Hello! we are in New Zealand! and it is non stop here, so no time to stop and update the journal very often, and more importantly, there aren't that many internet places!? We stopped one night on the north island in Auckland friday before last and thought it was a very nice clean small city. turns out it is the biggest city in NZ and home to a quarter of the population! this country is rather deserted! in Auckland we took a city tour and jumped off at the sealife and antarctica centre where we saw penguins and sharks and sting rays being fed. then we jumped off again at the museum to see the maori exhibition, very cultural. also went up the sky tower (tallest building in the southern hemisphere) and saw someone pay to jump off it (they do wierd stuff like that here in NZ)! Saturday we flew to the south island and the second largest city in NZ, christchurch which we decided felt like a disney land attraction called "pretend england". it has a cathedral which must be atleast 50 years old (!) and looks like it could just be a fake frontage of a cathedral for effect. all the streets are named things like victoria or albert street, also seen 4 streets called durham street, and one brighton street. but again, for the 2nd largest city, it was dead! and the towns we have and are visting since then are only getting smaller! 2 nights in christchurch and then to kaikoura where we were meant to go whale watching the afternoon we got there but the dam whales swam away, so we had to stay for 3 nights to get the next bus and see them the next day. i thought they were worth the wait, but julie may disagree because she was sick 5 times on the boat! thats right, i still havent been sick and julie has 5 times! we also saw seals which were much cuter than the whales and far friendlier, they def made it worth it. because we were stuck in kaikoura for so long we spent the rest of our time watching 9 hours of lord of the rings, "when in rome..." ! the next bus that came along and we have joined tho are brilliant, no gap tour bores here! we have made good friends with 2 girls who are travelling together and the 4 of us share dorms now. there are also 3 welsh guys travelling together who are very funny and in total are 44 people on our bus plus our driver nancy (a man!) who is very entertaining and informative, not like the first one who told us that we would see shiraffes (a cross between a giraffe and sheep) which he said they bred for increased wool production. julie was v disapointed when she realised a few days later that he was lying! after kaikoura we stoped in nelson for one night where we walked up a hill to the official middle of NZ! oooo! then everyone went out drinking and i went to bed to be un-hungover for my skydive the next morning! thats right, i have jumped out of a plane and fallen throught the air for no apparent reason! i will show u all the dvd! it was the strangest feeling, im still trying to remember it all and im not sure if id describe it as fun, but it was def a worthwhile experience. if for no other reason than to say i am so much braver than julie who has so far chickened out, but there is still time! next stop was westport where julie went jet boating and i went for a horseride (i thought i had had enough of an adrenaline rush for one day). but most excitingly, the hostle at westport had a really good hair dryer and keely (girl we share with) has hair straighteners, so hair is all soft and straight now! last night we stopped in the middle of nowhere and nancy cooked for the whole bus and we had a fancy dress party. boys as girls and girls in bin liners. it was good fun until some inbred (nancy said so, not me!) locals came along and put a block of wood through out bus window and egged it. they also trashed the hostel kitchen and julie and i lost our pate! very upsetting for us, and all involved. so thismorning we were all in mini buses coming down to franz joseph where tomoro we are climbing a glacier and tues morning julie is meant to be doing a skydive, but she doesnt seem convinced yet. the country is beautiful, i think u'd like it mother, parts of it look like the lake district would if the sun ever came out there. or is that what u like about the lake district mother, the rain? and nancy has made us stop and do lots of walks around lakes and woods even tho its freezing, so much like when we go to the lake district! hope everyone is well. natalie, i am thinking of you and im there in spirit, love you lots. update u all again when we next reach a town large enough to have electricity!