When we touched down In Christchurch, we went to collect the next campervan - Bertha's cousin…! Small, but cosy, it was our home for just the two of us for the next 3 weeks. We headed off to Akaroa that afternoon and parked up at a glorious site with spectacular views over the cliff. After catching up with our sleep, we headed out for a meal - delicious soup, salmon and pasta for main!

Next on our plan was a visit to Lake Takapo. On route we would visit stunning South Island scenery/be bombarded by the flock of sheep on the road (!) and have huge problems with our engine overheating. We stopped 3 times as the van was smoking! This forced us to stay in Lake Takapo for another night as a new van was being driven to us. This wasn't a bad thing to be honest - we took a stroll around the stunning blue lake, visited the Church of the Good Shepherd (perfect for a snowy wedding!) and the statue of the sheep dog to honour the working dog. We read that this area is popular with Asian wedding photo shoots - and sure enough, we saw a bride and groom freezing by the mountains!

After a quick stop in Dunedin, and visiting the world's steepest street, Baldwin Street, (climbing to the top of course!) and venturing along the tunnel beach walk - where Ade walked to the edge of a cliff - we ended up in Te Anau, which was the gateway to the Milford Sound. Stunning mountains and waterfalls with glimpses of seals included. The sun stayed out all day. The coach tour there and back took us to view points and rivers - one that we drank from as the water was so pure - we even filled the water bottle up!

We then drove to Queenstown - beautiful waking up to a sparkling lake with misty mountains behind - we loved freedom camping!! We'd previously booked a cruise on the lake, which the sun shone for again! We tried the infamous 'Fergburger'… Holly's burger was bigger than her head!! Then Wanaka….

We visited the tourist info to book our Franz Joesef Glacier trip. Exciting stuff as we planned to take a chopper up to the ice, walk around and be flown down to land. We were really looking forward to the experience. We also planned for a little walk that day and decided to climb Mt. Iron. Ade, for some reason, seemed pretty intent on reaching the summit while Holly didn't mind just walking the loop track. We eventually reached the top… absolutely breath taking views; you could see the mountain ranges for miles and miles. We were admiring the ornate stone compass, which provided all the names for the mountains around us when Holly discovered that Ade had gone down on one knee…! A surprise proposal on top of a mountain, with the most stunning ring. Holly was really impressed with how Ade had planned everything out. And how her Mum and Dad could both keep the secret having been asked for their permission previously, she'll never know!

After the events in Wanaka, we moved to our next destination - Franz Josef. Because the lower part of the glacier shifted dramatically at this point, it was too unstable to walk it… so we treated ourselves to the helicopter tour. The views looking down onto the glacier beneath were incredible and the helicopter came to land on the ice halfway up the glacier. We are were pretty good at attaching the crampons onto our boots (after all Ade was a boy scout!) and were surprised at just how stable we were on the ice by using them. Trudging along the ice was fantastic fun and our guide was really informative about the glacier and the 'sciency' bits! We really enjoyed exploring the little caves and holes using the ropes and the steps made in the ice by the pick axe. The stunning blue ice in particular was very impressive while getting stuck in the crevasses made us laugh! Our ticket included free entry to the hot pools afterwards, which relaxed our tired muscles!

After a few days drive, we eventually reached Christchurch again and tried to explore what was left of the CBD after the 2011 earthquake. We didn't quite know what to expect, but we had no idea that the whole city centre would be shut off from the public - like a ghost town. Buildings were in ruins and paperwork just left on office desks. A lot of the buildings that still stood had to have scaffolding holding it upright. We truly hope that in the near future they raise enough funds to build the city up again as it really did look as though it were a beautiful city.

We then headed back to Brisbane for our final chance of making some money before we head home. Surprise surprise there was no work at Aussie Farmers and so after much job hunting and some extremely funny first days at numerous jobs, which included selling solar panels to disinterested residents and asking random strangers to give money to charity, we landed on our feet in a very laid back, simple job distributing flyers.

We always wanted to finish on a high, so when we booked our flights to Fiji, Honolulu and New York and confirmed our Queen Mary 2 cruise back to Southampton, we were thrilled… not the usual back packer way!

As we write this, it has been a year to the day that we left Heathrow for Hong Kong and we can honestly say it's been the biggest and best adventure! After all the long emails, skypes at God awful hours and other peoples speeding tickets, we really are looking forward to coming home and having Mum's good old Sunday roast dinner!

See you soon xxx