Hey everyone! We are writing to you from the sweet comfort of a rellie's house, who have been looking after us like never before! (Mentioned we liked flapjack the night that we arrived, only yo wake up to find a fresh batch having just come out the oven! Mentioned my top was ripped and it was fixed in seconds! There's no problem this family cannot solve!!) Since writing we have been victors (well, moral victors) in the pub quiz which I misinformed you of us probably losing. We came second due to Beth and Clare's INCREDIBLE (lack of) KNOWLEDGE. (Although having said that the one old chestnut that pops up in every quiz beth goes to was asked-which country has a flag consisting of only one colour-allowing her to contribute one answer! Yey!) We then celebrated our victory in style at a club called the Holy Cow-that certainly is one description of it, unique is another! Played some crazy golf-twas indeed CRAZY! Who needs sky diving when you can get a rush like that for only $7. Went to River Valley where a lot of Lord of the Rings was filmed and saw MOUNT DOOM!!!! At River Valley, our next stop, we managed to wangle ourselves a roast dinner, and recruit yet more complete strangers to our top trumps clan. Next day we went horse trekking. Clare got the Mercedes of the horse world, charlie got the Ford Fiesta and I got the humiliation of a Skoda in that it wouldn't stop eating, would than spontaneously break into a canter, and would stray up onto dangerous cliffs! However, Clare swapped with me and tamed the beast, before giving me back the reject and cantoring to the finish line on her stallion (while I struggled to make mine move)-excellent! At Wellington, we stayed at Jenny's (my mum's cousin's daughter! Is that even a relation? We're not sure!) Where we had quite an entertaining evening involving cats, bugs, sweating pizza delivery guys and car crashes. Needless to say we moved on swiftly and were soon at Brent and Rita's (Mum's cousins-yes, more!) who also live in Wellington. Whilst here, we've done a great deal of shopping-all cultural....obviously. Visited Nigel and Cheryl (friends of Charlie's) who fed us extremely well (on oysters, a challenge to say the least for three people who hate sea food!) Went out to experience Wellington at night in all its glory (where we were approached by a complete stranger who told us that he didnt want to see any of the dance moves we'd just unleashed on the dance floor, ever repeated again-and I think that about sums up our dancing!) Went to Te Papa (Wellington's very modern museum) where we ran into Jess Sanderson-very bizarre but very cool! So then went out that night with Jess, Julia and the Kiwi bus crew that had got into Wellington that day. Very funny evening. And then tomorrow we catch the ferry to the South Island where we begin the second leg of our exciting adventure. It's all fun and games here in Kiwi land. But untill next time, we're gonna make like a tree and leave! All our love Beth, Clare and Charlie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx