And so farewell NZ

So the adventure turned out to be a bit more of an adventure than we planned.

NZ is very dependent on tourism and of course they are worried that overseas visitors will stop coming after the Christchurch earthquake. In the paper today they said that the number of visitors from Japan and other parts of SE Asia were dropping. Their tourist info organisation is superb. Every town has an I-site which has excellent staff who will advise on hikes, walks, trips, places to stay, drives to take and has loads and loads of free maps, guides and leaflets.

We've had a variety of accommodation mostly motels. The best place was Quest serviced apartments in Napier the Art Deco town, luxury. The worst the place in Timaru and horrible motel in Wanaka Lake. Both on the day bookings. Napier was fascinating, they really only recognized it's uniqueness in the 1980s and still don't seem to be strict enough about preservation - a bit too laid back in this case!

What has driven me crazy is the dreadful Internet connections. As an example I've just loss the last 30 mins typing this last post as the connection dropped so I will just have to tell you the last few thoughts when we all catch up somewhere some time. I'll finish now before it does it again. Thanks to those who followed and hope it wasn't all deadly boring

Love Sally and Dave xxx

We land 1.20pm Uk time on Sunday. This has been the most fantastic trip and we are already thinking about a return visit. We feel we've left a little bit of our hearts in Christchurch and we wish this lovely city a speedy regeneration.

Love from Sally and Dave

Te Anau, Milford Sound, Wanaka and beyond

I have run out of superlatives for this beautiful country. To sum up the last few days.... Majestic, jaw-droppingly beautiful, awesome, amazing, stunning, fabulous - you get my drift. Our trip to Milford Sound was 2 hrs in the most luxurious coach ever driving through fabulous scenery, mountains, lakes, forests, waterfalls then onto our boat for the most beautiful trip there is. There was a brilliant blue sky and warm sunshine. Just a perfect day. The next day we drove to Wanaka which is in a lovely setting, but not as lovely as Te Anau where Dave wants to move to. Then the drive through gorges, mountains and more rocky streams and waterfalls to Hokitika. Another unbelievably scenic drive the next day took us back to Nelson.

We observed the 2 min silence at a viewpoint on a narrow coastal road with waves crashing beneath us and we spent the time thinking of what might have happened to us and of the people who have lost their lives or lost those close to them last Tuesday.

We stopped to admire extraordinary rock formations called Pancake Rocks at Punaikaki where alternating soft and hard layers of rock have been eroded over 1000s of years into what look like stacks of pancakes.

We are now on the ferry to Wellington, which I might add had a tremor of 4.7 last night! We are driving straight up to the Art Deco town of Napier, which was rebuilt almost entirely in the 1930s...... after a huge earthquake.

Leaving this beautiful place on Saturday, we will be very sorry to end this fantastic trip