The next day we went to meet our new bus which was driven by Morrie. Our new group now had around 25 people, which mainly consisted of a few English, couple of Germans, a Danish Girl and half of Ireland! This was the start of what would become an amazing couple of weeks! Abel Tasman National Park is the smallest of New Zealand's national parks. The park is best known for its coastline of crescent-shaped bays, golden sand beaches, clear waters, little islands and...

The next day we boarded the bus to Picton. On route we stopped off at a reservoir where Bundy showed us some baby seal pups. They were so cute!!! Arriving in Picton meant that we would say bye to some people on our bus as they would be making their way to the North Island. When we arrived in Picton, the two of us went on a four hour walk to the snout at the end of one of the peninsulas where you can see the Queen Charlotte Sounds. The walk was pretty tiring, but ...

We were picked up at 8:00am by our new Stray Bus and met our driver Bundy who would be with us for the next few days. Bundy was a great driver, full of information and stories, but he did insist on calling me Triple B! The trip to Kaikoura was amazing and within a few hours we realised how beautiful New Zealand was. The scenery was spectacular and the pictures we took on route didn´t do any justice to what we were seeing. Kaikoura is a small town which in Maori...

We arrived in Christchurch after a painless flight from Melbourne and checked into our hostel. Christchurch is known as 'The Garden City' is the South Island's largest, and New Zealand's second largest city even though it only has a population of about 300,000. Our hostel was in the Cathedral Square which is the main focal point for the City. Although the Cathedral was impressive it was merely a shed compared to my beloved Lincoln Cathedral!! After a good nights ...

Having endured another overnight bus journey with another crazy Greyhound driver, we arrived in Sydney bright and early. We spent the day wandering around and doing some shopping. It wasn't as cold as we'd expected, but as we'd found in Brisbane, our summer wardrobe just wasn't enough anymore. In the afternoon we headed over to Balmain, to my mum's friend Maggie's house where we would be staying. Having done all our catching up with Maggie and her daughter Heathe...