South Island first leg - Christ Church to Marlborough Sounds

So we landed in Christchurch on a quiet sunday. We had a wander round the ‘garden’ city and very pleasant it was too. Not unlike being back in blighty actually! We ended up stayed just a bit south in place Sumner - a great beach and some lovely scenery completed the day.

The next day was one of the longer travel days we have planned. We drove all the way from Sumner to Marlborough Sound in one day, taking in the awesome coast round where we checked world-class point breaks all the way up with no one on them! crazy. It was a real cloudy day so it was kinda best we did all the driving but we did get the feeling that we didn’t really see the coastal drive in its best light as a result. We had lunch in a great pub in Kaikoura about halfway.

We eventually arrived at Hopewell Backpackers about 7pm right up in Kenepuru Sound and received a great welcome from our hosts before settling into our lake side room.