I left Christchurch about 5 days ago & started travelling the South Island. The first day we spent travelling to Kaikoura, a nice little town North of Christchurch. The activity options here were seal, whale & dolphin watching or you could swim with them if you wanted. I decided not to bother to do any of those activities, didnt exactly seem great fun. Spent most of the day in the pub, met a few locals & had a good time. We headed of to Abel Tasman the next day.

The trip took nearly all day, first we headed up to Picton & picked up more people who had just arrived off the ferry from the North Island. Then we travelled through Nelson, a really scenic town, but for some reason we didnt stop there, disappointing as it looked cool, but I'm sure I'll see it again. We eventually arrived in Abel Tasman, a National Park at about 7pm. Our accomadation was quite cool but the toilet facilties were a bit of a joke, a little prehistoric but thats all part of the experience. We were told a huge storm was coming, or as the locals would say "the weather is turning to custard, sweet as" but it never did in the end. Just had a few beers that night with the bus crew & 15 of us booked a sailing tour for the next day.

We were picked up at 9 bells & brought to the port & got going about 10am. The trip was cool, the weather turned a little rough, windy & torrential rain, but that just added to the fun, the boat was rocking all over the place, some people got soaked, well so did I, pretty cool, it was a good laugh. Got back from the sailing trip at 4pm, a bit burnt even though the sun had bearly been out but the reflection of the sun off the water can burn you quickly, plus I found out later that you burn twice as quick in New Zealand as you do in Australia. Cool day though.

The next day we headed off on the road towards Barrytown, the weather was really bad at this stage, torrential rain all day + it was brass monkeys. We went through a few scenic little towns & stopped for a few walks & eventually reached Barrytown about 6pm. It was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, basically a pub & a few houses. It was fancy dress night so we were all made to dress up as women. It was a good a laugh as everyone participated, think I looked the best though, so spent that night drinking away.

We left Barrytown at 1pm the next day, I was going to do Bone carving but decided against it, seemed a little pricey for what you were getting. We travelled through a few small towns & a bigger one called Greymouth. We reached Franz Josef (Fox Glacier) at 7pm. Our guide drove us up to the glacier lookout to take a few pictures, it looked cool. I decided to book a helihike trip for the next day, basically a helicopter ride & 2 hour hike. Just back now from that, it was brilliant, best thing I've done so far, really cool. I have some great photos but I'll wait to Christchurch to upload them as the internet is a little slow here.

Off to another little town tomorrow, cant remember the name but on Saturday we are heading to Queenstonn for Paddys weekend, should be some laugh down there as its meant to be the party capital of New Zealand. I think I'm going to stay in Queenstown for at least 4 days, chill out & enjoy the place. After that I will head further south to Milford Sound, Invercargill, Stewart Island, Dunedin etc..cant wait.