IN THE SOUTH ISLAND

Wellington

Harbour

Tugs

Waterlea Racetrack POP Stop















Otira Hotel POP

Lake Pearson



















We got across the Cook Strait after having a couple of days in Wellington which gave us the opportunity to have a day at Te Papa, the national museum. It was an uneventful crossing on the ferry with a night in Picton from where we moved onto Blenheim where we stayed at the Waterlea Raceway.

From there it was onto Westport where it was another night and after a cycle around the town we travelled down further south to Greymouth with a long stopover at the spectacular Punakaiki Blowholes.

After our usual leisurely start to the day we called into Shantytown, a model village of early New Zealand which is just south of Greymouth and from there it was to Hokitika for lunch and where we spent what seemed like heaps of money on buying some road user charges for the truck.

It was then a bit of back tracking to head up the Arthurs Pass as we had recently decided to head over to Christchurch to see "my loves" convalescing brother and also we had never done this very scenic route before. This also gave us the opportunity to wave to Dave & Val in "Chateau Daval" as they headed for Cromwell.

The scenery through here as everywhere was certainly spectacular and we did break the journey by spending the night at Otira where we were completely surrounded by what seemed very large mountains to us northerners. Although it was a nice sunny day when we awoke in the morning it took until 10am for the sun to creep down the mountains and warm our bodies.

Lake Pearson on the Arthurs Pass route which is just one sample of the hundreds of photos of the amazing scenery that we have already encountered in our first week in the South Island.