- Steve and I on the "Round the Mountain" walk out of Akaroa, Banks Peninsula
- Moeraki Boulders
- Very friendly Stewart Island Robin
- Oban, Stewart Island
- On one of the Lost Gypsy creations - a bike-powered TV
- Baldwin Street, Dunedin (aligned with street)
- With Simon and Elizabeth at Te Mata peak, near Hastings
- Anna and Rusty in Napier
Our gamble paid off in Christchurch, we found the car market vastly superior to Auckland – this must be partly because most backpackers fly into Auckland, buy cars there, then sell them in Christchurch before flying 
out again.Anyway after walking about 10ks up and down the main car sales street we managed to find a very sporty looking Subaru Impreza which we principally bought because of the very comfortable “bucket” - read racing – seats. But it is pretty speedy and I beat some boy racers off the lights. Steve said he was proud of me ;-)
Sorted out with a car we were off: we did a quick tour of the Banks Peninsula just outside Christchurch on one of the few clear days we were to see in South Island. It's a beautiful but weird place – a rugged volcanic outcrop bereft of trees after man got there set against the flat Canterbury Plains with two enormous and beautiful harbours carved out by volcanic eruptions. Along the way Steve had his favourite ice cream yet: berry mudslide – in Akaroa.
Heading south along Highway 1 the next major stop was Oamaru where we called in to witness the Yellow Eyed Penguin colony. These are the rarest penguins in the world which only nest in New Zealand and its offshore islands. Their progress up the beach in the late afternoon is pretty glacial and after two hours in which we'd seen two penguins stand around for about an hour each we decided enough was enough.
South of Oamaru is the famous Moeraki boulders, perfectly round rocks embedded in the sandy beach. They are formed due to some process “similar to the formation of a pearl in an oyster” - anyway they make for nice pictures! Sadly the whole place was a phenomenal tourist trap and the tour buses and campervans got overwhelming pretty quickly.
We raced through Southland to get to Bluff for the last ferry of the day to Stewart Island at 5pm and just made it. Traditionally the choices for reaching Stewart Island were 20 minutes of terror (flight in a small plane) or 2 hours of misery (on the ferry). Fortunately they've upgraded to fast catamarans, so it's now only a one hour crossing which is a good thing as the Foveaux Strait has a reputation for being very rough. This crossing was no exception, the first pitch up a 2 metre wave was great fun but after about 5 minutes the chuckles dried up and everyone was just hanging on for dear life and hoping to arrive soon.
Luckily the misery is worth it as Stewart Island is a gem. It's how all of New Zealand must have been before humans came along. Steve commented it felt a bit like being back in Sumatra with jungle encroaching onto Oban, the one and only village on the island. Birds you struggle to see on the mainland fly all around the village – within 10 minutes we'd seen Kereru (native pigeons) and Kaka (parrots) squawking overhead. We set up camp and had fish and chips for tea. In the morning we went for a walk around the village and tried in vain to get pictures of bird life. But after lunch we went on a guided tour of Ulva Island which is probably the best bird sanctuary in the whole of New Zealand with no introduced predators at all and virtually intact forest. There some birds are so unafraid of humans they hopped around our feet allowing for great photo opportunities. We saw South Island Saddlebacks, Stewart Island Weka, Stewart Island Robins, Bellbirds, South Island Fantails, Tuis, Grey Warblers, Brown Creepers and Blue (Little) Penguins.
In the evening we went to a concert in aid of Search and Rescue. This was very much a locals affair with all the local characters on stage singing, but upstaged by the “special guests” - tourists with guitars who they'd met at the pub quiz and roped into taking part! It was a special evening though and in a community of only 500 people even we recognised people there – the girl from the ferry and the lady from the fish and chip shop.
Stewart Island is a great place and one we'd love to go back to. There are some good walks there but with walking boots boxed up in Nottingham and rumours of thigh-deep mud it'll have to wait for next time.
The return ferry at 8am the next morning was much calmer and we stopped off in Bluff for the obligatory “Land's End” photos at the sign board – probably about as far from London as most people will ever get. Invercargill was ruled out of our possible places to live due to its failure to provide donuts. Very disappointing.
Our next stop was very special though. Curio Bay in the Catlins Forest Park is one of the few places in the world where dolphins live very close to the beach. These are Hector's Dolphins, one of the rarest dolphins in the world and the smallest too. We watched them frolicking in the surf not 5m from the beach, but unfortunately it was so cold and wet when we were there (only 12 degrees) neither of us felt like swimming – another reason to return. Also at Curio Bay is a Yellow Eyed penguin colony and a petrified forest so well worth a stop.
For sheer quirkiness you have to stop at the Lost Gypsy Gallery in Papatowai where the a guy who spurned fame and fortune in Auckland makes automata in a bus. A train triggers lights and sounds, a bike powers a tv, dolphins squirm as you wind a handle, a monster writhes in the bushes. Stop if you pass by – it's worth it.
Torrential rain in Dunedin curtailed our stop there, though it reminded us a bit of Bristol with the hills and the rain, and even Baldwin Street, the address of my old work is represented in the steepest street in the world – 1 in 2.86 at the steepest point. Photo 6 is me on Baldwin Street with the camera turned level with the street so you can see how much of an angle the house is built at to make it level.
We sped back up South Island as we had one last date to keep: meeting up with Simon and Elizabeth (my aunt and uncle) in Napier. By the time we'd made it back over the Cook Strait to Wellington and found a campsite we'd both had enough of driving so I set of alone on the very cheap bus (only $33 for a 5 hour journey) to Napier. Even in the sunniest part of New Zealand it was raining (February has been very bad weather over here, unluckily for us) but in the morning we joined a 2000 strong contingent from a floating city of a cruise ship to take photos from Te Mata peak overlooking the bay. Wonderful views and later I joined our friend Anna from Bristol who's leapfrogged us by leaving Bristol behind us and arriving and even finding work before we arrived! She and her very energetic puppy made for an entertaining stop before back to Wellington and the serious business of:
Do we really want to find work? Is there work available during a recession? Or should we just upsticks and back to Asia for more of an easy life?
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