After a rainy first night in the camper van we woke up with ducks swimming in the puddles that had formed around us. We had breakfast and started to make our way west towards Arthur's Pass. Fortunately, as we drove the skies cleared and by the time we made it to Cave Stream it was bright and sunny (but still very cold, especially after our endless summer of the last few months!) The scenery was beautiful, huge snow-capped peaks behind green meadows full of sheep grazing and clumps of lupin flowers in a range of colours. We stopped for lunch with a kea that tried to steal our box of lettuce and took a look around the visitors centre, though we didn't have enough time to do any hiking. We ended the day on the coast in Hokitika, a lovely town with a glowworm dell and nice bit of coast.
The next day we drove south to the Franz Josef glacier where we did a walk along the river up to the viewing point and stayed in a nice campground with stunning mountain views. We were up and on the road early the next morning as we had a long drive down to Hawea Lake, stopping several times on the way down for walks and photo breaks. The campground on the lake was very 1950s and we played bridge by the water and had a pub Christmas Eve dinner. E
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