Left Kaikoura and headed to sunny Nelson where we were meeting Bill and Leah for the weekend. Took a drive via Blenheim and Picton. Stopped off at Blenheim for lunch, tried to find a nice little cafe but not a lot there so ended up in Pizza Hut - DOH! Drove through Picton, a small harbour town, very pretty. Then our drive got very interesting, windy roads real high up on the mountainside, incredible views! Jim looked like a rally driver on the roads! Finally arri...

Our car got us to Kaikoura - hurrah!! A good drive, plenty of windy roads and good views! Staying in a hostel called "The lazy shag," named after the local birds (the animal kind). Arrived on Monday night tired and hungry. Tried to go out for tea but EVERYTHING closes at around 8ish, ended up finding a little supermarket so Jim had a pie and Clare had soup! Next day we had our "Dolphin Encounter." Was an amazing day. Got taken out in our gorge...

Hello from New Zealand! Bit of a culture shock when we landed on Monday to only 10deg after being in 30deg! Arrived at Bill and Leahs house - they kindly put us up for the week in Christchurch. The first evening we met a couple of Bill and Leahs friends and went bowling, was good fun. Next day was laundry day - nothing exciting about that - except clean clothes which we were excited about!! Wednesday we finally made it into the city, had a look around cathederal ...

Our last blog from Oz - Blub. Took our last Greyhound trip from Townsville (crazy ole Townsville - see previous blog!) and headed for Cairns. Have a really nice hostel here! No ensuite though :( First night was Quiz night at the hostel - after a dissapointing first three rounds we eventually caught up to miss out on being last - phew! Headed into town with some guys we met at the hostel, had a few beers, then a few more then headed home. Lying in the next moring ...

Arrived in Townsville on Tuesday (we think!). Had a good hostel with an Ensuite bathroom which was very exciting! It even had soap in it!! Anyhow, on our first day we had a potter round the city. Quite an odd place - a big city but with a small town feel, quite olde worlde. For the two days we were there the town was completely dead, quite strange really. After pottering we went to another aqaurium. Had the most boring tour ever, we were told it was a to...