New Zealand is replete with wine growing regions. Not only in the almost sub-tropical north is there the kind of weather you need for decent vintages; the South Island too has some interesting microclimates that are ideally suited to viticulture. One of these microclimates is the reasonably dry and very sunny area of Marlborough, at the island's northern end.

It was to pay a respectful visit to this region that on Wednesday morning I bade a final farewell to sunny Kaikoura and caught the InterCity bus north to Blenheim, major town of Marlborough. Well, it might be a major town for thereabouts but I thought it was a bit on the boring and shite side. So after a brief stop for lunch there I caught another bus to nearby Renwick, a small township in the Wairau river valley, one of Marlborough's prime vineyard areas. As soon as I dumped my bag at the backpackers there, I borrowed one of their bikes and headed up the road on a DIY winery tour. I had a map and my tastebuds with me, that was enough.

Ah, what a pleasant afternoon! I enjoyed the champagnes of Cellier Le Brun, the Gewurztraminer of Framingham, the superb wines & cheeses of Nautilus, the silky smooth whites of Huia (where I got to taste wine in French: the girl there was from Quebec), the meaty reds of Mud House, and a delightful Pinot Gris at a vineyard whose name escapes me - well it was the fifth one after all!

The evening was a quiet one. And the next day was pretty quiet too, taken up as it was with travelling to Wellington. Annoyingly, the beautiful sunny weather I had been enjoying for some days decided to disappear. I made my way to Bernard & Amanda's house - it's beginning to feel like a home from home now, I've been so often! - and took it easy, doing some washing and generally starting to think about preparing to pack for the next big section of travelling that's coming up.

On Friday I did nothing much during the day, but met up with Dan for drinks after work. This time we went to a pub with pool tables and had a few rounds. (I was on fire! Probably the best I've ever played - which I know isn't saying much). Then Sandra turned up to whisk Dan away on their romantic Guy Fawkes Night dinner. I had a bite to eat, watched the fireworks on my way home, and had an early night. It reminded be of bonfire nights when I was a kid, hearing and seeing fireworks through the bedroom window until well into the night.

Saturday was a day of work: that's right, once again I volunteered to help Dan & Sandra with their renovation works. It's amazing how much they've got done since I was there a month ago. But it's amazing how much is still left to do too! Dan's plans are ambitious - but in a positive way - with almost every room changing function and the whole house radically changing both in shape and in appearance. What was a collection of tiny rooms will have metamorphosed into a much more open-plan affair, with a whole new cellar floor and a vastly different garden.

I felt I earned my lunch today, shared with Dan, Sandra and Sandra's family. A bit more work (mostly bringing out rubbish to a skip - the twelfth so far - and bringing in wooden beams from the street - over a kilometre used so far in the remodelling) and then I left, to relax with Bernard & Amanda, who came home from Australia today. We watched Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Ali G In Da House; highbrow TV viewing, I'm sure you'll all agree.

On Sunday I travelled up to Levin to visit Russell & Jeni again. This time I stayed overnight and could take up their offer of dinner. Russell's sister was there as was his son Christopher. Dinner was lovely, with lively conversation and gallons of wine! My head was a little sore the next day, but this feeling was soothed by the shower in their fab glass-roofed bathroom. It felt like I was standing in the garden, there was so much light and a sense of not being indoors at all.

I returned to Wellington on the train, had a tasty fish lunch in a microbrewery with yummy beers, went to a real barber shop (complete with revolving red-and-white pole) to have my hair shorn in preparation for hotter climes, then went home and packed. In the evening I had a valedictory bottle of red wine with Bernard & Amanda, then went for my last sleep in New Zealand.

My last day in Lyttleton was once again a hot sunny one. How weird is that? I'm having much better weather by far here in the South Island than I managed in the supposedly sub-tropical North!

After a quick breakfast with Chris in town, I decided to walk off some of yesterday's excesses by heading up into the hills. I didn't really know where I was going, but I trusted to the signage of the walking tracks. Before too long I was miles away from civilisation (well, a good few hundred metres anyway).

It was bliss. No noise, just the wind in the teeshirt wrapped round my head (guess who forgot their hat that morning?) and the occasional chirrup of a bird. I began to ascend quite quickly towards the gondola that leads up from the Christchurch side of the hills. But I didn't fancy running into a load of tourists, so I took a path less trodden. This eventually brought me to - a load of tourists! Yup, it was destiny. But at least they were on their way elsewhere, so I had a sense of solitude again before too long.

The views over Lyttleton Harbour to one side and the Canterbury Plains on the other were captivating. And it was so hot & sunny still! I backtracked and headed down the hill into town again, rewarding my labours with a tasty bit of Akaroa cod & chips from a Vietnamese chippy. Then, my bags packed and my next trip booked at a discount courtesy of Chris, I did a last bit of internet surfing (this time managing to sort out my flights over the Xmas period) before Chris drove me into town to catch my bus.

And so I left Christchurch for Kaikoura, just as I did in May, only this time it was still broad daylight. The coastal highway up to Kaikoura is delightful! Most spectacular is the crossing of the range of hills to the south of Kaikoura, where you rise up through twisting turns to be met with a head-on view of the snow-capped Seaward Kaikoura mountains. And all in glorious sunshine! What is going on with the weather all of a sudden?

Now, avid readers may remember my disappointment in Kaikoura when I was here in earlier this year in May. The seas were too rough to allow me to go out and swim with dolphins. But not so this time! Yippee!! The trip went ahead and we saw loads & loads of the little bleeders!

The dusky dolphin - the most common kind around Kaikoura - is known to be the most playful breed. I think maybe they were a little tired or something, because there was very little jumping out of the water going on. But who cares about that? The zowie part of the experience was slipping into the water and coming face to snout with them. This we did a total of four times.

We had to keep getting out of the water and catching up with the school of dolphins: clearly they swim a lot faster than we could, even with beautifully streamlined rubberized bodies (boy did we need those wetsuits too - the water was a frosty 12 degrees!). But it was great, because our boat would stop just in front of the leading dolphins, and then we would get in and there would be dozens of dolphins swimming around us & under us. It was fantastic. The only sad thing is that it was over so soon. It seems to have gone by in a flash. And my photos are crap, but hey ho.

The rest of the day in Kaikoura I just took it easy. The weather was glorious, so I spent much of the time sitting on the beach (which is made up of bloody boiling hot black pebbles) and soaking up the atmosphere. A proper beach holiday! My pre-tan for Fiji is coming on nicely.

In the evening I had a mind-blowingly good meal at a posh restaurant. It was really really good. I had blue-nose (the fish of the day) in a simple soy sauce jus, with stir-fried vegetables and rosemary roast potatoes. The fish was scrummy, a bit like haddock. The vegetables were done to perfection, with a touch of chilli oil and plenty of roast sesame seeds. The potatoes were also perfect. But the surprise fantastic thing about the meal was the little garnish they threw on top of the fish: it was a delicate fresh cucumber salad that tasted quite sweet, tossed together with strips of pickled ginger. Now that really was a taste sensation, and one I'll be replicating the next time I'm cooking. Try it, it really works.

After this splendid meal I decided to go for a bit of a walk. I ended up heading north out of town, following a dusty track between the railway line and the beach. As the sun sank down behind me I headed further and further away from civilisation. It was quite unnerving actually, and when a dog came towards me going the other way I had visions of being attacked and left for dead. Funny how twilight can make your mind overreact. I eventually turned round when it was getting really dark. I still had to pack my bags ready for tomorrow's departure.

South Island here I come!

On Friday morning I made my solitary way from Bernard & Amanda's house to Wellington airport. (B&A had left at an ungodly hour that morning for a honeymoon in Australia.) It was a short flight to Christchurch, and then a short wait at the airport for Chris to come & pick me up.

I hadn't seen Chris since Claire & Nigel's wedding in August. It was great to have a little bit of time to catch up with him properly. He's a busy man, running a company that organises activity programmes for language schools in Christchurch. The upside of this for me was twofold: on the one hand, I felt no guilt at spending loads of time online in Chris' flat because he was busy anyway; and on the other hand Chris has access to some very interesting discount prices for activities! Of that, more later.

The weather in Lyttleton (just over a ridge of hills from Christchurch) where Chris has his home & office was conducive to not going out, so I didn't. Instead I got lots of things done in cyberspace.

The next day was much nicer weather, although a little on the fresh side. Chris dropped me off in Christchurch, and I headed for the Art Gallery, the new building - and indeed the contents - of which I had enjoyed so much in May. It didn't let me down this time either. In fact, my experience was enhanced by stopping for a meal in the associated café. The blue cod in batter with thin chips was divine! Oh yeah, there was some good art too. Whatever.

I had arranged to meet Malcolm (who I know from Bernard's stag do & wedding) for beer & food that evening, but I had a few hours to kill. First of all I visited the cathedral, including climbing the clock tower and having nice views over the city's mediocre concrete architecture, Then, in a not typical way for me, I went shopping for clothes. I know, I know! There's no room in my rucksack for more clothes. But somehow I was drawn to a new pair of long shorts, and because they were half price I felt compelled to buy a shirt to go with them (also half price). I drew the line at the rose-tinted sunglasses I saw though. I mean, having just shelled out for new shades in Taupo it was hardly seemly to buy another pair.

Malcolm had suggested a Turkish restaurant, and by jove it was excellent! My lamb kebab was juicy, tasty & spicy in just the right ways. And their baklava was great too. I bade Malcolm farewell and caught a bus back to Lyttleton, where I sat and had a few quiet ones with Chris. All in all, a pleasant day.

Sunday turned out to be an extremely pleasant day too. It was warm & sunny for our early start: Chris had arranged for me to take part in a scenic flight over Christchurch in a small plane, so we had to be out of the house by eight. I thought I was going to be loaded on with some students, but in fact Chris & I had a plane to ourselves (plus a pilot). He left me at Christchurch airport while he sorted out the students, so I had a little time up on the observation deck watching the occasional plane come in or take off.

The pilot of our plane was a big chap - as big as me in fact - and as we taxied towards Christchurch International Airport's main runway he explained that the three of us plus a full tank of avgas would likely get stuck in their normal grass strip, hence mixing with the big boys. So after a spot of incomprehensible pilot talk with the main tower, off he took, and then before I knew what was going on he told me I was flying the plane!

Oh my God! I really hadn't been expecting that. Even when he ran quickly through what some of the instruments did before we took off, I thought he was just being polite. But there I was, with the steering wheel (or whatever they call it) in one hand and the throttle in the other. I didn't even dare put my feet on the pedal things.

But you know? It was great! There was more than a modicum of fear in my heart but somehow we didn't crash. I even had the courage to glance out of the window; in fact, I was a little negligent in checking the instruments because the view was so lovely. We flew over the centre of Christchurch (I could plainly see the cathedral and the tower from yesterday), out to the sea, then back inland to Lyttleton, then over the centre of Banks Peninsula.

At this point, we had a bit of mid-air amusement as Chris & I did our impression of WWF wrestlers while trying to swap places in the cramped cabin of the plane. It was as much as the pilot could do to stop the plane from plummeting out of the sky, we were throwing our weight around so much! Chris then took us out over Akaroa, across to the sea the other side of Banks Peninsula, and back over the flatlands south of Christchurch to the Canterbury Aero Club. We used the main runway again for landing, so Chris didn't get to put us down sadly. But hey, I'm sure it's not the last time he'll be flying here.

After a quick refreshing snack in the Antarctic Centre, Chris dropped me off at Gayle's son Kurt's house in a lovely suburb within easy reach of the airport. I found Kurt washing his car, aided by his younger daughter Deanna. His wife Jenny was quick to provide me with a beer, and before too long we were all sat in the front garden, including the elder daughter Alexandra and a friend of the family Kate.

It was bloody hot! I wished I'd had the sense to buy the shorts I so premonitively bought the day before. We had beer, snacks, conversation, laughs, more beer, wine, more conversation, a huge roast dinner, more wine, more laughs. I really love my family - even the members of it I've only just met!

Kurt was kind enough to run me back to Lyttleton, where I collapsed in a heap. It had been a long day, and my swollen gut was working overtime to process the enormous amounts of quality food & booze I had made it ingest. It seems there is a strong family resemblance when it comes to enjoying the good things in life.

Taupo is a bit like Rotorua: it's a big tourism centre; it sits on a large lake; it's got geothermal stuff going on all over the place. But there the similarity ends really. Taupo is not nearly as tourism-Maori as Rotorua; even though debate is raging currently in New Zealand about whether the local Maori iwi should have ownership of the airspace over Lake Taupo (as they are claiming for themselves), I might have supposed Taupo to be on the largely Maori-free South Island, were it not for the scores of dark-skinned schoolchildren I saw on the streets at hometime.

Anyway, I digress. Much as I find the soul-searching in New Zealand about the Pakeha-Maori (that's European settler - indigenous folk) relationship interesting, it's perhaps not a subject I can do justice to here.

The major thing I wanted to do in Taupo was to walk the famous Tongariro Crossing. This is a strenuous 7-8 hour walk between two mountain huts in the Tongariro National Park, during which time you climb from 900m up between two active volcanoes (Mts Tongariro & Ngauruhoe) and to the top of Red Crater (1886m), before descending to 600m and falling exhausted into a bus to take you back to Taupo.
Now, I wanted to do this on the day after my arrival, but it was not to be. After getting up at 5.30 am and making a day's worth of sandwiches, the small group of us in my hostel who were due to walk were saddened to hear that the weather was too shite. But let's face it, there would have been no point going up in bad weather. Added to which, the Tongariro Crossing can be very dangerous in wintertime. They said we'd be going tomorrow, but given NZ weather how likely was that?

Deterred but not driven completely away, I decided to hang around one more day and see if the weather improved. During that day I did a bit of horseriding - this time I even had a saddle, and boy does that make things easier! - and a bit of walking. I even had a soak in a hot stream that runs into the Waikato river (NZ's longest) near town. But I managed not to do the Taupo Bungy, which was just near there as well. All the while, ominous clouds threatened to wring themselves out over my head.

In the afternoon I spent quite a while in an internet café, trying to catch up with my exploits and share them with you, my treasured readership. Then in the evening, whilst sitting by the shores of a becalmed Lake Taupo with a muted pastel sunset, I rang Sophie to wish her a happy birthday. I haven't yet started really really missing my nephews & nieces as much as I was the last time I was in NZ; but then it's only been two months since I saw them, not four.

My surprise was total when I dragged myself half-heartedly out of bed to discover a blazing sunrise in progress over the mountains! The snow caps were a shade of pink to make Jean-Paul Gaultier proud, and there wasn't a cloud to be seen. Hurrah! The walk was ON!

The four of us from my hostel got on quite well: Min-Woo, a Korean who was in my dorm, and the brother & sister team of Mark & Cat from the UK. Hundreds of other people got on the bus with us to travel down into the National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Area. The walk is popular, even at this time of year it seems.

What a walk! Words fail me. There was every kind of terrain, from marshy flats to steep rocky climbs to snowfields to scree slopes to hot volcanic soils to tussock-grass meadows to verdant forest. Half the time we had gobsmacking views of the textbook volcano that is Ngauruhoe (it reminded me of being in the central part of Chile, which was the last time I had clambered over chunks of lava rock on the slopes of a volcano), and the rest of the time we could see huge plumes of sulphurous steam rising up out of enormous fissures in the ground. I took many many photos, and a selection of them will be up for general oohing & aahing soon.

It was most bizarre, sitting at the very top of a mountain, with panoramic views of dozens of smaller peaks all around, and yet having toasty cheeks! Because at the top of Red Crater, you can just brush aside the small stones and sit on the warm earth. Slightly disconcerting, thinking that there's just a few metres of rock between me and the swirling fires of hell. But still a great way to enjoy a well-earned sandwich.

The walk down was longer but less steep than the walk up, which was a good thing. I couldn't have faced the Devil's Staircase going down, or even the approach slopes of Red Crater which were very slippy. Instead it was a gentle curve past the Emerald Lakes and through another snowfield until we reached the sunkist northern slopes of Tongariro itself.

You're walking along, putting foot in front of foot, and suddenly you realise you can hear a bird singing for the first time in four hours. Then before long you've got trees overhead. The scene changes so gradually you don't notice. The only unchanging feature was the glorious sunshine (good job I bought some shades the previous day!) which banished any vestiges of cloud and made for sweeping views.

Once we were back in town, the four of us decided to go and get some food and some beers. They were well deserved! Hell's Pizza seemed appropriate for our volcanic day, and we tucked in proudly and greedily to a Wrath and an Envy, and we weren't sloths about it! After eating in a park, we headed back to the hostel and drank more beer there. Mmmmm, cold beer!

By a coincidence, the four of us spent most of the next day together too. We were all on the bus heading south for Wellington. This passed through some spectacular scenery, including the Desert Road past the bases of Mts Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu (famed as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films) and the Rangitikei Gorge, which I can only describe as Wales on steroids.

I got out before the others at Levin, to visit friends of Mike T's. What a lovely couple! Russell & Jeni made me feel immediately at home in their beautiful house - it's amazing the effect a decent glass or two of wine will have on me! Then they brought me to the railway station in Paraparaumu and I travelled by commuter train into Wellington, then by bus to Bernard & Amanda's. Where, quite by chance, I ended up imbibing more of that yummy fermented grape stuff. Ah, the joy of friends.