Well we have reached New Zealand now and have been here for about a week and I already love it! It's such a beautiful country!! A wee bit colder than oz but the stunning scenery makes up for it. We flew into Christchurch and stayed there for about 3 days. we met up with a couple of friends that we had met on our whitsundays boat in Oz and went on the city tour tram and to the botanical gardens with them which were gorgeous. It was really good to see them again!Christchurch reminded me alot of England with it's cute cafes and great architecture. One of our evenings there we went to this amazing recreation of New Zealands history. It was an open air theatre with actors/actresses recreating the history of the Maori;s. It was done so well. We got to have a Maori hand massage, take a tram through a recreated little Maoria villahe and have an amazing three course meal cooked in the traditional maori way (underground). They also performed the haka for us and sang us maori songs! It was such a good production..I really enjoyed it! We also picked up a hire car here to get around new zealand as we wanted freedom to stop when we wanted and decide where to go.

Our first stop was wanaka which is famous for its gorgeous lake! The drive from Christchurch to to there was amazing! We were surrounded by massive hills, gorgeous lakes and the road was completely empty of cars. we were able to stop off for lunch at a stunning gorge where the colour of the water blew me away as it was just so blue as it comes down from the glacier! We also stopped off at lake Takepo whch was also stunning but very cold! In wanaka, we stayed in this really cute little hostel which overlooked the lake. We didn't have much time there but enjoyed every minute by going to puzzle world (a crazy place with a crazy maze and lots of rooms full of illusions), chilled by the lake, and went to a cinema where you could either sit in a beatle car or on comfy sofas and enjoy the world famous homemade cookies in the interval!

Our next stop was was the adrenaline junky town of Queenstown! We have had five days in Queenstown and I love it here! There is such a good atmopshere here with lots of backpackers and chilled out Kiwis. We have managed to pack so much into these past five days. We kicked it off quite tamely with the luge. We had to catch the gondola up to the top of the luge run where we got an beautiful view of queenstown across the lake. The luge was great fun! we went with a guy from our hostel too. The next day things got a little more scary with us doing the Nevis bungee. At 134m it is New Zealand's highest bungee! And none of us chicked out :). It was a wee bit scary but I loved it!! It was such a surreal feeling free falling for 8 seconds! We were all buzzing afterwards! we met our friend Lindsey, a friend from uni after the bungee..it was sooo good to see her!! We introduced her to New zealand with a fergburger...a huge massive ginourmous burger, very famous in New zealand! If you ever come here, it's a must! We didn't give her much time to recover from jet lag as the next day we were all up to do the canyon swing. The canyon swing is pretty similar to the bungee, but only 110m with free fall of 3 seconds and has a massive swing at the end in the middle of the canyon. I decided to jump backwards which was such good fun but alot scarier than going forwards! Lindsey was absolutely pretrified :) but she managed to do it. The next day was my birthday!! I definately celebrated in style by starting the day white water rafting, which was great fun but quite a bit tamer than I imagined it to be, which was followed by wine tasting...oh so very classy of us. The vineyards are beautiful and it was great fun trying all the different wines out and learning how its made. our tour guide was a dude too! The girls then cooked a gorgeous meal for me in the evening and then we finished off the day in 'minus 5' which is a bar made of ice. You hire out massive thick coats, boots, and gloves, and drink your drink out of a ice cup. You can only stay in there for half an hour though as its so cold!!

So we are all lovin New zealand so far!! Could totally imagine living here for a bit. We leave today for a place called te anau where we are going to some gloworm caves and to Milford sounds, which apparently is out of this world scenery! Cant wait!!

Hope you are all doing well! Thanks for all your emails and messages.

will be in touch again soon!

xxxxxxx