A few nights in the self named ‘capital of the world’ Queenstown, which was pretty, sunny and we ate good food. Followed by 2 days in Wanka where we went to Mt. Aspiring national park and climbed up to see the glacier and the naughty Kea! Then on to Dunedin the most historical city in New Zealand, home of the Albatross, Yellow eyed penguins and Speight brewery. We wandered through the Caitlin’s and got to enjoy hundreds of waterfalls. Then went to Bluff where the road ends in New Zealand.

14^th November 2011 Queenstown

Welcome to Queenstown ‘the adventure capital of the world’. Here you can do everything extreme of course, highest bungy, biggest swing, fastest jet boat. We did want to or have the money to spend  on doing all of these things so this is what we did instead.

Today we walked up Queenstown hill; it is a lovely walk to do when it is sunny. We woke up early this morning to enjoy the sunny day in Queenstown. For lunch we had Fergs burger for we both had a sweet bambi, it’s a must try if you come to Queenstown. In the afternoon we walked in the Queenstown gardens home to Frisbee golf, went to Doc visitor centre to find out about tracks and had Patagonia Chile hot chocolate.

15^th November 2011 Arrowtown and Wanaka

Leaving Queenstown in the sun we headed to Arrowtown, where we visited the old Chinese settlement that was built during the regions old rush in the early 1800’s.

We then did a 4 hour tramp ‘Saw Pit Gully’ a nice challenging tramp that led us up the hill following the river, over a few hilly peaks, a few short river crossings and then back down to the start of the track.

We then drove to Wanaka via the Crown Ranges, which were stunning, went to the tourism office by the lake, found a cheap campsite for the night, had dinner and slept.

16^th November 2011 MT Aspiring

Today was just totally awesome!! Waking up early to clear blue sky and headed off to Mt Aspiring. The road to get us there was a 50km Gravel road, where we saw cows, cheeps, ducks, waterfalls and our crossed at least 7 fords. Ford is a water crossing where the car goes into water and hopefully comes out the other side. Lucky for us, or car made it.

We arrived at Mt. Aspiring, where we started a track to see the glacier. We crossed a swing bridge, which was a challenge for me. At the top of the track we saw the Kea parrot, known as the clown of the mountains. We saw the glacier, it was stunning. I have never seen so many waterfalls on a track it was amazing.

In the evening we did some laundry and checked our mail before returning to the same campsite we stayed at yesterday.

17^th November 2011 On the road to Dunedin

We drove from Wanaka to Dunedin, through what seemed like endless countryside fields. We finally got there and were very impressed by the city. It has strong Scottish influence, which can be seem by of the buildings. There are 27 historical buildings and most of them our stunning. It is a city really worth visiting and its not all proud of itself, like many of the other cities in New Zealand.

We stayed in a campsite on the Otago peninsular, went for a drink at the local bar and watch ducks trying to come in and have a drink. We got a text from a friend of ours from Wellington that is in the city, we will meet up with him tomorrow.

18^th November 2011 Visiting Dunedin

We woke up early to go pick up our friend Calixo, our plan was to go and see the yellow eyed penguins. We headed back to the Otago peninsular, which is supposed to be the only mainland site in the world where the albatross call home. We wanted to see them, but as with the penguins and as often happens in New Zealand you have to pay to go and see the nature. So we didn’t pay to see them, I am sure we will see them one day walking along a beach somewhere when we don’t expect it.

When we when out to try to see the albatross it got very windy and rained very heavily and I thought that I was going to be pushed off the cliff by the wind.

For lunch we went to the Speight’s dinner for a great home cooked southern meal, it was really good and really cheap. Afterwards we visited the Speight’s brewery; it was a very interesting tour that ended with an open bar.

We spent sometime in the library and then when back to our campsite.

19^th November 2011 The Caitlin’s

After packing up the car, we did the last thing on our to do list for Dunedin. We went to see Baldwin’s street, which is listed in the Guinness book of world records as the steepest residential street in the world. After walking up it we got our certificate to prove that we had climbed to the top.

Back on road, direction The Caitlin’s. It is a wonderful scenic route with many stops along the way. The highlights for us were Nugget point where we saw a sea elephant swimming in the clear blue water. Jacks blow holes, which was a natural blowhole point. We saw two waterfalls and slept on the beach to the sound of the sea and rain.

20^th November 2011 Invercargill

We woke up to heavy rain, which made organising the car a bit difficult, but we did our best and did not get too wet. We had breakfast in the shelter of our car before continued the visit of the Caitlin’s we was three waterfalls today and with the rain they were even more amazing. We stopped for coffee in at a bus that had been transformed by its owner into a cave of interesting inventions.

Our stop for the night was Invercargill. We are right at the bottom of New Zealand now, we went to Bluff which is the tip of the country, from here you have to take a boat if you want to get somewhere.

We got to our campsite early, did some laundry, and wrote on our blog.