Quite early alarm at 02:15 to get our flight to Sydney.

Unusually moving through a semi-closed airport, security no need to take any of my stuff out of my bag. Flight not full. Our new car is Mazzy two too, white! We get directly to customising the in car displays, but wait oh no! The wing mirror retraction is only manual and a tad disappointed no bag of jellies in the glove box, like Mazzy had. Scott and Virgil got off early and so...

Australia here we come! And we start with our hotel which is five minutes walk from Echo Point, see the photos. This is a spot coaches drive for hours to get to. It is spectacular need I say more? Even though we feel we may have had enough mountains, valleys and views. Our room does look over the mountains. Funny story; as we checked in a gentleman was complaining he had reserved a mountain view, but he had been given the car park. They moved him but charged him $100 to do so. Now as I write there is a mist descending over the mountains. Oh dear. Well it is always misty here, we all know that.

New Zealand was great, we thought we would pick the three things each we enjoyed most. The view from the apartment in Paihai across the Bay of Islands and the mountains seen from the shore of Lake Wanaka were chosen by Liz. I chose Quake City in Christchurch because of the human interest stories and Queenstown generally as a cool place.

That we were both of one mind about the glacier trip being the highlight will be no surprise.

And so we are now struggling with fatigue, stripped by air travel and Australian laws of our peanut butter and cornflakes. Eating a salad from a plastic bowl with a fork nicked from the tables downstairs. This place has no kitchen and there seems to be only fine dining around town. Calling all my yoghurt sorcerers, new country, new flavour and that very creamy and Greeky and super yummy new flavour is ... Affogato. (OMG).

Still, a plan has been made by Mappo for tomorrow and it looks quite good.