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

Thursday 23 October Thanks to Louis’ avid weather app watching, we were in exactly the right spot when the long predicted “weather event” arrived on Wednesday night around 10pm. The rain was quite strong all night, but we only got a few wild gusts hitting us in the morning, along with some loud and rumbly grumbly thunder rolling around the hills. I woke at 7ish to find we were not floating nor lying on our side, so I popped the electric heater on… until it stopped suddenly 10

Wednesday 22 October A lazy start to the day while we read up about things to do in & around Reefton and chatted to our POP hosts, Bob & Linda, and tried to make friends with Razz, their toy schnauzer who wasn't having a bar of it. There weren’t any specific cycle tracks in the area but Bob suggested a road out to the Waitahu River so we got down the bikes and set off. Met an old hunter down at the bridge over the river with his dog Taz - he’d just walked out of the bush wit

Tuesday 21 October Our most random day yet - the rain had started around 10pm and was so fierce it woke us several times as it battered down on Banjo overnight. So we holed up inside our lovely warm & dry cocoon most of the morning, until it gradually died away around noon. Watching the weather forecasts and the reports coming in about flooding, land slips and other stormy chaos threw our planning into disarray, but Jeremy at the Matai Milking POP advised they were still abo

Monday 20 October A day of fun & adventures around Murchison. Had a chat with Errol who was staying onsite with his very cute griffon, then Louis went off wandering to find coffee and announced he’d discovered the best pies in town; so as we set off on our bikes for a cycle ride down to Six Mile we swung by the Tutaki bakery truck and pre-purchased a spicy lamb mince pie to pick up on our way back… Lee bakes once a day and when everything is sold he closes up for the day so

Sunday 19 October Awoke to the sound of rain and Louis making coffee as the power was on a planned outage from 7am! We packed up Banjo and were on the road by 9am, hoping to get to Murchison before the rain & wind gusts hit. Following the raging Buller River, swollen by last night’s precipitation, we hit a few gusty spots, but pulled safely into the Murchison NZMCA an hour or so later. Checked the Windy app and parked in the most protected spot we could find, then set off to

Saturday 18 October With one eye on the weather apps and another on the scudding clouds, we decided to take things a little easier and set out mid-morning to walk around the peninsula on a rather monochromatic day - following in our footsteps from our visit in January. The path was largely empty - maybe 3-4 walkers came our way - and we paused frequently to try & spot the Tui & bell birds we could hear chattering around us. I found a rock and tried to recreate the famous Lit

Friday 17 October Just another stunning day in the Nelson Lakes National Park - I woke around 7.30 and wandered out to catch the morning light over the lake. It was colder than I realised as I walked along the jetty, leaving frosty footprints on the wooden structure, but oh so beautiful! After our unexpectedly hilly walk the day before, we opted to follow the Anglers’ Walk along the Buller River from where it left the lake at West Bay to the bridge on SH63 and back. It was mu