'Kerry. I hope your guide on the South Island will be Kerry. You'll looooove him!' We were all glued to Bani's lips. Bani had already been on the South Island with Adventure Tours and she couldn't stop talking about how fantastic and relaxed the trip on the South Island had been. After spending a week with MacGyver, our guide on the North Island, we all desperately longed for some relaxation. Bani continued in her thick, Indian accent:'Kerry is soooo much fun! Now Carola, he does use a lot of swear words when he speaks, but please promise me you'll try to ignore it'. Why she explicitly addressed me, I have no idea, but of course, I promised her I'd try to ignore Kerry's use of the f-word three times in every sentence - if Kerry was going to be our guide, of course.

The next morning, we all had to get up early, because the inter-island ferry that was going to transport us from Wellington on the North Island to Picton on the South Island, departed at 8.00 am and we had to be there about an hour before departure. Moan! Still half asleep, we said goodbye to the people that weren't going with us to the South Island. We said goodbye to MacGyver as well. Only Marianne, Martin, Fabian, Peter & Maria, Jack & Kirsten and Carl and Mark were left. A nice, small group. We went on the ferry and I basically played cards for 3,5 hours with Martin, Jack, Kirsten and Fabian until we reached Picton. In Picton, there was an Adventure Tours bus waiting for us - with a driver. And the driver introduced himself with a big smile as Kerry . Hooray! Kerry swore a lot when he tried to load my big, blue suitcase in the bus. I could only agree with him! ;-) When all our luggage was in the bus and everybody was on board, we drove off. 'You're so quiet!', Kerry shouted. I guess most of us were tired, but I was also impressed by the beautiful landscape on the South Island. Pretty amazing! We asked Kerry what the plan was, where we were going and how much time we had for everything. Kerry was stunned. 'You're on holiday, relax!', he said. We'd gotten so used to being drilled by MacGyver, that we'd forgotten what it was... We drove to a supermarket to buy lunch and Kerry didn't tell us when we'd to be back. 'Just take your time', he said. This really was a relaxed guy! Of course, I was the last one to return. I love American-sized supermarkets! We ate our lunches in the bus and drove to a vineyard where we had a wine tour. I don't like wine (they fine wines with milk here, so I can't even drink it) and I thought the wine cellars were way too cold. The wine tour included wine tasting, but according to Marianne, the wine wasn't very good. We drove on to Abel Tasman National Park. It rained when we arrived and the ‘exclusive campsite' we were going to stay at, according to my and Marianne's brochure, turned out to be er... not so exclusive. Marianne and I received the key of a hut - a very small hut, with one bunk bed in which you couldn't even sit up straight, because if you did, you'd hit your head against the ceiling. The toilets and showers were on the other side of the grass. Apart from the bunk bed and one light, there wasn't anything else in our hut. Our luggage nearly fit in it! We had dinner with the group in the communal, open kitchen (next to the showers and toilets). The food was okay, but I was not in the best of moods because of the weather and the crappy facilities. I went to bed early that night and I didn't sign up for the group walk the next day.

To be continued...