Far over the misty mountains cold.

We begin our third week with an uneventful bus journey up the west coast to Greymouth which is as nice as it sounds. I say uneventful. We do visit the sock museum on the way which is quite the treat. It's really just a sock shop that has a couple of walls covered in sock knitting machines. These are odd contraptions that I am pretty sure only make knitting socks more awkward. We watch a video of a woman using one and it takes her about ten minutes to do one line of stitches.

Eventually we reach the station only to find that there has been a cave in in a tunnel somewhere along the line so the first hour or so of our trans-alpine journey will be by coach. This is a journey that will take us over the middle of the great Southern Alps, home to oh so many mountains from my favorite film franchise. This far up the South Island they are not as grand as they are at the south, but it is still meant to be the most beautiful train ride in New Zealand. Luckily the closed section isn't through anything particularly exciting so we don't miss out on much. We stop at Arthur's Pass, the highest settlement in New Zealand, and switch to the train. It has huge windows the entire length of the coaches and an outdoor viewing carriage at the back. We travel east through the mountains.

The landscape around the line is dark. Out one side of the carriage Mount Misery and Mount Horrible are black against the sky. They have broken rocky tops and landslides carve paths of destruction down their faces through a dense gloomy forest.

As we progress the world grows lighter. The land is a palette of greys, browns and purples. Large worn hills roll by, small cottages occasionally secreted amidst patches of woodland at their feet. We see dusty grey mountains, sometimes more scree than anything else. Tiny craggy peaks roped with snow poke into view above and behind. Brown grasses which, apparently, covered sixty percent of New Zealand when the European settlers first arrived provide the main vegetation. Aberdeen Angus cattle fill the fields; they are steadily replacing the sheep that are so ubiquitous in New Zealand. It looks like home. It feels like home.

The driver announces that we're going to be going through a section involving a lot (a can't recall the exact number) of tunnels and viaducts. I rush to the outdoor coach. We cling to the edge of steep valleys and pass over icy blue streams (I will forgo describing the water yet again). Deep, pale green ravines stretch back from the line. We pass through rolling green hills with the occasional pointed peak, covered in a smattering of heavy mossy trees. Behind them the horizon is a series of points. Suddenly the hills turn the brightest of yellow. The native Broom thrives here and the land is lit with golden flowers.

The viewing coach is a warzone. Everyone wants the best photo. People run from one side to the other, frantically shoving others out of the way to get the prime spots. It is chaos and panic. In the midst of the fury I manage to capture some pretty decent views of this wonderful place.

Seriously though. The thick blanket of cloud makes it hard to take good photos but I manage a few. I battle my way to my seat through a carriage of warring Asians and realise I had it lucky in the viewing coach. We pass down from the hills and the endless green plains of the east coast stretch before us. Grey mountains are silhouetted behind on the pale golden field of the sky. A sea of white cloud clings to the base and tiny dark patches dot the yellow above.

Our first evening in Christchurch is eye opening to say the least. I'm not sure what I had expected but it wasn't what I found. When disasters happen, the hurricane in New Orleans, the boxing day tsunami, the earthquake in Christchurch, it is all we hear about for a few weeks. The news is saturated, we talk about it every day, we give money to help those in need. Then a while later it is But really it is not over at all. It is so easy to forget that the affected places cannot do the same, they cannot just go back to their lives. Their lives have changed forever. When a city like Christhurch is devastated as it was, it takes years and years before it can return to functioning in the way it used to. I had assumed that in the two years that have passed it would be relatively back to normal. It is not.

The heart of Christchurch is desolate. It is a collection of building sites. Patches of rubble, scaffolding and crumbling buildings abound. That night we walk around and barely see another person. It feels as though it has been abandoned long ago, half built, and time has taken its heavy toll. It is depressing to say the least and there is a feeling of intrusion, as if we are not meant to be there. We ask some locals in a supermarket where we can get a pizza nearby and we are assured that there isn't anywhere in town. This is the second biggest city in New Zealand, almost the size of Edinburgh and there are no takeaways in town. Eventually we find a bar and restaurant, thankfully full of people, that serves our needs. The pizza is delicious.

On our way back to the hostel we come across a haunting collection of white chairs glowing in the night. It is a memorial to the dead. Each chair is different and represents a specific person killed by the quake. I see a dentist's chair, a director's chair, office chairs and kitchen chairs. A stool. A cot.

The next day we walk into the city centre again and it seems a different place. Yes you can still see earthquake damage wherever you look, and yes it is still plain that it will be many years before the restoration is anywhere near done. But the sun is out, there are people walking around, and I notice everything that is being done to make the city liveable once more. The railings are decorated with floral designs and patterns that last night looked almost mocking but in the sun are bright and cheering. Spaces where buildings used to be are put to other uses. We see street art and we see huge oversized furniture. Mini golf courses and musical instruments made out of the wreckage. A shopping mall made from the shipping containers that line the streets and protect pedestrians from unstable buildings. It is a place of regeneration and rebirth, where creativity is the force driving the people.

We visit the museum, complete with a recreated street from the mid to late 1800's that reminds me of Beamish back home, and the botanic gardens where I get slightly too excited by a particularly large Gingko tree. It feels like summer has arrived. The bumblebees I see buzz past me are small now, no longer the new Queens of spring, freshly emerged, but the beginnings of their brood, exploring the world for the first time.

Unlike everywhere else I have been the buildings here remind me of home. Many of the remaining structures are the old buildings and they have a very English feel to them. Some could be straight from Oxford or Cambridge. Seeing tourists punting down the river (aptly named the Avon) only adds to the effect. Even these older buildings that stood successfully against the wrath of the earthquake did not escape it entirely unscathed. Stones are cracked and windows broken. The spire of the Cathedral is completely destroyed and the end of it is wide open. A yawning abyss of what used to be.

I get the impression that Christchurch would have been a place I would have loved. Picturesque and relaxed. I wish I had seen it before.

We travel north to Kaikora. None of the hostels have camp sites but we find one that is offering doubles for less than dorms so we jump at the chance for our own room. We walk around the headland and pass rock formations that are at once bizarre and amazing. They are jagged shards of glass entombed in stone. They form patterns and landscapes; peaks and hills, valleys and vales. Some appear almost to be great grey waves, frozen in time or somehow fossilised, destined never to crash to the sand. That afternoon it rains and we take a well deserved rest in our huge bed in front of The Two Towers. We nap through most of the Frodo and Sam sections. I can probably quote them all word for word anyway.

We travel through the rain and clouds to our final destination in the South Island; Abel-Tasmen National Park in the far north west. We set up our damp tent in the rain and pray for good weather. And good weather we get. In the morning we get a shuttle bus to the edge of the park then the water taxi takes us to its depths. A pod of bottlenose dolphins, at least fifty, swims alongside us. They leap and jump into the air, the young ones competing to see who can get the highest. The crew lie at the front of the catamaran, heads over the water and the braver of the dolphins swim directly beneath them, covering them in spray.

Abel-Tasmen is beautiful. It reminds me a lot of places I saw in Australia. It harks back to the Daintree Rainforest at the beginning of our travels. Verdant rainforest tumbling into crystal waters of green and blue, lines of dazzling golden sand forming the only boundary between the two.

Amy manages to stub her toe five minutes into the walk and pulls half the skin off the end. We wash all the blood off in the salt water and carry on our way. Our walk takes us along the edge of the sea for a few hours to a bay further down the coast where we will be picked up by the boat in the evening. It is a beautiful day and the electro-birds of New Zealand are out in force. We walk through turquoise lagoons and along steep emerald vales. Rivers of the purest gold flow beside us, as on Fraser Island stained with oils from the trees. Amy bravely limps along.

Our return trip sees us spend more time with the pod of dolphins. This time they are even more energetic, leaping what I would guess to be at least eight feet into the air. Some of them even show off with flips and spins. One passenger asks aloud whether we are watching them or they are watching us. I know what he means. India has named dolphins non-human persons, and made their capture is against the law, and for good reason too. Dolphins are known to have a complex social structure and communication skills. Each dolphin has a signature call (name?) and they have demonstrated the ability to recall calls of others last heard over twenty years ago. Their brains posses an enlarged neocortex, the brains area responsible for self-awareness and problem-solving. In the natural world there is a correlation between body size and bran size. Some animals of course do not fit and have larger brains, like the great apes, demonstrating their higher intelligence. Human brains are seven times larger than this ratio would predict, the reason we are as intelligent as we are. Dolphin brains are five times larger than it would predict, and are more complex and intricate than even our own. There is no reason that they couldn't bear almost as much intelligence as we do, perhaps that of a child. Unfortunately they lack useful things such as opposable thumbs that let us rule the world as we do

Our second day in Abel-Tasmen sees us on the beach. We start with a round of mini-golf, admirably demonstrating our lack of skill, and a few goes on the flying fox. Then we hire some stand up paddle boards. These are ALL the fun. It is essentially a surfboard that you stand on with a long oar that lets you propel yourself around. It sounds ridiculous. It looks ridiculous. We traverse the bay and brave the swells. Luckily it is calm day so it isn't too hard. I only fall in the water once but unfortunately I can't say the same for Amy. At one point she tries to ram into me and knock me over (revenge for me doing the same to her). She succeeds to ram into me but in doing so loses balance and once again I laugh as she is the one that ends up in the water.

That evening is our last on the South Island and we have very special guests. Henrik and Klara from Special K just arrived in South Island this morning and we have managed to arrange spending tonight together. We cook dinner in their camper van and trade stories of our travels over a crate (or two) of beer. They have managed to purchase a couple of guitars and sing us some of their songs. I am very impressed. We even write and record one of our own. The tune is beautiful, one of Henrik's that he doesn't yet have lyrics for. Unfortunately the song we write is about needing to pee and not making it to the toilet on time. We successfully ruined his nice melody for all of time. Once more we have to part, with further promises of visits to each others countries, and I again wish that we had more time.

The bus to the ferry takes us to a town called Nelson, we stop for a couple of hours so I take a walk along the river to the local botanic gardens. Then we return to the bus and are taken back through land we traversed but a few days ago. When we passed last it was raining and thick with cloud. I barely noticed the landscape. Today the sun is out and the air in clear. We pass through mountains whose sides are packed with trees. A vast forest the like of which I have rarely seen surround us. It looks bright and airy and it sweeps to the horizon over hill and vale.

I am in a bad mood. Three hours of not very good sleep has made me grumpy. Also I am aware of Christmas approaching and that I won't be at home for it. Or for New Year. These are things that I really wish I did not have to miss. I try not to think about it too much but sometimes it can't be helped. I use a combination of Laura Marling and then Chvrches to help out my mood. Good music helps so much, and I can't retain negative emotions for any length of time anyway, expecially not when surrounded by trees! Before long I am fine and filled with excitement for the North Island. For WETA Workshop, for Hobbiton, for Mordor.

The South Island has been like nothing I have ever experienced. It is a clear land of ice and water. Of mountains and valleys that dwarf their counterparts back home. Of dense jungle and wide plains. It holds beauty like nowhere else I know. It is wild and raw and new.

I cannot wait to see what the North holds, how it differs to this. It is a land of fire. Of volcanoes and geysers and scalding pools and streams. I am sure I will be just as wowed, I will be just as amazed and I will no doubt not want to leave. But every time I do not want to leave a place I of course do, and the next stop is just as amazing. There is always more beauty, or more adventure, just around the corner. It doesn't matter where you are. You just need to go and find it.