South Island Top Ten

Top 10 things we did/saw on the south island (not necessarily in that order) [Heather, you know where my brain goes when I write that!]
1. Doubtful Sound - spectacular scenery, luxury of our own bathroom, fantastic food, nice people, dolphins, kayaking, silence.
2. Mount Cook and the Edmund Hillary Museum - spectacular scenery, interesting and varied information about Hillary including a really good 1 hour documentary on his life. There was also a planetarium that was all part of the admission.
3. Sam and Eric - the two young guitar players that we happened upon in the Bog Bar in Christchurch. Sam looked just like Donovan (think back, people) with the round hat and huge side burns! Eric was Chinese and if you closed your eyes while he was playing, you’d swear it was Eric Clapton.
4. Fleur’s Place at Moeriki - probably the best meal we’ve ever had. Fresh, fresh, fresh, wonderful presentation and incredible atmosphere. Fleur’s “desk” was one of the tables in the dining room and she wandered around chatting to people.
5. Incredible coastal views everywhere with crashing waves on the rocks, ridiculous rock formations in the ocean.
6. THE WEATHER! Can’t believe how lucky we’ve been.
7. The albatross centre near Dunedin - amazing to see these huge birds soaring on the wind.
8. Old cars - lots and lots of old cars! As we were driving, we passed an old Bentley rally, an old Packard rally, and just a general vintage car rally. And all these old cars were coming towards us so John could take pictures of them as we passed (I was driving!) Sometimes one of them had stopped by the side of the road, so then of course we stopped too and had a chat, And of course the Classic Car Museum in Nelson which literally blew John away,.
9. New Zealand pies.
10. John’s knife making class. He needed a day hammering on something and produced a wonderful knife.