We’re heading from Queenstown to Timaru and onwards up the east coasts to catch the Inter-Island ferry back to the North Island. This first leg is a 5 hr road trip past Mount Cook and aquamarine lakes (implausibly aquamarine, as if someone has tipped dye into it). We stopped for lunch at Twizel and then pressed-on for Timaru where we camp.

In the morning we head to the beach in Timaru where there was also a lido and small fun fair. Afterwards we drive to Pleasant Point to visit David and Janet Morgan (from Middlewood Farm, Bwlch). They have move out here to manage a 5500 acre deer, beef and sheep station on behalf of an international agricultural investment group. Two years ago, when the group decided to sell, the Morgans raised the money to buy it. The scale of everything is incredible, 300km of deer fencing has been put up since they arrived and, if I heard correctly, there are 24,000 head of stock on the land (did I mis-hear?). We were given a warm welcome and spent the afternoon there before driving a further 2hrs onto Christchurch (about 2hrs).

In Christchurch we meet-up with Huw and Gethyn Baldwin who had stayed with me in Auckland when I first arrive in New Zealand. Huw is heading back to the UK but Gethyn is staying on. We gave Huw the keys to the house in Auckland so that he could stay there later in the week while we are still travelling around.

Christchurch appears very ‘English’ its is very leafy with the the river Avon flowing through its centre  with people punting not he river. The grid pattern streets are named ‘Hereford’, ‘Gloucester’, ‘Worcester’ etc. We wandered along the river in the morning and then in the afternoon we took a boat around the harbour to see the Hector dolphins.

This is our third attempt to see dolphins and finally we have succeeded. We saw several pods and probably 20-30 dolphins in total with half a dozen racing the boat in its bow wave at one point. The experience was all the more satisfying having failed on out previous dolphin watching trips to spot any.