We are now happy campers! We took a ridiculously long shuttle bus that gave us the full tour of Christchurch and the surrounding areas until we reached our Jucy campervan office. We were shown our van and how it works. It is bright green and purple and is more spacious than we expected but seems huge to drive! As nice as Christchurch was, it was a little dull, after ten minutes of driving out of town, the landscape was more green and we started to get better views of the snow topped mountains rising up into the clouds. This is exactly how I imagined New Zealand to be.

After a quick stop to buy food and a cable to plug our iPods in, our first stop was in a town called Dunedin, the shuttle bus driver told us the name is a mix of Dundee and Edinburgh and is more Scottish than Scotland. But I read that Dunedin is the old Gaelic word for Edinburgh. It is the second largest town on the south island and is a big student hub. It took a lot longer for us to get here and it was freezing so we checked into a camp site, which was more expensive than we expected, and ha a drive around the town. It is quite big and has some nice looking buildings. Scottish influences can be seen around the town such as on the front of a bus it said, "bus out of service, it is having a wee rest". Very Scottish.
The plus side to the camp site is it has a kitchen, dining room and tv facilities that close at 10pm, so we had a break from the cold. Wooly socks are definitely on the next shopping list!

We cooked in the kitchen and enjoyed some hot drinks in the dining room until it shut and we were back out in the cold! We all cuddled up for warmth in the main bed and watched a film we found in the portable DVD player in the van. After this, Sally and I retired to our roof box bed. We were basically in a tent on the roof of the car. We were freezing, the bed was freezing to touch, the edges were all wet and it smelt of feet. But it was comfy enough, and top-to-tail, we just about had enough space as it is quite a skinny bed! We had to get our sleeping bags out to get in under the duvet to solve the cold and wet issue and then we weren't so bad!

We woke up pretty cold and even more wet. My sleeping bag zipper broke so I was just lying on the wet and Sally's entire side was soaking. As quickly as we could, we got out and headed inside for breakfast. The rain held off while we packed up the van and headed into town to buy socks and visit the tourist information. Eventually we hit the road. New Zealand roads are quite straight forward and well sign posted, but we still managed to go wrong! After a couple of u-turns and a big diversion, we made it to our destination of Curio bay, a bay on the most southerly part of New Zealand. It was very dramatic and pretty where the waves hit the rocks. The land used to be covered in rainforest which was flooded many times and is now fossilised, there is also some strange tagliatelle styled seaweed! We got to see two wild yellow eyed penguins which was great! It was pretty blustery and cold though! Then came the rain so we hid out back in the van and decided to move onto our next destination, Invercargill, about an hour away. This is the most southerly town in New Zealand. On the way, the rain was coming down pretty heavy when the windscreen wiper on the drivers side decided to break. I got out, fixed it, then carried on, only for it to break again 10 seconds later! I tried again, only for the same thing to happen so had to pull over again. We then did this again until we decided to wait for the rain to ease and find a pay phone outside a tiny shop to call the campervan office. Jade called to be told there was noting they could do as the team had gone home. As we were in the middle of nowhere and the rain seemed to be holding off we decided to carry on. It rained a little bit, so I just had to drive as long as I could, then pull in, get out and wipe it myself. Luckily, it didn't last too long! We reached Invercargill and found a camp site then went to a bar in town to meet Stephen, a guy who I used to work at LGI with. He is doing very well for himself, has travelled extensively and worked in Hong Kong, Australia and now New Zealand and has more travelling planned. He also bought us all a hot chocolate, which we were very grateful for! It was nice to see another familiar face and hear some of his hair-raising travelling tales.

We returned to our camp site, cooked, had a hot shower and went to bed. Sally and I slept in the main car which has a lot more space and is warmer and less wet! From now on we are going to do a night in each.

Our plan today is to try and get the windscreen wiper fixed, stock up on some food, as it apparently is more expensive where we are going, and then drive about 5 hours up to Milford Sound.

Amy. x