We have a whole day of wine tasting to do in line with our itinerary, and who am I to argue. Dad has a saying “plan the dive, dive the plan”. In this case I have a new saying “plan to drink, drink”

As we made up driving time yesterday we only had an hour this morning so that was good news. Heading straight to Waipara which turns out to be more of an area rather than a town. A short lunch of “battered steak!” and a couple of tips on the best place to stay and we’re off to the vineyards with Li in her element

Disappointing start with the first two shut but then things get better with 3 open tasting sessions. Around 25 tastings later, 6 bottles off wine on board and we’re back on the road to Hanmer Springs. A diversion from our plan but we’ve got the time and its meant to be good

Arriving at Hanmer Springs it turns out its a thermal spa town. So that’s now on the plan for tomorrow I’m told! 😉

Evening meal out tonight in Saints bar. Pizza and a hot stone meal with lamb. Good food but rubbish service so ended up getting billed reduced. It’s our anniversary today, Li got a heart pendant and earrings, I got a nice email from the currency exchange company agreeing they had ripped me off and would refund £125 to my bank! Happy days!

Tony

Up late today as we sat up watching downloaded tv last night and drinking whisky. Main aim for today is to get from one side on New Zealand to (or at least some of the way) the other. The road of choice in this case is Arthurs Pass which goes over the mountains in the centre of NZ.

The drive is not far but with all the bends and steep gradients it takes a while to get to the top but we had some worthwhile views on the way. In the village of Arthurs Pass itself are a number of walks but the key one is to a waterfall called Devils Punchbowl. 30 minutes climb up a few hundred steps and you’re at the base of the waterfall. Really worth seeing despite the rain that was starting to get a bit heavy

Originally the plan was to stay the night in Arthurs Pass, but given our new electric hookup requirement we decided to press on to stay in a town called springfield. No Homer, but a one legged bloke who lives in a caravan on the site that quite obviously hasn’t moved or cleaned it in 25 years….and he’s the caretaker! Still, our nightly costs have dropped each night, from around $50 to a bargain $15 tonight, so who cares

Tomorrow, wine tasting… Tony

Bit of a relaxing start to the day with a nice bacon sandwich and then on our way. With the additional mileage clocked up yesterday we managed to still make good time and arrived at Fox Glacier. The view of the valley was spectacular and there was a strange looking bird called a Kea when we pulled up, which looks basically like an oversize parrot on steroids. Certainly wouldn’t like it’s beak coming anywhere near us.

Back in 1935, which doesn’t seem that long ago in the big scheme of things, the glacier was a way down the road, at least a few hundred yards, but now has retreated. Lunch in the van and then an hours walk down to the glacier front. You aren’t able to get that close as its too dangerous but still amazing and the size of the overall place with the cliffs on either side just can’t be put into words. It’s just bloody big and a river flows out of the base of the glacier front.

Ideally we were looking to do a flight over the glacier as well but the weather turned on us and it just wasn’t going to happen so we took the opportunity to get ahead of the game for tomorrows big drive. Ended up in a little old gold mining town on a very basic site at the side of a pub. Electric hookup available and we’ve now decided this is pretty essential due to the cold weather so that’s good enough for us. Writing this now in the pub about to have a big old steak and chips with a beer in hand. Hopefully after the additional drive today, tomorrow will be a lot better than originally planned

Tony

How good was that steak! The steak over here is amazing, obviously the reason we don’t get any in the UK. There’s more cattle over here than sheep as far as we’ve seen so far so it can only be they eat it all.