We left Franz Josef after only 1 night; I enjoyed my trip up the glacier but that is all there is to do and there is no point staying there any longer there and headed up the coast on our way back to Christchurch. This stretch of the journey had a sense of Déjà vu as we had been on a lot of this route while in the campervan.If I'm honest, it is probably the worst part of New Zealand to consider going to twice! The whole of the west coast is fairly inhospitable and there isn't a huge amount there. As we were in this part of the world, we had decided that we would take the train across the mountains into Christchurch. There is a famous train journey that runs across this route called the Tranzalpine which runs from Greymouth to Christchurch over a similar route to Arthurs pass. (www.tranzalpine.co.nz) We arrived in Greymouth and checked into our hostel, we thought it was quite and quickly realised that there was only us, and a group of 3 or 4 girls in the whole place. It had only just re-opened after a winter break so they weren't fully up to speed. In particular, the heating was still taking its time and the whole place was frozen.We quickly decided to head out for the evening and try and see what the town had to offer..... and truth be told, there wasn't a lot. It was lashing down with rain and there as barely a soul to be seen around town.We found the nearest pub though and had a nice few pints of Monteiths beer to pass the evening.(As I said before,Greymouth is the home of Monteiths beer, and it's the best pint in NZ)

We got the train the next morning and it's a fantastic journey across the country, and certainly a lot more relaxing than steering a campervan across the icy roads. There is nothing special about the train itself, it's a standard commuter train, although the middle carriage is open to the elements so that you can take pictures of the scenery, and it is well worth taking pictures. It's a really stunning journey particularly at this time of year when the whole area is covered in snow and looking completely untouched. We were quite lucky with the train as there was a lot of snow during the last few days and a lot of roads had been closed in the area. One of the most obvious sights that we saw was when we were in Arthurs pass, which we had only been there 10 days before, and now it had about 6inches of snow covering everything. A lot of fun was had by everyone who jumped out and had impromptu snowball fights and photos. We arrived in Christchurch that evening and headed for our hostel for the night. We had stayed there before on our first run stop at Christchurch and it is one of my favourite hostels from our trip. The hostel is built in a former jail and is called the Jailhouse. (www.jail.co.nz) unsurprisingly, the layout of a jail lends itself to being a hostel quite well. There are lots of different sized rooms which are all well specced, but the funniest thing is when you shut the doors they make a metallic clanging noise just like a jail which is really weird, but because it's such a nice place you soon forget about its former use.

In all honesty, we had probably left ourselves with too much time in Christchurch as there isn't an awful lot to do. Although it was nice to just relax a little and take our time seeing the sights. It's often said that Christchurch is the most English of all the towns in NZ and this does feel true. The heart of the city is built around Christchurch Cathedral which overlooks a town square. The cathedral is very nice, but is much like a lot of cathedrals that we have seen. There are some nice touches though to integrate Maori culture into the church. There are weaved mats on the walls as you would find in a marae, and there is a Maori version of the Our Father carved into the wall. They also had a plaque at the entrance which has stones/bricks sent from other cathedrals around the world which was a bit odd but interesting.Next to the cathedral is a large sculpture built for the millennium called The Chalice, although it looks a bit more like a flower vase to my mind. It seems to suffer from the same curse as most other millennium projects in that people either hate it or love it. I liked it, particularly when you look at it in juxtaposition with the cathedral.

As I said, we had plenty of time in Christchurch so we took our time doing some simple stuff. One of the coolest was a trip to a shop called The Bone Dude (www.thebonedude.co.nz) This is an artist's studio where you can carve your own traditional Maori pendant out of bone. This was a lot of fun, and it's quite an impressive setup, particularly as the bloke who runs it only had 1 arm. Me and Emma both made carvings, but carved them for each other which was a nice change. If anyone has ever done this, then the smell of bone as you cut through it is very weird. We also FINALLY got to see a kiwi bird.There is a small wildlife exhibition/aquarium in the centre of town which has a kiwi exhibit. As they are nocturnal animals, they have set up in a darkened room to recreate the natural environment for the kiwi and you are only allowed in every 5 minutes to have a look. You can't take photos obviously and have to stay really quiet. Once you get in, you take a few minutes to adjust to the dark and then you eventually see a kiwi in the dark. They are easily one of the cutest and oddest animals that I have ever seen. It was a great relief to finally get to see one after our 6 weeks in NZ and made for a fitting end to our time in the land of the long white cloud.

The next stop is a complete change, and a chance to really kick back and relax on the tropical Cook Islands