Hello! As you may have seen from the pictures we have had a couple of hetic weeks! Last time we wrote we were in Queenstown again, here we did the Shotover Jet, which is basically a jet that whizzes down a canyon doing 360 degree turns and splashing about. This was really good fun but only lasted 30 minutes, we could of stayed on all day, although we were pretty soaked once we got off. We then travelled to Fox Glacier and did a day hike onto the Glacier. The hike was fantastic, we walked through rainforest over streams and pass waterfalls up to the side of the glacier and the views as we went were spectacular. Once on the glacier we hiked quite a distance up the glacier past a number of crevasses and was amazing. We also visited the nearby Franz Josef Glacier which was also spectacular but in its own unique way. We didn't do a hike on this glacier but just walking up we passed numerous waterfalls and the views from the terminal of the glacier was really good. From the glaciers we travelled up the West Coast and spent a night in Greymouth. There is not much to do in Greymouth but we made good use of the Monteith's Brewery tour. It was a very good tour and after we got to taste all 6 of their beers! After the tasting session we then had an open bar for 20 minutes where we were allowed to help ourselves!!! We made good use of this and think the whole tour was a bargain at 10 dollars, which is under 4 pounds! Our next stop was Kaikoura where we went whale watching. It was a beautiful sunny day but that didn't mean the sea was smooth and a lot of people were sea sick and Ben spent most of his time trying not to be. However the tour was fantastic and we saw 6 whales in total, which is really good when the average is about 2! We also saw a few dolphins swimming by, but unfortunately the local pod of 2000 dolphins were too far away for us to go and see. Kaikoura is a beautiful town with snow capped mountains rolling into the sea and the peninsula is covered in seals, which we went to see the following day once Ben stopped feeling so green. We spent a couple of nights in Nelson, which is North of the South Island before we got a ferry from Picton over the capital on the North Island - Wellington. The weather hasn't been too great the last few days mainly raining but the temperature has increased into the high teens. We don't have much longer now in New Zealand so we are blitzing round the North Island doing all the main sights. Off to Lake Taupo next where we will spend a couple of days hopfully the weather will improve so we can actually get out and about. Keep the messages coming, it's really good to hear from you all. Lots of love Ben and Helen xxx