people, but given that we’re in the shoulder season, we were the only people on the path for almost the entire way.

Glorious days, both of them.

Not so today. It’s pouring with rain, and I swear it’s dropped around five degrees. We’re in Kaikorough (I think that’s how it’s spelled), a small town with very little going on. The main attraction is the crayfish, the dolphins, the seals, and whales. However, given that it’s busy raining, we can’t actually see out to sea, so that basically leaves the crayfish. We’ve booked in for a seafood bonanza tonight, but that’s it really.

The good news was that on the way into town, we pulled over and watched a fur seal colony for about 15 minutes. They’re just like big dogs. Very smelly ones.

The other good news is that V’s heard back about the job she applied for - she’s been offered it! So, now we’ve both got news things to go back to!

Tomorrow we head to Hamner springs, where we’ve booked into a private spa in the thermal springs. Incidentally, Cobb and Co was … interesting. Not quite what V remembered. But, the important thing was we went.

Another day, another city. We’ve arrived in Nelson and are staying in a turret on the second floor of a hotel overlooking the beach that’s got mixed Hawaiian and Chinese decoration. It’s an interesting place, to say the least. In addition to our views though, we’ve also got a sauna and a private large spa bath. Not bad!

Tonight we’re going to Cobb and Co - a restaurant V remembers from her childhood. Apparently they make amazing deep fried puffs of some sort. She can’t actually remember what they were, so dinner should be interesting.

Tomorrow, we go for a walk around a reserve near here, the name of which has slipped my mind. Too many places in the last few days. There’s seals, beaches, and sun. And a forest. We’re told it’s very nice. We were going to kayak around the bay, but it’s a little too much effort, and given that we’ve got a car, it doesn’t actually get us anywhere that we can’t already drive and walk to. So, big walks tomorrow!

After Queenstown we went to Te Anau, a nice little town near Milford Sound. Milford Sound was literally amazing - we saw the fjords! To be more precise, we sailed through them. Words really can’t describe how impressive the scenery is there - we were lucky enough to go when it was raining, so the place was nothing but craggy mountains, waterfalls everywhere, and even better, no bugs!

We also went for a wak to Rob Roy glacier. It was longer than we were expecting, but again, really impressive. We weren’t really expecting it to be as blue as it was!

From there we went to Franz Joseph Glacier, where we stayed in the town. It was a really nice place - the back of the room was solid glass on the edge of the forest. We were going to catch a helicopter onto the glacier itself, but the weather’s just been too bad, so we had to give it a miss. Instead we drove out and walked to the mouth of the glacier. We’re actually really happy we saw Rob Roy glacier - Franz Joseph is a lot larger, but because of all the traffic it gets from tours, the end of the glacier is really dirty.

Riding in a Jetboat is fun. We spent the day yesterday charging up the Shotover river in a jetboat, wandering around Queenstown, riding the gondola to the peak of Queenstown, and getting ambushed by a horde of deranged goats.

The jetboats are excellent fun - they tear up the Shotover river at around 70 km/hour, driving straight towards the gorge walls and turning away at the last second. Very intense, and very good fun. Lots of great photos, to the point where V’s telling me to stop taking them …

We had the afternoon free, so on the way back to Queenstown from the river we asked the driver what she’d recommend doing. She said the best thing to see in Queenstown was Deer Park Heights, so that’s where we went. It’s a massive park where yaks, llamas, goats, deer, bison, pigs, and horses roam free. You buy your food, and you give it to them. Simple concept.

‘Course, they know this better than you do. Vanessa got out to feed the goats, and they knocked the tin out of her hands. Makes sense - that’s where the food was. She scrambled madly to get the food back, so they knocked it out of her hands again. Getting ambushed by around 20 goats is an interesting experience. Especially when they started to try to get into the car with us. They figured we must be holding out on them ….

Deer park is also where Peter Jackson filmed a number of shots for the second film. We visited Aragorn’s hill, saw where “Gimli fell off his horse in a humourous moment”, and saw where the Wargs carried Aragorn away. All told, an excellent day.

Today, we head to the glow-worm caves.

Off to Queenstown today. But, first a quick stop by the supermarket for breakfast.

Christchurch is a really nice little city. It’s very deceptive - there’s only around 300,000 people living here, but there’s enough shops to sustain about a million. There’s three starbucks within sighting distance of each other! Our best guess is that what with all the tourism south island sees, retail has enough turnover to justify a far larger investment than if they were just trying to cater to the local population. Either that or New Zealanders spend an insane amount on shopping …

Yesterday we went to the museum, the botanical gardens, and around the city. There’s a lot of ducks in Christchurch, and they’re very friendly. We’ve taken about 80 photos so far, but unfortunately I haven’t had time yet to download them to have a look over them.

The hotel is great - it’s almost a pity that we’re checking out so soon. But, apparently the one we’re going to in Queenstown has a spa, sauna, and gym, so it’s not all bad.

We think it’s somewhere between a 5 and 8 hour drive to Queenstown, so now V’s happy that I spent all that time burning those music CDs. We didn’t get the Corolla in the end - they upgraded us to an automatic Mazda 3, which is nice. Speaking of which, time to roll - I need to go pack.

We’ve arrived! It’s cold and rainy, but Christchurch is really nice! Our hotel is very cool - very New York, non-beige-box rooms, funky walls and furniture, and free computers with the Internet. Landing at 12:30 am and getting up at 9:00 am to pick up the car was a bit of a stretch, but we’ve done it. We’re about to head out to the museum, but we thought we’d stop by the hotel to get some more clothes. It’s cold.