Hi everyone. Sorry for the length of time its taken me to update you all.

Its been the most action packed part of my trip so far. I spent 5 weeks travelling around this beautiful Country with Andy (my boyfriend). Tachnically it should have only been 4 weeks but we loved the place so much that we extended the campervan and carried on travelling. The weather was great and we did some really exciting things. Here are some of the highlights. Visiting volcanoes and natural hotsprings in the North island. Jumping out of a place over Mount cook at 12 thousand feet, thrill jet boating through giant canyons in queenstown, diving with dolphins, taking a helicopter out to see the whales and hiking up the massive Fox Glacier. As you can see we've been fairly busy. Its been the most amazing time. Andy is currently diving in Thailand (lucky guy) with the same crew I dived with. So its nice to chat and catch up with all the gossip. It was really sad to say goodbye to him as we had spent so much time together. (not sure how he coped!!!)

 The day after Andy left my parents arrived. It was great to see them and we had a bit of an emotional reunion. The also arrived at the same time as one of the National sports teams...cue lots of people doing the Haka as they came out. Not sure whether they were excited or scared. We had a really nice time exploring the South Island together and it was great to do a fewthings that Andy and I didn't try such as gold panning at an old mine. It was a poor effort for the Craikes, although mum did come out with the smallest piece of gold we've ever seen. Still it was better than the rest of us, so well done 'Pats'.

 Back on my own now and have finally found a machine where I can really download some pics. So take a look if you have time. My plan is to head back to Melbourne in a few days and then make my way across to Sydney to try and get a job. If not then i might head straight through to the West coast. Who knows? I never stick to my plans anyway!

Hope that you are all well and take care. Mand x