Hi everyone,

We have made it to NZ. Left Lizard Island on Wednesday and travelled down to Sydney. Stayed overnight in Sydney and then caught a Quantas flight to Christchurch Thursday morning. It was much more pleasent travelling in Business Class! We were all singing Quanta's praises until they cancelled our connecting flight from Christchurch to Queenstown! We had several options, one a 7 hour bus to Queenstown, two fly to Invercargill and then a 2 hour bus to Queenstown or stay overnight and catch a flight to Queenstown the next day! None of them seemed particularly appealing but we ended getting a flight to Invercargill (the furthest town south in the south island) and picking up our hire car early and driving ourselves to Queenstown!

It actually was a beautiful drive, the scenery was amazing, Mum and I wanted to stop every 10 minutes to take photos. We probably should have enforced that because Dad ended up getting a speeding ticket-opps!

Finally got to Queenstown at about 9pm. We are staying in the Diary which is a lovely little B&B with views of Lake Wakatipu and the mountians. Dumped the bags and then went to have something to eat at a little Italian, which had amazing food and beautiful wine. A bit of an adventurous first day but we survived!

Love Hayley x