Friday 25th June

Quick update - drove down to Hokitika and settled into the shifting sands hostel - converted house really, warm and comfortable. Drive was tedious in places and enjoyable in others. About 300+kms so a full day initially over fairly slow roads. Legal limit is 100kms and if I exceed that the satnav keeps beeping so one tends to be law abiding. Going through the mountains was fun especially as the temperature dropped to 3degrees and we had light snow on the verges. As I have said before they do not have safety barrier at the road edge, either a deep ditch, vertical drop or lots of big trees. Views are stunning though and driving up through the Buller Gorge was great. As I found out there are very few "towns" along the way and most of them are just a few buildings along the road with houses and farms in the outlying district. I had to pray that Murchison was fairly big and that they had a petrol station - definitely on the red when I got there.

Drove down the west coast from Westport through Greymouth to Hokitika, plenty of beaches, all deserted with grey sand this time. Road signs told you to be aware of penguins, did not see any. Although the road is a state highway we did cross one of the rivers over a single track bridge, complete with railway tracks, never had to do that before. No train unfortunately to add to the excitement.

What I may have forgotten to say was the night sky's here - due to the lack of artificial lighting the stars are very clear and on a clear night you get the full impact of the moon and stars, something we have lost in a good part of southern England.

Tomorrow I think I will be looking at Lake Kaniere and a couple of walks, then onto see Hokitika Gorge for a look. Sunday have booked my glacier walk, early shoot that day as I have to be at the meeting point for 0900 hrs and face a 2 hour drive.

Enough for now as it is dinner time so off to cook my food.