New Zealand - South Island: we are a weiner

The inter-island ferry took us through the beautiful Queen Charlotte Sound and into a warm and sunny Picton Harbour. We spent a relaxing evening in Picton, largely due to being given a free upgrade from a backpacker room to a self-contained apartment. And we didn't even have to say we were on our honeymoon!

We then took a coach to Christchurch to pick up our camper van. The city is still suffering from after-shocks from the recent earthquake - the last after-shock took place on 19 October and registered 5.0 on the Richter scale! To keep on budget we had selected the 'El Cheapo' camper van and weren't sure what to expect. We don't want to jinx a van that we are currently driving ... but we aren't quite sure how the old girl is still going! To say it's old is an understatement - we're currently not sure whether we should be returning it to the rental shop or a museum!

From Christchurch we headed to Lake Tekapo to camp and do a few walks. The lake is an amazing turquoise colour which is caused naturally by rock 'powder' mixed in within the water.

From Lake Tekapo we continued South passing the imposing Mount Cook - the highest mountain in Australasia. Meg was relieved that Mark didn't have further harebrained mountain climbing ambitions as a staggering number of people have perished trying to conquer this peak.

En route to Dunedin we headed back to the East coast and travelled South passing some peculiar boulders on a beach at Moeraki. Meg decided to do her best nesting on one to see what hatched.

Unfortunately for her, it was another Jerzak!

After continually being overtaken by every vehicle sharing the road with us we decided to put our van to the test and time its speed in accelerating from 0 - 60 mph. We found a flat, straight section of road (surprisingly difficult in NZ) and put the pedal to the metal. Tragically it took 57 seconds and almost didn't get there! On the North Island we had driven a zippy little hire car and Meg had taken to calling every slow vehicle we caught a "Weiner". It suddenly dawned on us that we had become a "weiner". We pootled on to Dunedin ....