Travelling to Franz Josef was a quick 2 hour journey. We checked into Rainforest Retreat and grabbed a bite to eat before getting all out kit on to go Glacier Hiking. We had a helicopter ride up onto the glacier and quickly popped our cramp-ons on. We were on the glacier for a good 3 hours trekking around through ice caves and corridors and into crevasses! It was incredible :) In the evening we went out for a few drinks. I have chosen to stay here for a few extr...

We arrived into Westport at about 1700 on Tuesday. The hostel was pretty cosy and had an awesome kitchen and we were made to feel at home! In the evening we ventured down to the beach to catch the last of the sunset and to have a bonfire and casual drinks. In the morning we got up and went for a walk along the coast. When we got to the beach at the end we saw a seal colony! It was pretty cool to see them in the wild! We then stopped at the 'pancake rocks' for som...

Today we left Wellington for Piction which is in the South Island. We caught the ferry in the morning and it took 3 hours roughly to do the crossing. Once we got towards the South Island we were travelling between islands and mountains before hitting the main south land. It was breathtaking sailing on such blue beautiful waters. From the ferry we drove down to Kaiteriteri via Nelson and a town called Richmond! :) The lodge was pretty nice here.. We went for a wo...

On Thursday we arrived into Wellington. Most of us had a reasonably early night then got up on Friday to explore the city. It's really windy due to the shape of the island at this point giving it the name 'Windy Wellington'. On Friday we all headed out into town for a bar crawl. There was a solid group of 20 of us and we surprisingly managed to stick together.. The night started with us dancing in the street to some crazy African music which was awesome.. We stay...

Today we left Taupo and made the journey to River Valley. We made several stops on the way... First was into the Whakapapa (wh is pronounced f) national park where we stopped off to see the waterfall and pools where Gollum found the ring in Lord of the Rings. Then we went for a walk down to a waterfall for a picnic lunch then hit Mr Wangs for ice cream. In the evening we had our kiwi family meal; sausage and mash and got through a few bottles of wine before bed. ...