hi guys, sorry this postcard is so late (weve been in melbourne for last week) but took ages to put pics up etc...same old excuse! anyhoo... new zealand was absolutely amazing. we had some really nice ppl on our tour, including a large amount of Canadians! Guess where our next rtrip is planned! for me, the whole tour was about so many new experiences, mostly crazy ones. like ive already said i went bungy jumping and sky diving. To everyone out there I highly recommend sky diving. awesome experience. its not really all that scary and given it was a tandem, ie theres someone (who does all the work) strapped to your back and they decide when you jump from the plane, theres not these giant moments of hesitation like when i bungyd. (so so hard to make that jump). so yeh, once youre out you free fall for like 45 seconds but isnt that sickening feeling like youve lost your stomach , its actually quite enjoyable! then the parachute opens, you slow down and can admire the amazing view. as i did mine in nelson I had a massive national park with mountains, and then the shore line on the other side. beautuiful. didnt want it to end. another highlight was most certainly our heli hike on Fox Glacier. First time in a helicopter, quite fun. Flown up to the top of the glacier then had 2 hours of hiking, with really fun shoes that you attack clampons to (massive spikes). Tom and Erin (some of the canadians) were in awe of these contraptions that would be so useful in canadian winters. The formations in the ice were really cool. We saw loads of blue ice, as it was so compact, which was beautiful and even slid through this tunnel in the ice. Chilli had a whale of a time, as you can see in her picture.Back in her natural habitat, she was running off everywhere, leaping on phantom seals and penguins. she also camoflaged herself very well and played loads of tricks on us 'dissapearing'. Myles and I also tried hand gliding in Queenstown. very cool. great views of the snow capped mountains. We lasted quite a while in the air, about 15 minutes, very impressive. Oh and we both went snow boarding!!!! Myles has taken a real shine to it and wants to continue with it back home, Im coming round to the idea of trying it again. To be fair I wasnt actually too bad, I could move quite fast on it, change direction and stop. But falling over constantly at the beginning really took it out of me! Cli, one of the girls on our tour even got concussion from it as she kept banging her head when falling. Its a hard sport! One of my favourite places was in the north island, a town called Rotorua. I cant remember if Ive told you about this already, so skip this if i have! Its located on a very thin part of the earths crust, so in parts of the town, espcially in the Maori village, theres loads of steam rising from the ground and the little ponds of water bubble away. the gound is so hot from the rising steam that the vilaggers can cook on it! What was really spooky was that the woman showing us around predicted the Tsunami. Tour weeks before it, she was with another group of tourists, just like us, and she noticed that the thermal activity, what was going on with the water was very out of character. It was boiling way more than usual and swirling around. She then said there would be a Tsunami in Asia soon. they asked when and she said between two to three weeks from that day. It happened a fortnight later. Chilling. Later we saw a show with some of the villagers in and saw the guys perform the legendary Haka. Quite scary really. Lots of bulging eyes, hitting of chests, loud noises and tounges sticking out. See pics! While M went white water rafting in the afternoon (Im determined to do that in Cairns) I went with some others on a tour of the town. Saw the sulphur lake, very torquoise looking. Im sure you can spot the picture in the albulm. Oh yeh I forgot to mention, Rotorua smelt SO badly of rotton eggs!!! Due to the large amount of sulphur around. You kinda got used to it after a few days, but very odd. On our tour of Rotorua we also went to this hot spring which was gorgeous! Theer were two rivers that crossed each other. One was very cold, the other really hot, from the spring. So you could move around depending on what temperature you wanted to be in. Hmmm then with our OJ and chocolate biscuits, divine. Sorry this is so short for such an action packed two weeks, but I think ive given you the highlights. Id be here forever if I included everyhting. Anyway, pictures say a thousand words! Take a look at the New Zealand photo albulm! G xxx