We arrived in Christchurch late evening of the 22nd and went straight to sleep. We had an early pick up with our Kiwi bus the following morning. The first thing I thought about NZ was how much like England it is! Lots of rolling hills and green fields, made me a little home sick! The coastal scenery up to Kaikoura, our first stop, was beautiful. When we arrived we went to see seals down at the beach but were warned not to get too close. We had a stroll around town and sat on the cobble beach and in the evening whilst watching a film in the hostel attic, we spotted a whale out a sea!

The following day we made our way to Nelson where we met up with Jo and Katie for dinner. The next morning Brad & I went to Abel Tasman National Park. we took a water taxi up to one of the stunning beaches, stayed there for 2 hours before starting the 2hour walk down to to Barks Bay. It was hard work but we were rewarded when we finally arrived with cool waters to jump straight in to! We were collected by water taxi at 4pm then got our bus back to Nelson.

the next day we met our new driver Cheese who would be driving us for the next week al the way down to Queenstown. Our first stop for a picnic was at Nelson Lakes NP, at Lake Rotoiti. Some of the group went for a bush walk wilst me & katie chilled at the waters edge feeding ducks. Later that day we went jetboating on the Buller River which was great fun, very fast and very wet.

Sunday morning began with a walk at Cape Foulwind. We walked the coastal track for what seemed like forever untill we came across the seal colonies. We stopped briefly in greymouth to buy supplies for our fancy dress party later that evening at the poo pub in Lake Mahinapua. les, who is 83 & runs the pub was a greta host & cooked up a mean feast for us all before we got all dressed up in our binliners!

the following morning we stopped for breakfast at a very strange auckland hating, possum killing pig show freak house. we just wanted to eat but they wanted us to see the stupid show & the 'museum'. Then we made our way to Franz Josef where we stayed 2nights in order to do one of the many hikes on offer at the glacier.

we took the lazy option (are you beginning to see a theme here?!!) and did the awesome heli hike. We went up in a big chopper for a 10in flight over the glacier and then got dropped off at the highest accessible point on the ice. We did a mini hike for 2hrs and we loved every minute of it. We got to go in ice caves and climb over the ice and had a great time. When that sadly came to an end a chopper was sent up to collect us and we made the short journey back to the town below.

On our next part of the journey we stopped at LAke Matheson to capture the perfect reflection picture, have a look at out photos and tell us what you think! later that day we broke down! thankfully we had already stopped to buy our picnic lunch so just sat by the river there and ate lunch whilst the mechanic came out to rescue us! We staed in Lake Wanaka but unfortunately arrived to late to see much of the town. Great hotel though, had a pampering session with facepacks, cucumbers & a hot bath!

In the morning we stopped at Puzzling World which has a 2 tier outdoor maze and lots of other puzzles and illusions rooms. We spent a couple of hours here being kids and having fun before we continued our journey down to Queenstown. On arrival we stopped at the bungy site to watch some jumps (nowhere near as high as my jump!!)

We spent a long time in Queenstown, I got a cold so spent the first few days in bed but then that became our daily routine! We watched sports and movies in bed all day lng then went out in the evening. We did venture outside for one day however and played the worlds best crazy golf an dwen tup in the gondola to the top of the mountains. It had great views over the town & the lake up there.

Next was a bus back to Christchurch where we spent a few days taking in the city. Caught a T20 game (england embarrssed NZ!), took a look in the Cathedral and went to an art gallery. Went to some markets and found a fantastic Britsish Shop which sold all our faves form home. We went straight back to the hostel for a cup of tea and some chocolate hob nobs!!