Whoops…arrived back in Auckland to discover that I had wrongly booked our ferry crossing to the South Island and that we had in effect missed it.  Phew….Phil got on the internet and sorted it out.  SO……in our spare day we did more………….DIY!  Then packed up our trusty Suzuki and headed down North Island to get the 3am ferry.  Yeah! 

What we hadn’t realised however was that there was a massive LOW sitting right over NZ….and so for the first few days of our trip we couldn’t get away from rain.  But undeterred we tramped along the Queen Charlotte Track above the beautiful Marlborough Sounds for a day, ate green lip muscles in Havelock, mooched in Nelson (couldn’t spot your house Pete) and walked up a waterfall for most of day in zero visibility in the Nelson Lakes area (not our best experience was it Phil……something about scree slopes doesn’t make for a very comfortable mountain day out……but hey, Vig/Caz, we have another photo of us in the mountain mists to add to the general gallery of negative views from mountain tops) 

Then we arrived in Murchison, and probably because this area is close to the Coast to Coast race start (a mad NZ race that Phil is keen to do in 2008 – basically it is like what is sounds, but you do it in a day and you run, kayak AND cycle it) so Phil spotted something we couldn’t turn his back on………………….the NZ Kayak School……………..and so before we knew it and mostly because it was so rainy, we booked onto an intensive 4 day white water kayaking course.......GULP.   Perfect for those training for the Coast to Coast as you have to do grade 2 rapids.   To recover from the shock of this (and prepare our minds!) we headed down south further along the dramatic West Coast Road and checked out the pancake rocks at Punakaiki and the wonderful aqua Hokitikia River and Gorge.   We found a great spot for breakfast in the middle of a suspension bridge! THEN it was back to Murchison and that kayak course.