Well we are now well and truley settled in new zealand and it is awsome, the scenery is simply stunning, all around you and hugely diverse from waterfalls, to glaciers, to mountains and beaches. After our initial adaption to the costs of things we have also had to adapt to a new style of travel, in asia despite everything being cheap you can also just wonder around and something interesting will happen this is less so in new zealand (although we did stumble across a scottish street performer walking on broken glass and swollowing swords). In new zealand most the things worth doing (apart from the natural wonders) cost something and you also need to plan things a bit more, its not quite done so step by step. Bearing this in mind we decided to join up with a kiwi experience hop on hop off bus to tour new zealand and through this we have met a fairly diverse group of people but nearly all are aged between 18 and 25/26 and all are up for a laugh.

Once deciding that we wanted to do the kiwi bus we tried to book it only to find out that we couldnt leave on it for four days so we decided to hire a car and head down the south east coast to a student city called duneden for a few nights as kiwi doesnt stop there. The drive was stunning just a mainly one lane road considered the main 'freeway' of the south island and barely a car on it with endless fields and hills (and sheep) and along the way we stoped at a few natural sights the most impressive being the 'moreaki' boulders which are mysterious perfect spheres dotted all along this beach. Once arriving in duneden we didnt get round to booking accomadation planning on just sleeping in the car if we had to but we ended up going out and meeting a small group of students ended up drinking a fair bit and going back to sleep on their sofas (to the confusion of the their other flat mates at 7 o'clock the next morning). The next day we decided to 'see the sights' of duneden which included a fairly awsome brewery of the south islands main beer (called speights), a tour of the cadbury factory and a visit to the steepest road in the world.......couldnt be bothered to walk it so drove up, nearly rolled back down.

Then one more night of student fun and it was back to christchurch to join the big green kiwi experience bus, and since then the adventure has really started amongst seeing gentle and peaceful things like a wild seal colony and some kl cliffs and rock formations the main events have been about more over the top. These have included jetboating which is basically is a very very fast boat that can turn very sharply which means your heading straight for rocks and cliffs before being turned away at the last second and then doing some kl hand brake turn type spins, pretty cool but not worth doing again.

That was the first day of the tour and then the next night we were at the legendary poo pub.......a hotel in the middle of nowhere that is used exclusively for kiwi experience dress up parties and a steak feast, the owner is a legend called Les who somewhat resembles a dwarf, he is short with a chest length beard and is 83......he has been hosting these parties and cooking these feasts 330 nights a year for the last 16 years, his pub is decorated with crazy photos from previous parties the cielings are plastered with previous costumes and it was a great night. That day our bus had stopped in the biggest town on the west coast to let the passangers find supplies......which basically ment 60 plus people went in and raided a tiny little salvation army charity shop. The theme of the party was that the girls had to make costumes out of binbags and the men had to cross dress so it was chris' turn to dress up as a woman, but by this point im board of crossdressing and decided to come as a baby (a female baby), complete with bib and pink hat. The costumes all round were amazing and everyone had an awsome night (les saying its one of the best hes hosted in recent years).

Next morning we were on the road again (everyone with slightly sore heads) and we stopped at the bushman centre where they are famous for thier possum pies (possums are a massive pest in nz and eat through all their bush), and their bushman centre where you can learn about the nutcases that used to jump out of helicopters to catch deer just so we at home could eat venison and one unlucky person from the group also gets the chance to feed the centres resident (semi-)wild boar........this unlucky soul just happened to be chris........who somehow managed to be ridiculously calm and actually started to tease the pig despite all of us standing around the barrier telling him to just feed it and get out. It was seriously funny you could see that this pig half wanted to charge at chris and half just wanted the bread he was holding......chris survived.

After this we arrived at a small town called Franz Josef which is basically just the jump off point to go and explore the glaciers (i used to think these were just ice bergs but are actually is that has formed in a valley as the snow from the mountains slide down) nearby. So we all stayed there one night and had a fairly relaxing night just chilling out with everyone still recovering from the night before and the next day we went on a 6 hour walk on the glaciers which was stunning and we got to use ice axes and walk through some (very very narrow) ice caves made from blue ice which was incredible. Everyone returned to the hostel with very sore legs and while some went to the bar i decided for an early night as the next day at the fresh time of 5.30 i had to be awake for the most expensive five minutes of my life................thats right i was going to throw myself from a plane at 12,000 feet.........let me tell you it beats a cup of coffee to wake you up. A small group of 8 of us went to the airstrip and after some waiting around (the plane could only take two people at a time) so at around 8 i finally got to put my lucky charms in my shoes and go on my jump. It was a stunning and hugely surreal experience but not actually scary, this is generrally regarded one of the most stunning jump sites in the world and i got to see 2 glaciers, the two tallest mountains in nz, fields (sheep), towns, the sea, lakes covered in mist and rainforests all at the same time but because the floor was so far away it was not scary just really incredible and the feeling of freefall was interesting.

We are now in queenstown the adventure and backpacker capital of nz, so i've still got a few adventure things up my sleeve and keep you updated. We have now also shortened our time in nz and have changed our stopovers in australia into stays and will be spending 6 days in brisbane and 6 days in sydney visting newly made friends.......australia will be the third country that we will visit that we didnt expect to (after laos and cambodia).

p.s. i came second in the fancy dress.