So last night we loaded up the car and this morning we kissed Mother goodbye and set off on our five-week road trip around New Zealand :)

Nice day for it.

Before long we passed our first accident. I'm not sure what happened but the helicopter ambulance was sitting across the road so it can't have been good.

The first little country town we passed through was Ashburton, an hour south of Christchurch. There's not a lot to it really - just a good spot to hang out.

From Ashburton we started heading inland, past sheep farms and over rivers and surrounded by the typical awesome New Zealand scenery.

And of course we were held up by caravans, and surprisingly cyclists (there seems to be a lot more of them on the road than when I was last here).

Left is the small town of Geraldine, centre is an example of the stunning landscapes of the so-called "Mackenzie Country", and right is Mr. Mackenzie himself in another small town of Fairlie. In 1855, James Mackenzie became the first known white man to enter this part of the country. Mackenzie came to New Zealand as a Scottish immigrant seeking a better life. After leasing some land and spending some time working as a shepherd, Mackenzie used is newfound talents and knowledge to steal 1,000 sheep in the middle of the night from the Rhodes brothers - one of the wealthiest settler families in the province of Canterbury. With the help of his dog, Mackenzie herded the sheep back to his land. Some days later he was apprehended, but immediately escaped and went on the run. The manhunt spread across Canterbury, and Mackenzie was eventually captured in Lyttleton near Christchurch. Convicted of the theft, he was sentenced to five years of hard labour, but he was a troublesome inmate and escaped on several occasions hahaha! Bloody Scottish. Anyway, for is exploits, this region now bears his name.

A short while later we arrived at our destination, and right as we were heading to the local campsite I noticed the clutch felt weird. There was suddenly a lot of play in the pedal, the clutch would engage when the pedal was at a much shorter distance from the floor than normal, and the gearbox was struggling to engage reverse. Fuck. So I left Kristina to figure the tent out and rushed the car round to the local grease monkey. Given it was after 5pm he can't look at it until tomorrow morning. He did however spiel off a few theories which ranged from a quick, simple and cheap job, to a long, complicated and bloody expensive job. If it turns out to be the latter then given the time of year it may not even be possible for him to do the work here, in which case we and this road trip are really up shit creek. Anyway, I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

This is our destination for the day - the stunning Lake Tekapo, the second-largest of three roughly parallel lakes running north-south along the northern edge of the Mackenzie Basin. It covers an area of 83 square kilometres, and is about 700 metres above sea level. The weather was sunny when we first rocked up but by the time I got done with the mechanic the sky had clouded over and lake looked pretty drab, much like the mood I was in at the time.

All accommodation in the area is pretty full, and in fact the only space left for us to pitch our (huge) tent was round the back of a lodge with all the other late-comers who (like us) hadn't booked in advance. It looks like a mini Occupy Wall Street hehe. Occupy Tekapo.

After wandering into the town of Tekapo itself to find some dinner, we got a pretty awesome sunset on the way back.

Tomorrow we were going to be heading into Mt Cook National Park (Mt Cook being New Zealand's highest mountain) but that obviously won't be bloody happening now. Instead we'll just have to kick it here for a day, and figure out our next move once we know more from the mechanic. In Southeast Asia it was the floods that messed up our plans on the very first day, and now on the first day of our road trip it's the damn car! Could be worse I guess - we could've been the ones needing the helicopter ambulance.

We woke to a beautiful sunny morning on Lake Tekapo, and potentially the first of several without a car after its clutch crapped out on me when we arrived here yesterday. We'd already resigned ourselves to that fact.

But, we needn't have worried hehe. The local mechanic hadn't had a chance to look at the car before we went to see him this morning, and upon looking at it together I immediately noticed the clutch felt and behaved completely normal again - it had fixed itself overnight! Long story short it seems the hydraulic clutch fluid just needs changing, and due to the long hot drive yesterday the old (and now full-of-shit) fluid had caused the master clutch cylinder to temporary seize up (for those who are mechanically minded). A fluid change is a fairly quick and easy job but with all the tourists that break down at this time of year the mechanic simply couldn't squeeze it in, so I'll need to get it done elsewhere later.

So, we were back on the road again in our own car, and headed for the mountains.

This is Lake Pukaki, another huge and bloody nice body of turquoise water like Lake Tekapo as well as others in the area.

Before long we pulled into Mt Cook National Park, so far still with a functioning clutch. The national park covers some 700-square-kilometres, and contains 22 of the 27 New Zealand mountains over 3,050 metres in height. The highest is the mighty Mt Cook, the tallest peak in Australasia at 3,755m.

The park contains several trails that wind through this amazing landscape. We picked out one of the shorter ones, hoping to get a glimpse of Mt Cook through the cloud.

This is Kea Point, overlooking Muller Glacier below, and Mt Cook right in the centre and burried behind cloud - bugger. The Maori name for Mt Cook is Aoraki which aptly means "cloud piercer".

The Mt Cook region has always been the focus of climbing in New Zealand. It was first conquered on Christmas Day in 1884 after some earlier failed attempts, and the first chick made it up there in 1913. New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary first made it up there in 1948 before going on to be the first person to conquer Mt Everest.

From there we jumped back in the car and dirtied it up along this gravel road to the end of this massive valley.

Another small walk and climb later and we were overlooking the base of Tasman Glacier. The Tasman is unusual in that its final few kilometres are almost horizontal. In recent decades it has melted from the top down, exposing rocks and boulders and forming this lake. However, what you see here is only a couple metres thick, and what lies beneath is glacial ice about 200 metres deep. Further up the mountain the depth of the ice is about 600 metres! Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki were created in much the same way, when huge ice-age glaciers from the Mt Cook region began retreating some 14,000 years ago.

With that we called it a day and chilled out for bit back in Lake Tekapo, still with a working clutch. Tomorrow we're meeting up with the family on their way down to Queenstown where we'll all be for New Year's :)

At 3:30am this morning I had to empty my dick. On the way I noticed yesterday's cloud had cleared and the stars were incredibly bright (something Tekapo is renowned for). This is a 15-minute exposure - more than long enough to capture the star trails.

By morning the cloud was back again. This is the picturesque Church of the Good Shepherd - the absolute must-see on Lake Tekapo. This was built in 1935, and is a favourite for weddings given its postcard-perfect setting (on a nice clear sunny day that is). Fun fact of the day: my great-great-grandfather was a minister in this church :)

And now for the fun thought of the day.

Anyway, with that we hit the road, and met up with Mum and co. for a convoy down to Queenstown.

More of the never-ending stunning New Zealand scenery. It never gets old :)

A couple hours later we arrived at our accommodation for the next few nights - not bad, not bad ;) Mum won a $1,000 Air New Zealand voucher at the horse races earlier this the year which she used to book us this awesome joint for New Year's - hell yeah! How's that view?!

This is overlooking an arm of Lake Wakatipu - New Zealand's third-largest lake, and in the distance the awesome backdrop that is the Remarkables mountain range. Not a bad way to bring in the new year!