I’ve been to New Zealand before. My Mum is a kiwi and my brother lives there now. But I’ve never been to the South Island, so after spending a couple of days getting over our jetlag at my brother’s place near Auckland we flew down to Earthquake ravaged Christchurch where we picked up a campervan for 4 weeks of touring.

The route we chose took in Akaroa and the Banks Peninsular, Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook, Oamaru, The Otago Peninsular, the Catlins, Curio Bay, Doubtful Sound, Queenstown, the Haast Pass, Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers, Pancake Rocks, Cape Foulwind and the Buller Gorge. We then spent best part of a week exploring the Abel Tasman, Golden Bay and Marlborough Sounds area at the northern end of the South Island before catching the Cook Strait Ferry over to Wellington.

After a couple of days in the capital visiting family and friends we moved on to Napier, Taupo and Rotorua before spending the last few days on the beautiful Coromandel Peninsular. As you can tell we were pretty lucky with the weather, coinciding our visit with the best summer New Zealand has had for 70 years.