Wednesday 12 November Sad to say haere ra to Hāwea, and on such a stunning morning. After watching the golden sunrise turn into a clear blue skies day with wispy clouds and the odd vapour trail. We packed up, made use of the jaunty dump station, then hit the road at 10.01am - just 1 minute after official check out time! Heading for the Lindis Pass, it was our duty to stop at Tarras for morning tea and to get lunch and a snack for Louis! An easy and scenic drive through the Pa

Tuesday 11 November Such a perfect day! Sunshine from start to finish - making spring colours & glacier-fed lakes pop! This is so my happy place... if we could afford it, I'd be keen to buy land or a property here, but prices have rocketed over the last year or two as Wānaka fills up. Louis decided to cycle into Wānaka, 20km to the pool, swim 2km then cycle back! That's a lot of exercise! I took the easy option of meeting him there with his togs and stuff then collecting them

Monday 10 November Waking in one of our favourite places to the sound of birdsong, we made plans for a wet morning and a sunny afternoon. It turned out not to be as rainy as forecast, but we headed into town for coffee & a treat at Pembroke Patisserie (I did not succumb, though my enthusiasm for the keto diet is waning as the weight refuses to drop significantly). Then, despite not finding a BookMe deal, we visited Puzzling World for a morning of illusions and tricks and gett

Sunday 9 November From one favourite place to camp to another - we packed up under attack from some particularly attentive sandflies and after a 7 point turn to get out of our space without clipping a camper van, we hit SH6 heading south to Lakes Wānaka and Hāwea. The road tracks down the eastern edge of the top of Lake Wānaka, then crosses at a small pass to the western edge of Lake Hāwea - stunning! Too early for check-in so we parked up in Wānaka out on the back roads and

Saturday 8 November Grey and wet much of the morning - not a problem for us as we can come back here again and again, but I did feel sorry for the tourists who are on a strict itinerary as they whizz round all the tourist spots. There were a few dots of blue through the grey, but it took most of the day to break through. After lunch there were hints of brightness and more sun promised by the weather apps so we wrapped up warm and headed back over the Pass. First stop was at

Friday 7 November Misty morning on the lake at Paringa - fascinating watching the light and the cloudscape change as the morning progressed. The sun tried to break through a couple of times, but the low misty clouds fought back, settling in layers across the lake and revealing the peaks behind them. Fewer tuis were out - maybe they like the sunshine as much as me. Had a lovely long chat with two couples who had turned up to do some fishing & were tiki touring from Hokitika &

Thursday 6 November Woke to a West Coast morning - drumming rain on Banjo’s roof and no sign of yesterday’s mountain views. Walked into FJ for a toilet stop & a coffee; sat out by the warming fire at Full of Beans with a coffee for Louis and a tea for me - had a video call with my sister Caroline from London, and mid call realised that the wind had blown the flames my way and set fire to the napkin under my teacup - yikes!!! Strolled back to the NZMCA to pack up Banjo and se

Wednesday 5 November After Louis “accidentally fell into a coffee shop” we got moving and decided to split up so Louis could go cycling and I could go walking… but funnily enough we both ended up at the Glacier Access carpark at the same time, so Louis locked up the bike and we walked out to see the Franz Josef Glacier then took the pathway to Peter’s Pool - a reflective kettle lake. As I drove up the Glacier Access Road, the sun broke through, driving the clouds back and op

Tuesday 4 November Another score on the BookMe site - 40% off tickets for the West Coast Treetop Walk at 9am, so we were up & off early for the short drive up the coast & inland a bit. The Treetop Walk was designed and built about a dozen years ago and is a series of high sided metal walkways, 20m above the ground, weaving through the canopy of an ancient podocarp forest in a valley next to Lake Mahināpua. I was a bit worried about dropping my phone over the edge so was delig

Monday 3 November A chilly morning with a blanket of mist lying across the lake at 7am; an hour later it had burned away and the view was clear as crystal. We drove round to the west coast of the lake and walked a couple of kilometres along the Lake Kaniere Walkway - which wildly, is also a L4/L5 cycle track - and back again. The view down the Lake from here was glorious - clear as crystal with snow on the peaks in the distance. The track through the woods was quite gnarly

Sunday 2 October Making the most of the Hokitika region - we woke to a sublimely calm vista over Lake Kaniere with just the calls of the birdlife in the bush around us and honks & wahs of the ducks on the lake. Midmorning we set off on the gravel track round the south end of the lake to the Hokitika Gorge. We paused along the way to visit Dorothy Falls which apparently are a popular swimming hole in the summer - but quite chilly today. We are going We stopped again to admir

Saturday 1 October In search of the treasured pounamu, we had a hot tip from the docent at the Paparoa Experience that Serpentine Beach was the place to go. I asked how to tell which green stones were pounamu, and which were serpentine or other greenies… she said “you’ll know!” …and that the texture was different, a little translucent and smooth to the touch. We wandered into the beach and started fossicking along with several others… and about the third stone I spotted, look

Friday 31 October A mostly peaceful night, we awoke to blue skies and packed up in a leisurely fashion (after Celebrity Traitors, of course) then said goodbye to Greymouth and set course for Hokitika. There was a sense of deja vu as we came through here on a bleak wet day in late January, but the town looked far more appealing in the spring sunshine! We parked up at the NZMCA, a small camp just out of town across the river, had lunch then foolishly decided to walk back across

Thursday 30 October After another wild night - and the bins being emptied behind us at 6.30am - we weren’t sure what to do. The sky out over the sea was quite blue and hopeful but inland it was pretty gloomy and the forecast was for more of the latter. So we hopped onto BookMe and picked up two tickets for the Pounamu Pathway experience for the price of one and whizzed into town for that, after our fix of Celebrity Traitors! The Pounamu Pathway is an iwi led experience, suppo

Wednesday 29 October After the greyness, came a blast of sunshine ☀️ We had BookMe half price tickets for the Paparoa Experience so whizzed off to check out the Punakaiki rocks and blowhole again, this time under blue skies… and with my Canon long lens. The details of the rock striations and the waves on the longer lens was wonderful and although the tide was out so the blowholes were quiet, the light made it all look even more fantastical. Loved watching the terns up close

Tuesday 27 October Fearing another gusty day brewing up, we got on the road with great alacrity - pausing only for essentials like fresh milk, emptying waste water, filling up with fresh water and a quick visit to the Sallies op shop. I bought a pair of white capri pants and had a lovely smooch with this underbite baby boy who insisted on multiple belly rubs! Shortly after 10am we were trekking southwards through the most random weather - rain, hail, sunshine and wild gusts

Monday 26 October Well - they kept threatening us with more wild weather, and while the wind was not as gusty as forecast and we only heard one rumble of thunder, the rain did not hold back! I went out in my gumboots, a rain jacket, cap and plastic poncho for my morning walk and still arrived back an hour later absolutely drenched! The wind whipped my poncho wildly as I walked up the beach and blew rain down my gumboots as I headed back along the pier! Madness! We kinda gave

Sunday 25 October After a frenetic day of exploration and activity - we took things a bit easier. Louis went for a swim in the local pool and I went for a walk on the beach and a video chat with the Fernandi as a sneak preview for January! It was cloudy with a hint of blue skies so the reflections as the tide went out were panoramic. I decided to brave the waves and had a "dibble for Debbie" - and can report back that it was pretty darn chilly! The weather was threatening t

Saturday 24 October Spring weather in Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island, seems to be even more erratic than usual this year - storms, floods, tempests, snow, washed out passes through the Southern Alps and more. So our original plans have had to endure a fair bit of revision - we’d hoped to trek up to the end of the road on the West Coast, but this is no longer feasible with the time & weather constraints. Instead we decided to do a tiki tour from Westport, without Banjo, to c

Friday 23 October Storm behind us…it was time to pack up and head to the West Coast. We hitched up Banjo and popped in to say goodbye & thank you to Linda & Bob, but they were out... and we spotted them out walking Razz as we drove off down Bridge Street so were able to say farewell there instead. First stop in town was the dump station where we were also able to fill up with fresh water and empty our rubbish bin. This area of the West Coast region is really camper friendly