A southern road trip

A bit out of order this one... but a couple of weeks before we left Chch we tripped around the bottom of the South Island and visited Stewart Island. We had really good weather the whole time - often cloudy but usually only in the mornings, and it only rained at night.

Stewart Island was great, I reckon it's definitely worth the effort to get there. Despite Fouveau Straight's fearsome reputation we had pretty smooth crossings both ways - nevertheless we stayed clear of the custard squares before the crossing on Julian's advice ;-) We paddled around Paterson Inlet for a couple of days in a double sea kayak (we later found out these are called "divorce boats") and up Freshwater River to Freshwater Landing Hut for the night. We camped (because the hut was full) and got tormented by a weka who was determined to get to our food. He succeeded too, the little bastard, and chomped a small bite out of every one of our slices of bread! We also walked the Rakiura Track as a not-too-demanding day walk.

I would also recommend the magnificent Niagara Falls in the Catlins (not! - check out the photos) and the Lake Monowai/Borland Road area of Fiordland, where we did an overnight tramp to Green Lake. Mmm, blue cheese mushrooms and bubbly wine for Valentines Day - don't believe Sylvia when she says I'm not romantic.

It's also quite fun to stalk random tourists around Southland and then follow them to Stewart Island - we found one (Sally) and harassed her for several days, popping up at every opportunity.

Click on the link to http://dangerballs.fotopic.net to find our photo gallery - if you click on the smaller images you'll get bigger ones appear and you can read any stories associated with them. These stories have a bit more detail on some of the places we went and the things we did. They're a bit out of order for some reason, but there you go.

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