The last week has been unreal.It seems that around every corner New Zealand offers something different.The van has been easier to live out of than we first thought. Once we got into the swing of things, and accustomed daily ritual of folding away our "living room" and folding out our "bedroom", we loved the fact that every night we could have a different 5 star view, for free.For the most part, that's what we have been doing, parking over night in car parks or beaches and paying into a swimming pool for a shower, or sneaking in to hostels to use theirs, every dollar counts, right?

Queenstown was where Greg had his first attempt at riding dirt bikes, and I have to say, he looked pretty good at it.I'll let him tell it:

"Scariest 2 hours of the trip so far for me…scarier than mountain biking the World's Most Dangerous Road.I started out the morning just jumping on a bike and receiving a 2 minute tutorial on what and what not to do.It sounded something like this: "It's exactly like a road bike, only you have to stand up the whole time and squeeze the tank between your knees (that's the exact opposite of how your ride a road bike).Going downhill just pop it in second gear and ski down the hill"…and off we went.I must say that I thought I got the hang of it pretty quick even attempting a few jumps on the motorcross track then we headed up a steep rocky hill to get a great view of the course we'd just been riding.Now going up was easy - down, not so much, and I've got the scraped elbows, bruised shins and broken clutch handle perch to prove it.All in all though I'd have to say that was the best Christmas present I'd ever received…thanx Jo!"

After all the adrenaline we chilled out with a pizza and a movie, if you haven't seen death at a funeral, go see it!

Then it was down to Milford sounds, where we were booked on a kayaking trip for the following day. Only a severe weather warning came in and after kayaking the rough seas of the Abel Tasman last week, we postponed it to the following day. Wise decision - the trip we were supposed to be on, had a couple of capsizes.Doesn't sound like fun to me! The next day we woke at 6am to the most beautiful, calm day.Being that there were only four other kayaks in our group, it was so quiet out on the water.Mitre peak and the surrounding mountains are just awe inspiring, and just when we couldn't picture a more perfect day, we were proved wrong.Suddenly a fin popped out of the water, and then another, until there was a school of about 20 of the world's largest bottlenose dolphins playing and jumping around the kayaks for half an hour. Our guide said that in 6 years of giving tours there he had never seen anything like it. Feeling very privileged we headed back to shore.

After a quick hike up Key Summit, to get one last look at the area, we pressed on. We drove the long drive back up to Queenstown and continued on towards Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, passing some of the bluest lakes we have ever seen.We did another hike through Hooker Valley to get a closer look at the snow capped mountains.Even the number of tourists could not kill the majestic views.That night, our view to fall asleep to, was the best yet.Mt Cook glowing with the last slither of sun and the rising moon's light, glistening on the lake, it called for another bottle of wine!From Mt Cook we went to Lake Tekapo, a quiet but scenic village.We spent the day on the beach complete with Coronas and the night at a star observatory gazing at stars.At 11pm, we headed up to the dark mountain of Mt John, where New Zealand's largest telescope is homed. After a quick lesson about the southern hemisphere's stars, we got a closer look through the telescopes at galaxies, planets and the moon.It was amazing to see them so clearly, it convinced us that we are not alone! We are now back to where we started, in Christchurch.Having had enough of the sand flies that seem to breed in our van, tomorrow we drop it off, fly to Auckland for a night before flying to Sydney. Another country, another adventure…