"I'm like gold...

"I'm like gold... ...I'm maleable, precious, girls like me and I can sometimes be found in rivers"

We arrived eventually in Nelson, in the north west of South Island after a relaxed drive and stay in Christchurch and up the East coast, where we picked up Toni George, and after a few days warm up in murch headed south to Hokitika where the plan was to paddle some of the challenging techinical West Coast Heli rivers.

Heli Tripping on the West Coast

River levels were low but we managed a successful mission on the Hokitika Canyon and me and Toni also paddled the Wanganui river which was a fantastic glacier fed river which turned from a tight technical creek into big water as it joined another river, made all the better by the sunshine beating down on us all day. We tried to walk into the Styx, but an hours hike with boats only gave a scrapey river, it was clear more rain was needed to make the rivers paddleable.

This meant a chilled out few weeks, hoping for rain whilst keeping ourselves occupied by builidng shelters on the beach, learning gymnastics, playing singstar, going paintballing and learning to slackline as well as a trip to paddle the freezing cold meltwater of the Franz Josef glacier, where you had to watch out for pieces of ice floating down with you.

Ross Whitome paddling on meltwater from Franz Josef glacier

Touristing up the East Coast

We left fiordland to head up the East Coast, via Slope point the most southerly point in New Zealnad (and furthest South I had ever been) and back noth. On the way north we did some sightseeing.

Dunedin was our first port of call, a famous university down based on Edinburgh, we visited Cadbury World (and found that New Zealand chocolates don't get close to British chocolates) and drove my old beaten up Subaru Legacy up the steepest street in the world, Baldwin Street, down which we also raced Jaffa's, hard red couloured sweets.

We continued north to the Maoraki boulder, amazingly spherical rocks which look the the eggs of some giant dinosour and seem to have been placed in a cluster on a beach.

Ross Whittome, Katrina Allen and Nick Roberts on Maoraki Boulders, photo by Victoria Anderson

Fiordland

Leaving Queenstown, Nick flew back to North Island, Tes headed for Christchurch, and I headed south to Fiordland and the Hollyford Riverwith Ross, Katrina and Victoria. Fiordland is a magical place where steep mountains rise up from the ground, including the famous Milford Sound. almost uninhabited by humans, but by billions of sandflies, and famous for raining almost every day.

We spent a week in Gunns camp, which really feels like the middle of nowehere kayaking on the Hollyford river and taking in the epicness of the surroundings. We also went to Milford Sound, which while beautiful was somewhat spoilt by the hordes of tourists taking a way the tranquility.

Waterfalls off the mountains in Fiordland

Kayaking the Hollyford River