Wellington to South Island

We stayed in Wellington overnight on our way to the South Island. Although we only had a short stay in the city we managed to do a whirlwind tour - visiting the very interesting museum (lots about the early European settlers in NZ) and taking a cable car up t the botanic gardens (almost as good as the ones in Cam!). We would put a photo in now to show you a lovely view of Wellington but the silly computer keeps crashing every time we try to upload something so you'll have to wait til the next internet cafe...
Here's Wellington as promised!

And the harbour by night...

From Wellington we took the ferry to Picton, a very scenic journey - lots of great views of the NZ coastline. Next stop was Nelson, our base for exploring the Abel Tasman National Park which we did via cruise and some more bushwalking. The cruise took us past a fur seal colony with a baby seal sitting on the rocks so Claire was happy :-) (and Matt thought it was cute too but he's not allowed to admit that!) The bushwalking took us past some great beaches and we had time for a dip in the sea which was crystal clear and not too cold so a nice change from the British coast.



We are currently in Franz Josef, on the West coast of South Island - it is a small town near a glacier and lots of beautiful snowcapped mountains. We have some lovely pictures but we'll have to leave you in suspense!
Suspense over...

We managed to see the last 20 minutes of THE football match last night and one of us enjoyed it :-D

Hope all is well in England and people aren't getting too cold. We're out in the tent again tonight and it's a good thing that it's so small and cosy cos it's quite nippy outside now under the mountains!!

Claire & Matt xx