Life after the farm......

Well we have certainly come down to earth with a bump after the comfort and pampering we experienced with Paula, Roger and Ruby on the farm. After waiting for so long for rain we finally came across some rain on our first night camping. Just a slight drizzle of what we heard was predicted to be 200mls in one night!!!! We spent most of the night driving around the small town of Fox Glacier looking for alternative accomodation as neither of us fancied even trying to put the tent up, however everywhere was booked and we settled for the cosy and intimate lodgings of the McKinleys automotive lodge. If any of you are thinking about sleeping in a car take it from us it isnt all its cracked up to be but it sure beats putting a tent up in driving rain. Jess thought she would capture this moment on camera as we are sure that we will want to look back on it fondly in years to come.

Modern day sleeping beauty

Well the night in the car proved to be worth it as the weather cleared and we had a perfect day for climbing on the glacier. We were properly kitted out with crampons and looked like real everest climbers! I think Jess liked this as it was one step closer to her dream of base camp.

The proud explorers after overcoming the famous "McKinley Step"


Fox Glacier in all her glory (well a bit of her!)

After this icey environment we decided we needed more of a tropical beachy feel and we headed up the coast to Abel Tasman National park. On day one we got a water taxi up the coast (as there are no roads throughout the park) and walked 16Kms back to the campsite. It was a beautiful walk through the forests and we stopped off a secluded beaches for a swim and a relax along the way. Sounds perfect....and it was until two naked people ran past us into the water and seemed not to be embarrased at all. We shoved our picnic down our throats and politely and calmly walked onto the next beach. The next day we took a kayak along the coast and experienced the park from the water. This proved to be a fitting goodbye to the south island as it is a beautiful island full of majestic and stunning sites.

A view from the track of Abel Tasman


A busy little beach in Abel Tasman (Appletree Bay)


More beautiful scenery this time seen from the water (well the background anyway)

Now we are on the north island and we have been to see the Waitoma caves. We weren't really expecting this to be high on our list of highlights but walking through the limestone caves composed from Stalactites and Stalagmites was spectactular. The next part was completely different as we took a boat journey, in pitch darkness, through a cave filled with glowworms. No one was allowed to talk throughout the boat trip as we slowly weaved in and out of Stalactites, it reminded us of something you would see on the BBC planet earth series. We have now spent the last two days staying just below Lake Taupo waiting to walk on the Tongariro crossing, which is meant to be New Zealand's best one day walk. Unfortunately the weather has not been good (yes this has meant another night in a rain swept tent! See its not all sunshine out here!) but we are booked on for tomorrow morning. We will be passing a certain mountain where a famous hobbit lost a finger (Mount Doom in Lord of the rings).
Hopefully if we survive the trip and are not attacked by orcs we will post some pictures on our return. Hope all is well with you all and we will be in touch soon.