So it's been a while since I last updated with anything except pictures so I have a lot to tell you about. We are back in the Bay of Plenty at Shirley's and it's nice to be in a house again - you can leave the room and still be inside, it's a revolution!

As you might have seen from the pictures, the south island is breathtakingly beautiful in almost every direction. I've been keeping a log of the places we've been and where was nice and I began writing that it was an amazing drive with stunning scenery along the way but after a couple of days I realised that that is the norm and it's unusual to have boring scenery.

After we left Kiakora where I last wrote about our travels we went to Christchurch, the capital of the south island. It reminded me of England a bit but without the people. There was literally no people when we first arrived, just parks and fountains. It's a really nice looking city with a friendly feel about it and some great coffee places. We drove out to Lyttleton on the Banks Peninsular which was a lovely spot with some pretty bays with amazing views of the convoluted coastline. It was formed by two volcanoes, one of which we drove around along Summit Road with incredible views of Christchurch. It was a bit of a white-knuckle ride for Tom as it was very high up and there were no barriers at the side of the road.

From Christchurch we went inland towards Mount Cook. It was very cold all around this area but being amongst the snow-capped mountains was worth every extra layer we had to wear. The Tasman Glacier is the largest in New Zealand despite the fact it lost 5km from the terminal face quite recently which is now making up Lake Tasman and its floating icebergs. The glacial lakes around the Southern Alps are all bright turquoise caused by the finely ground glacial dust that is suspended in the water. At Lake Tokapo just down the road we went to the hot pools and watched the sun turn the snowy mountains orange and then pink as it set. Then we had hot chocolate fortified with Jameson's as we watched the moon rise. I felt very privileged to have done this, particularly after I watched the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen, over the lake between two mountain peaks.

Our next major aim was to see Milford Sound. We drove through Queenstown and on to Te Anau where we booked on to a bus trip - It was great having a day off driving and I spent the whole time gawping out of the window and glass roof of the bus, reveling in the fact I did not have to watch the road! There was so much snow and huge mountains, and valleys, and snow! The drive there was easily as stunning as the fjord itself (Milford Sound is not actually a sound but a fjord). The boat cruise however was well worth the cost and we were truly humbled by the mountains rising up from the sea, waterfalls, the sun glinting on the snow - you get the picture.

There has been a lot of snow in the south island recently, and along with earthquakes the snow packs had become unstable so the road to Milford had been closed for the previous 9 days while they were performing controlled avalanches and clearing the road, so we were lucky our timing was pretty perfect. In fact the road was only open for 6 hours - they shut it again 30 minutes after we got out so we were really jammy. I'm so glad as well as it was a definite highlight of the trip and was the one thing I really didn't want to miss.

Another highlight were the glaciers. Huge steep masses of ice snaking through the valley carving it as it goes. The Franz Joseph is advancing at about 1m per day on average in response to snow that fell high in the mountains five years ago.

We continued our journey up the west coast and back towards Picton to catch the ferry, exploring the Marlborough Sounds which are beautiful - predictably. Our last day in the south island was spent on a wine tour around the Marlborogh wineries. This was another highlight for me. Tom and I tried every single wine and finished up satisfyingly drunk and with 4 bottles of expensive but exciting wine.

After the southbound ferry journey being so calm we had been lulled into a false sense of security with regards to the Cook Straight which was pretty nauseating with a moderate south-westerly swell. Tom and I spent most of the journey lying on the floor with our eyes closed wishing that 3 hours was shorter than it is.

On the way back up to Dorkland we went via Waitomo Caves. A network of huge limestone caverns with massive stalactites and stalagmites and gazillions of glowworms. I had never seen them before so it was really exciting - especially as we got to go in a boat on a river through the pitch-dark cave.

We are now having a few days doing very little as our eyes hurt from having looked at so much stuff over the last 3 weeks. We leave for California on Tuesday for the penultimate leg of our round trip. I'm looking forward to catching a bit of summer!