The best thing we've done so far - Doubtful Sound (3 and 4 Feb 2010)

We left Manapouri and headed off on a ferry for an hour and then on a bus for another hour until we reached our boat which would be home for the next 22 hours on the Doubtful Sound. Our skipper was Daz and our cook and general wonder woman was Yvette. There were 6 other guests on the boat and we had an amazing time. Words cannot explain how magical this place is.

Here is a picture of us looking down before we got on our boat.

Nic caught a Blue Cod - Yvette cooked it up for breakfast - delicious!

We had this (and other) crayfish for our starter that evening - you can't get much fresher!

I caught my first fish - a Spotted Spiny Dogfish - they appartently taste bad so we set him free. He was wriggling around like crazy due to being very angry and this is why I look a bit concerned!

One of the many waterfalls in Doubtful Sound. There's not been much rain here for a while so they were a bit less impressive than normal!

Here our a silly tan lines - 4 months of cycling sandals!

We saw bottle nosed dolphins - they are very large and very beautiful. They swam with the boat in the evening and then the next morning. As the sun over the past week had warmed up the water we got in to swim near them. We were smiling from ear to ear!

Here are some of the guys doing their thing.

In the morning we woke up at 7am and it was misty. We got off the boat at 9.30 and drove through the mist. This was the view of the valley at the top of the pass. The valley was filled with mist and it looked like the icing on a cake.

This place was unbelievable and we didn't want to leave. I hope you enjoyed it too?!

The catlins

Spent a few days in a lovely area on the south island called the Catlins (down on the south east coast)

stayed at a fantastic hostel at Surat Bay overlooking the sea and met a great guy peter who took us out for the day in a car ;-). we went to see cathedral caves which is a huge cave in the rock face carved out by the sea that you can only get into at low tide. We also went to some amazing falls and will post pictures once we have sorted them out some more.


We then went down to Porpoise and Curio bay and after a lay in due to the rain outside we went down to the beach to find two sealions come ashore to "mate" on the beach.


After half an hour of of watching them frollicking we left them to it. Then headed down the beach

Only to find a pod of small hectors dolphins surfing in the shallow waters of the bay what an amzing place to stay!!

we had to leave the dolphins who were there for about 4 hours playing away, to go and see the penguins round the corner. More of the comical yellow eyed variety who are extremely rare these days
After making there way up the beach the brought out the chick to show us all. He looked like a surly teenager with only have his down feathers left and a horrible squeaking squark.

we have taken a great video but I don't think the site could cope with the size may have to look into youtube or something else!!

I was awoken at 4am by the sound of footsteps and snuffling in the tent and after working out it wasn't jeanette I had a look out too see what it was only to find a bloody possum had nicked our toastie loaf!!

we chased him off but decided to ditch the loaf, leading us to have no lunch tomorrow!!

We finally reach Bluff then continued south!!

Finally got to the bottom of the south island (ish) at Bluff
Jeanette gets friendly with the locals on Ulva a small island off Stewart island, a small island off South island....these little guys follow you around the tracks


As we sat and had lunch on Boulder beach Stewart island we were joined by these friendly Wekas (a bit like chickens) who seemed intent on stealing our bread!!This is Peter the guy who get you safely over to Ulva and back hopefully also spotted some blue penguins on the way


Yes that really is a kiwi on the beach honest we saw about 4 but they proved elusive to photo

Sunset on Native Island just off Stewart Island we had kayaked there in the late evening what a blissful place to watch the sun go down

Nic's attempt at cycling up Baldwin Street, Dudedin - the steepest street in the world

Here he goes.

Still going.

Shortly after this he had to stop.

Our Japanese friend RYO cycled up this hill (38% incline); it's on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8aTG7mUfoo

Moeraki/Dunedin/Middlemarch/Ranfurly/St Bathans/Clyde (10/1/10 to 17/1/10)

Yellow-eyed penguins on the beach at Moeraki. Couldn't believe how close we got!

Amazing round 4 million year old boulders at Moeraki. Wierd and wonderful!

The gorgeous edwardian Dundedin train station. We set off from here on the Taireri Gorge Railway trip with our bikes to start the 150km Otago Central Rail Trail.

Views from the train. Amazing views for 2 hours.

Nic with his relatives, Janet and Paul, who very kindly drove to and from Queenstown to come and meet us. Middlemarch is the starting point for the Otago Central Rail Trail.

Some pics from the wonderful rail trail - we had 3 days of blistering heat.

Pic of toad. The noise from this pond was amazing!

The end - very hot, very sweaty and very happy.

Pics of the Blue Lake at St Bathans. The lake wasn't blue when we saw it but it was still a cool place to visit. This used to be a 120m hill that was sluiced to find gold and it's now a 58m hole that's been filled with mineral water - mad or what?

Hope you enjoyed this update?

Christchurch/Rakaia Gorge/Geraldine/Fairlie/Lake Tekapo/Omarama/Kurow/Oamaru (2/1/10 to 8/1/10)

Arrived in Oamaru after 7 days of cycling without a day off and with loads of strong winds. Last night we saw about 30 tiny blue penguins crossing the road to go to bed - very cute.

On the way to Oamaru we stopped at Elephant Rocks - loads of big weird and wonderful shaped limestone rocks.

We've been doing lots of camping but we've also stayed on a couple of farms. Thank you to our hosts Tony, and Kay and Kit. Here's Nick saying hello to a couple of hand-reared merino lambs.

We had a fun day cycling to the stunning Lake Pukaki, some of it along a ridiculously windy canal with spectacular mountain views. You can just see Mount Cook in the distance with some snow on it.

Here's a better pic of Mt Cook before the clouds came.

Here's a pic of the canal we cycled along doing 6km/hr before we changed direction and thankfully had a tailwind.

Pic of crazy clouds - We'd never seen so many different types of cloud until I came to NZ

This is the stunning Lake Tekapo, which is over 700m above sea level. The colour is due to the rock flour suspended in it.

Here's me cycling to Lake Tekapo with amazing views of the Southern Alps.

Here's me in the museum in Christchurch. My feet did not reach the pedals!

This is the most hilarious thing we've seen for ages. The lounge of an eccentric NZ couple who loved Paua shells is now in a museum. They had over 1 million visitors to their house.