Queenstown, self-proclaimed capital of adventure activities, really does have a lot to offer. Starting with its setting: a delightful small town draped over a narrowing of Lake Wakatipu, with imposing mountain chains on all sides where lush greenery abounds at lower levels and the higher reaches are either brown with tussock or white with snow. It has the feel of a ski resort, and that's because it is one in winter. But the Queenstown summer season is huge too, with thousands flocking here to bungy jump and participate in umpteen other death-defying pastimes. Me included.

Whilst here, I did some jetboating. Jetboats are like normal boats, but instead of a propeller-driven motor they have a high-speed jet of water coming out the bottom to give propulsion and direction, like a jetski. This means they need only 10cm of water to travel in, and can turn on a sixpence. Which makes going up and down winding mountain streams not only feasible but bloody good fun too! The Dart River is one of many rivers hereabouts that you can jetboat on, but it has the added bonus of being surrounded by national park and dotted with locations from The Lord of the Rings.

I also found time to do a bit of luge riding (not on ice, just on a concrete track, but it was fun) and go up the gondola to see some delicious views over the town and its border of mountains and water. Not to mention some pool playing (bizarrely enough, I ended up going for some beers and pool with a girl in my dorm at the guesthouse - then we realised we had played pool against each other in Greymouth after the brewery tour - which is why we didn't recognise each other sooner) and some industrious eating of great food. I blame the cold, because of course normally I wouldn't ever eat so much...

Then I headed down to Te Anau and caught up with Dan & Sandra. They have access to a proper deerstalker lodge outside the town, and I got to stay in the attic where Dan & his siblings used to sleep when they were kids. The graffiti on the walls attests to this! I arrived on Friday lunchtime, and that evening Dan's parents and sister arrived from Invercargill, together with his brother, sister-in-law & nephews who live in Te Anau. We had a proper huge roast dinner with all the trimmings, and it felt just like a great big family get-together. Which it was, only not my family! I felt so welcome that I quickly forgot I had only just met these people and really felt at home.

On Saturday I did a day-trip to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is a fjord famous the world over, and is part of a huge UNESCO World Heritage Area that covers roughly 10% of NZ's surface area. The coach ride to Milford was fabulous. The coach had glass panels in the roof, so you could really appreciate the mountain scenery. We made plenty of stops on the way up into the mountains, so we could get closer to the varied nature scenes we encountered. There were glacial valleys, indigenous fauna & flora, breathtaking bridges over gorges, swathes of native beech forest, and even some ice left over from last winter. Then we went through the Homer Tunnel and found ourselves back in west coast rainforest for the remainder of the journey down to the sea.

The Sound itself, while gorgeous (if you'll pardon the pun), was not as spectacular for me as the hype had led me to believe. Don't get me wrong, it's really really lovely, with towering rock sides coated in moss, fern and forest, all dominated by Mitre Peak. But somehow it didn't do it for me, until just before end of our cruise. That was when the world seemed to come to an end: a wall of fearsome grey rain & fog oozed inexorably inland from the Tasman Sea, driving a gale before it, until it engulfed our ship and we were adrift in a universe of horizontal rain. Then, almost as quickly as it came, the rain eased off. We disembarked, and were treated to the spectacle of hundreds of sudden waterfalls cascading down the mountainsides to our left and right as we drove back up to the tunnel. These tall foaming waterfalls are only ever present when it is raining - but then again, it rains on average 250 days of the year. But the change in scenery from the way there was momentous.

I returned to the lodge exhausted from the day's meteorological exertions, and warmed myself at the huge fire, rubbing sensation back into my limbs. It was a good day, made better by the sudden arrival of gushing, rejuvenating life force in the form of Edward, George & Andrew, Dan's nephews. The Popham clan had returned from a day off-roading in their big trucks and we feasted once again. Contented, warm, full of well-being, I soaked up the affection these people have for one another and radiated my own happiness to the world at large.

The West Coast of the South Island is a marvellous landscape of crashing waves, sweeping mountains and primeval bush. And I got to see it without its usual driving rain - "sweet as"! Every ten minutes it seems you leave one National
Park to enter another. All the way from Greymouth the scenery was awesome. Valley after valley had the remains of 19th-century goldrush towns surrounded by icy waters and verdant hills. The coastline was skirted either by plunging
cliffs with rocky jumbles at their feet or by expanses of shingle or sand. Everywhere was beauty. The slate Tasman Sea threw into relief the viridian hillsides. This is beginning to sound like a sample text for a thesaurus. I will stop there.

Dan, Sandra & I walked to the base of the Franz Josef glacier, having seen Lake Matheson yesterday for sunset. So we had water in liquid and solid form to gaze at, but the glacier was by far the more impressive of the two. Dan & I scrambled on past the "Only experienced walkers here" signs to actually go and touch ice. It was a bit of a struggle across the scree and rocks of the moraine but we reached some icy chunks without too much difficulty. Then we headed back to the main path, met up with Sandra and went to taste the water of one of the many tall thin falls that line the valley's walls.

Thence southward to Haast, munching on chocolate fudge cookies on the way in lieu of lunch. There was so much roadkill! At least every mile we could see more or less of a possum, whether flat in the middle of the road, being eaten by falcons in the roadside ditch or draped decoratively over road signs. At Haast I wanted to do some jetboating, but the summer season having pretty much come to a close this week there were no trips running today or tomorrow. I decided to give it a miss and carry on with my excellent hosts to Wanaka, over the hills inland.

What a difference! Almost as soon as we crossed the Haast Pass the scenery leapt from green to brown. The mountains are a very effective barrier to rain, and the eastern slopes are barren. The burnt grasses are dotted here and there with patches of wild flowers and there are gorgeous lakes of blue water, but the coastal green was soon a distant memory.

In Wanaka we checked into a nice hostel, again sharing one room for the three of us with kitchenette and bathroom. We did a supermarket run and picked up bread, cheese & wine. The evening was relaxed and enjoyable, with card-playing and some in-depth conversation. I have been very lucky to meet such nice people here. I look forward to knowing Dan & Sandra for a long time!

Our paths divided the next day at lunchtime. Dan & Sandra brought me to Queenstown (we watched two nutters bungying from the Kawarau suspension bridge before we got there), and then they drove on to Te Anau. The plan is for me to join them there in a couple of days' time. Meanwhile, I will "do" Queenstown. So there you have it.

I had an early start the following morning, so I crept out of my room at 6 o'clock and went in for some breakfast. An American girl called Jean was there too, and it transpires that we were catching the same bus to Greymouth. The bus ride started off rainy and grey, but the weather got progressively better. By the time we reached Greymouth on the west coast, things were looking up. I found the Noah's Ark hostel, famous for its animal-themed rooms. The owner saw fit to put me in the Bears' room, a five-bedder which I had to myself.

After dumping my bags I went for a bit more adrenaline fun: quadbiking is top! It was just me and a guide, splattering our way around muddy paths and through muddy channels of rainwater for an hour. What a laugh!!

I should mention that today is ANZAC Day, which is the Antipodean equivalent of Remembrance Day. This only really impinged on my day by virtue of the woman who picked me up to take me quadbiking stopping on the way to pick up her teenage son from a chuch where he had been in an Air Cadets parade. I have to say that it was impossible for me to think about the horrors of two world wars, sat here in luscious South Island and having such a bloody good time. I am so grateful that I have never had to take part in the senseless slaughter of fellow humans.

Back at the hostel, I ran into the girls I had walked with leaving Wellington and we decided to go on a brewery tour together. On this tour, I met a lovely couple of Kiwis called Dan and Sandra. They are my age and have recently returned from four years in Europe. We hit it off from the start and after knowing me for only a few hours they graciously offered to give me a lift in their car to Franz Josef, my next destination. The tour was an alcoholic one (the guide correctly guessed that all of us on the tour were more interested in the product than the process) and was followed by a dirt-cheap beery barbie at a nearby restaurant. There, Dan & I drank and drank and ended up taking on various pairs of locals on the pool table - and not getting slapped!

The next day Dan & I were feeling a bit delicate, so Sandra drove. We made it to Franz Josef for lunch, and then managed to blag a huge discount on a helicopter sightseeing tour. Sandra for a laugh said we should try to get money off. I brazenly said "So are you going to give us three for two?" to the lady behind the counter. To our astonishment, instead of telling me where to get off she said "Let me see what I can do" and then got us each twenty minutes for the price of ten! This meant we could fly over both Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. Which was spectacular!! The pilot was on the taciturn side but boy did he know his moves. We were swung mercilessly from side to side, we whooshed off the edge of ice cliffs, we were shown some crazy manoeuvres. We were still wowing about it hours later.

That evening, we ate some cheese, drank some port, watched a video (The Whale Rider, a fantastic Kiwi movie about a contemporary young Maori girl who defies sexist traditions to become the chief of her clan), had a soak in the hot tub, and went on a mini-safari to see glowworms and possums. Which was "all good", as they say around here.