Our skydives were booked for the afternoon so we checked into our new hostel, which had a nice big fire to relax in front of, and twiddled our thumbs trying not to be nervous at the thought of leaping out of a plane and hurtling through the air on an 85 second freefall. We were extremely lucky as well that we had a champion limbo-er on our bus - enter Dan who won a 2-4-1 skydive the night before in the bar, and as he had already done one up in the North Island ...

Waking up with my first hangover in New Zealand (trying to stop drinking whilst here has proven difficult) was a painful experience as we had to be up early and onto the bus. The Kiwi Experience likes to show you as much of New Zealand as possible and today was no exception. We pulled into the Bushman Centre, a place where Bambi was a terrorist. Deer were introduced to New Zealand by settlers and rapidly set about eating all the local plants and generally bei...

I'd booked my bus trip with the Kiwi Experience in April, pretty soon after Nina had told me she wasn't coming to NZ with me, and did it all in a bit of a 'crap I'm travelling on my own' state of panic. However once booked and paid for I was pretty happy that I wouldn't have to worry about getting from place to place. That is, until someone said to me 'Oh yeah Kiwi Experience, that's a real party bus and everyone just sleeps with each other', reigniting my fear...

So Christchurch, or chch as a lot of the locals seem to call it on posters, shop fronts and the like, was my first port of call in New Zealand, land of the Kiwi, Maoris and the All Blacks. Flying in from Melbourne was an impressive sight, over the mountains rising from the patchwork of green on the island, it took my breath away and I may have squeaked with excitement, worrying the woman sat next to me somewhat. Arriving in Christchurch was a slightly differen...

The day of Nina's departure saw me, bags in hand, getting on the train at 9am to visit Marshall station. I was to spend the remainder of my time in Australia with the wonderful Gabs, take a deep breath, my Grandad Fuller's cousin, so my second cousin once removed. I think. She picked me up at the station and drove me to the brilliantly named Gingerbread cottage. No word of a lie, it looked like something out of Hans Christian Andersen as well, replete with woo...