And so my 18 day stay in New Zealand is at an end. Tomorrow I depart at the horrifically early time of 6.35am on my Jetstar (the Oceanic equivalent of Easyjet) flight to Sydney, which is scheduled to take 3 hours 25 minutes. Given that Australia is 2 hours behind New Zealand I think I will be rather tired by tomorrow evening, so I hope my hostel dorm is not too loud. My last day here has been spent in the South Island's largest city Christchurch, which I visited...

The last overnight stop on my New Zealand tour was probably one of the most picturesque. Having driven back from Milford Sound to Queenstown (where we dropped tour host Craig off at the airport) we carried on for a further 2 hours until our arrival at Lake Ohau. Our hotel was in a very isolated spot on the shores of the lake, which was about 20km from the nearest main road. In the winter Ohau is a major ski resort, but with very little snow left on the slopes, th...

So here I am in Christchurch at the end of my New Zealand tour. I am about to go for a final meal with the group, but before that I will update you on my overnight trip to Milford Sound - New Zealand's most picturesque corner. It was a long drive from Queenstown round to Fiordland National Park. Geographically the places aren't that far apart, but there are no roads directly through the mountains. Initially the scenery was a bit bland, but once we took a right tu...

Hello from sunny Queenstown in the heart of New Zealand's Southern Alps. I am well and truely into Lord of the Rings country now. The scenery both here and on our 5.5 hour drive from Fox Glacier is phenomenal - its one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We had an early start on Tuesday and our first stop was nearby Lake Matheson, which is a famous New Zealand postcard view. When the water is calm the lake perfectly mirrors the reflections of New Zealand...

Hello again. I am safely back from the glacier walk, which took around 4 hours to complete, and am just taking advantage of some rare free time we have in between dinner and our visit to see some glow worms later tonight. I had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon despite the weather, which was cloudy with occassional outbreaks of drizzle. It was also pretty cold and windy out on the glacier, though not as cold as you would imagine from looking at the photos. It stay...