North Island to South

People often ask which island in New Zealand is the best? Which did you prefer, North or South? My answer? Both! South Island is stunningly beautiful with adventure sports, wildlife, glaciers lakes and mountains We headed here after touring around the North Island. SOUTH ISLAND Due to a large earthquake and various roads being closed on the South Island (now open again and back to normal), instead of our original plan of driving and getting the ferry from North to South Island we flew straight to Queenstown from Auckland. It’s a nice quick flight with breath-taking scenery, especially coming in to land at Queenstown which is a great little town surrounded by spectacular mountain ranges and beautiful lakes. You must book accommodation in advance as it sells out quickly. There are lots of luxury and budget options and again, a ton of stuff to do here and the surrounding area including off road adventures, adventure sports, boating and in the winter skiing and snowboarding. It goes without saying the food and wine are excellent, particularly seafood and the world-famous Ferg Burgers - gourmet burgers that claim to be the best burger in New Zealand. I don't doubt this for a second and tried it for myself – amazing. Amongst other things we took an off-road jeep adventure to see some of the Lord of the Rings film locations with a great guide. We explored the mountains and rivers and went gold panning and guess what? I actually found gold! Yes! One teeny tiny speck but I found it all the same! A great day out. A boat trip to see more stunning scenery and some cheese and wine tasting, watched the crazy people bungee jumping on the highest biggest bungee in the world and then we headed to Mount Cook. It was a good few hours’ drive and worth spending a night or two there to explore. The weather so far in March/April was fabulous – sunny, warm and bright. Soon to change, it was Autumn after all! WHALE WATCHING AND DETERMINATION After an overnight stop in Christchurch, despite a large recent earthquake closing roads and limiting access, a raised seabed limiting boat trips, lots of cancelled hotel bookings, a lot of hardship suffered by the people living there and the town only just opening up again, I was determined I was going to Kaikoura, a little town world famous for its unique sea life particularly whales and of course it's amazing seafood including lobsters. I wanted to help the tourist industry get back on their feet again. So after lots of re arranging and a long bumpy journey on damaged country roads with lots of road blocks and a sick daughter, we finally arrived in Kaikoura, a small little town which at first glance doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. However, this turned out to be the absolute highlight of our trip. Everything seemed to be against us including the earthquake, the weather which had turned as the tail end of an Australian cyclone hit causing torrential rain, my daughter was not well, and we had to cancel our plans for our first day. But, brave souls that we are, we decided to go ahead with our 6am whale watching trip. We were warned it was pretty rough and asked if we got seasick as we could cancel with full refund if we wanted. If the weather got worse this could be the only boat going out today. No - we are going we decided! It was rough, it was cold, it was wet and my daughter did get sea sick along with a lot of other people but after not very long at all the boat stopped and to our absolute joy we saw the whales - right next to the boat not caring about the weather- basking, blowing fountains of water high into the air and finally (just for us it seemed) flipping their tails in the air. “This is the best day ever" my daughter proclaimed, all thoughts of sickness disappearing at the utter joy of witnessing such a spectacular sight. It was emotional! Next a huge pod of dusky dolphins decided to accompany us back to shore leaping in the air all over each other and we felt so privileged and so glad we had made the effort to get here. There is a seal colony too. Due to the movement of the seabed it was at risk and in a different place to where it had been before, but I am happy to report it was full of seals and Kaikoura was back on track. Moving on to a year and a bit later and all roads are open, the railway has re-opened and thanks to the people of Kaikoura coming together and working hard everything is back to normal and business is thriving once more. The weather is usually gorgeous, the area is stunning and it just goes to show that as Nelson Mandela said, when people are determined they can achieve anything. Travel Counsellors have a 24-hour emergency duty office you can call if you are ever abroad and need urgent assistance we are there for you.