I’m supposed to be starting work again next week. How crap is that? It’s the second job since we arrived in New Zealand , but it will be the first one that I show up for. However, before all the hard work begins while I work my way to the top of the pile (not a hint of irony there) we have decided to take a little holiday up North. We’ve hired a camper van – posh camping - and are heading towards Abel Tasman National Park at the top of the South Island , staying at a lovely place called Kaiteriteri.

I was not too sure what to expect from the campervan experience, but Jackie has done the camping thing before and loved it. Of course I can rough it with the best of them as long as there’s terry robes and Molton Brown grooming products so I broke down the name, Kaiteriteri and reckon that I should be ok. Kai is a Japanese word for good, and teri is probably a shorthand way of saying terry-towelling, what the best bath robes are made from. Kaiteriteri must be good terry-towel so we should be ok.

We were not disappointed. The setting is truly lovely and since it is still a few weeks until Christmas, it’s nice and quiet too. We took a water taxi from the beach into the Abel Tasman National Park, armed with the essentials such as insect repellent, water, sun cream and of course peanut butter and jam butties (they taste so good). We were expecting to be eaten alive by the sandflies as their reputation as blood sucking fun spoiling little bastards reminded us of the Scottish midges or the Inland Revenue, but they were crap. They swarmed about our ankles for a couple of minutes as we covered ourselves in DDT or something equally lethal and they left. In Scotland , you’d hear them laughing at the futility …

After walking further the kind of distance that makes your fingers ache as you mark it out on the map, we arrived in good time at our pick up point to sit on the deserted beach and bask in our achievement and finish off the last of the jam and peanut butter butties. We didn’t need rocking to sleep that night, I can tell you. I can see why the Kiwis all hit the sack pretty early on …

After three days, it’s time to head on back to Christchurch . We covered most of the distance in one day, like on the way up, but stopped overnight in Hamner Springs, a spa town with hot springs less than two hours from Christchurch . It was great. It’s set up in the mountains, loads of fresh air and plenty of mountain biking and walking available for the restless and hot springs for the lazy. We are definitely going to go back there later in the year once the temperatures have dropped – it will be great with snow on the hills. There’s even some skiing to be done there.