We headed north from Lake Ianthe then across to the east coast via Arthur’s Pass. We stopped off there to do a short walk to the Devil’s Punchbowl waterfall.

On the east coast we headed towards Hanmer Springs, stopping overnight just south of it. The next day we went into the town and spent a couple of hours enjoying the hot geothermal waters. The pools ranged in temperature, from 38 degrees (hot) to 41 degrees (too hot!). The hotter ones were also unfiltered so smelt a bit sulphurous.

That afternoon we drove up to Kaikoura, a town known for its marine life due to the ocean trench it sits by. The next day we went to sea a seal colony that lives near the tip of the peninsula. There are loads of them sat around all over the place, including in the car park! They did smell rather strongly too.

After that we went on a whale watching tour which was good, but rather expensive when you really don’t get to see much of the whales! We saw a couple of sperm whales and had some near misses too. The sea was really choppy that day and Becky was feeling a little queasy by the time we got back on dry land.

We headed north from Kaikoura, stopping to see even more fur seals on route, to Blenheim in the Marlbrough region, known for its wine making. The town was surprisingly large after all the small places we’ve been through recently! We had a look around town then did a wine tour which visited around 6 vineyards over the afternoon where we supped wine and pretended to know about it.

Finally our time in the south island came to an end and so the next morning we got up early and headed to Picton to catch our ferry north to Wellington. The ferry takes about 3 hours and is the most scenic car ferry I’ve ever seen - it travels through the Queen Charlotte Sound and we saw yet more seals swimming next to it!

We did end up feeling like we rushed our time in the South Island slightly, I think if we could go back and re-plan our trip we would timetable in much more time for New Zealand in general. We would have liked to go to Abel Tasman as well as walking in the Marlbrough Sounds, but we’ll have to save that for next time!

We’ve updated our photo gallery with the rest of our south island photos.