With a happy fully serviced Venus we hit the road.... first stop Lake Tekapo, and what a drive, snowy mountains and thousands of lupins - luvly. An absolute beaut of a lake too, crazy turquoise waters which we couldn't resist leaping in (being glacier water we were pretty darn quick to leap out again). Then onto Mt Cook National Park, found an awesome campsite at the base of a huge snowy mountain, and the weather was amazing. Did several 'tramps' around the mountains there, probably ended up being the highlight of the south island! Tasman glacier was nearby too with a lake filled with ye olde icebergs (obviously we couldn't resist shouting 'icebergs dead ahead...'). Heading on down the coast, there was loads to see en route, like the elephant rocks, odd limestone cliffs, old whale fossils and of course a whole lot of penguin spotting! The Otago Penninsula was definitely THE place to see wildlife, we stumbled across loads of blue penguins, some rare yellow eyed ones too, seals, sealions and very impressive albatrosses (which unfortunately seemed to aim at us!!).
Dunnedin was the busiest place we saw in a while, and we particularly enjoyed the cheap chocolate in the cadburys shop (pretty much the only thing here that we can say is cheap!). Further on round we did more wildlife spotting in the Catlins, and lots of walking around in the rain.... which is where we first realised Venus is most definitely not a waterproof van! After hitting Slope Point, the most southerly point on the South Island, and a suitably cold and windswept end of the earth type of place, we headed to the bright lights of Invercargil - the 'butt' of many NZ jokes.... we could see why! mwahaha.
Spot of caving in Clifden and a chuckle at the Clifden Suspension Bridge (home from home... though they spell it wrong!) then onto wet wild Fiordland. We luckily got a break in the crap weather for a cruise around Milford Sound- beautiful, and the bonus of all the rain was that the sandflies didn't stick around all day (plus the van got nice and clean!). We camped one night in a remote place in the mountains, with one 10km track being the only way in or out of the camp. A gigantic storm hit in the night, we got told in the middle of the night we had to move the van to higher ground, and the whole campsite flooded. The nearby river had burst it's banks, and the rain just kept pelting down. Their prized 1000 yr old tree then came crashing down blocking our exit out of there! There were loads of other landslides further up the road too.... safe to say no one was going anywhere for a while! Luckily it was a nice campsite with a kitchen and a fire, so we all huddled there revisiting the joys of jigsawing!! Eventually we all got escorted down off the moutain, all quite exciting and all that rain made the waterfalls uber spectacular!!
After conquering Ben Lomond it was Christmas time in Queenstown.... possibly the only town in the world to have zero Christmas decorations anywhere!! So not a particularly Christmassy Christmas, but we enjoyed some lugeing down a mountain and some frisbee golf fun, plus of course lots to eat and drink! Headed over to Glenorchy next to do some of the famous Routeburn Track (apparently number 10 in the world's top ten walks), it was lovely though four hours in the rain turned torrential so the last four hours wading back to the car were slightly less lovely! Doh.
Thought it was about time to do some wine tasting, so headed to Bannockburn area, home to muchos wine (and finally some sun!!) so had a lovely old time there, then on to Wanaka for New Years Eve fun - supposedly the most happening place around for nye!? Barbie, band and fireworks = good stuff.
Onwards up the west coast to glacier country. Unfortunately most of the walks up to and around Fox Glacier had been washed away by all the rain, but we did manage to get up close and personal with Franz Josef glacier = very cool. The hot glacier pools there were lovely too. The van by this point was well and truly fed up with the wet conditions and not only leaked everywhere, but the engine conked out several times a day - all a bit hairy when we were passing up and over Arthur's Pass!! We made it back over to the East Coast - phew! What a trip!!
