Big country

As promised, here I am in Queenstown. What can I tell you about the south island after only a couple of days here? Well, it's certainly beautiful, it's huge scenery, so far it's warm and it's more varied than I was expecting.
The journey over from the north island is only about 2 1/2 hours, and the last hour is spent slowly cruising through tree covered hills in bright blue water - this is in quite a large car ferry remember! Apparently whales and dolphins (whales and dolphins, yeah) are quite often seen in the sounds, but they must have been on holiday when I was coming through. From leaving the ferry, you are almost immediately in the Marlborough wine region, which is dry, hot and sunny. The rolling hills are covered in straw coloured grass, wafting gently in the hot breeze. It was certainly the hottest I have been since arriving in NZ and so there was not much stopping done, the cooling breeze from whipping along on the bike was far too pleasant! The petrol pump man (yes they still have them here) at a garage I stooped at was obviously bored, because he told me that he had just measured the tarmac temperature at 51 deg C - that's mighty warm.
Gradually the land becomes greener until the flat agricultural land around Christchurch surrounds you. I met a fellow motorcyclist on the ferry who has offered me a place to stay in Christchurch, plus a trip to his local boozer and a blast with the local biking club. Friendly people over here you know.
My first night was spent at Lake Tekapo, which has obscenely blue water. I mean the water is actually blue - it's full of minerals which give it the colour. The lake is also surrounded by hills and mountains, with no sign of civilisation to be seen. It's a gorgeous spot. It was windy getting there though and I took quite a battering up the pass on the way . . . .
The scenery just gets more and more spectacular to the point where I will not even attempt to describe it, I'm going to try to get some piccies posted up instead. If there are none, at least you'll know I tried.
Ok, I've got to go and investigate the bungy options, catch you all later.