The photos below are a small selection of over 400 photos that we took on our South Island trip in 2007. On this trip we left Wellington aboard the Blue Bridge ferry which I must say was a hell of a lot cheaper to travel on compared to the normal ferry which I call the Cook Strait Pie Cart.
We were away for a total of 18 days. This was in January at the height of the New Zealand summer. During those 18 days we managed to run in to rain on 14 days somewhere along the way in our travels. To make matters worse, the windscreen wipers failed on us just after we arrived in Nelson. Being the NZ holiday season and the fact that it was a weekend we were unable to get it repaired so travelled for the best part of three days with no wipers. Eventually, as it was the drivers side that was not working, and we were running in to rain which was getting extremely heavy and making it near on impossible to see where we were going, I removed the wiper-blade, took the one off the passengers side and reversed it on the shaft so that it was wiping about 85% of the drivers side, much better, and so we carried on our merry way.
Over the 18 days that we were away we covered some 3500 kilometres around the South Island taking in a lot of the scenery on both the East & West coasts and pretty much everywhere else in-between. Our itinerary went something like this:
Day-1 Picton - Kawatiri Junction After arriving in Picton from Wellington onboard the Bluebridge ferry the "Santa Regina", we took in some of the sights around Picton including checking out the tourist souvenir shops and a wander along the foreshore. After having a feed we headed off towards Kawatiri Junction taking the scenic route to Nelson via Queen Charlotte Drive and Havelock. We stopped at Pelorus Bridge for some afternoon tea before continuing on through the Rai Valley (great wine country) and on to Nelson where we stopped off for groceries and goodies for that nights dinner. Once we arrived at Kawatiri Junction it was time to put the tent up and cook up a feed. Kawatiri Junction lies at the foothills of the Kahurangi National Park so I was able to give out contacts for the National Parks Award on the NZ Counties & Awards net on the 80 metre amateur band that night.