it's official: New Zealand is completely awesome.

We arrived in Christchurch on Tuesday after a long journey from Adelaide to Sydney, then Sydney to Christchurch. We arrived late, so cleverly, I had arranged for someone to pick us up and take us to the Thomas Hotel. It was a nice little place, and we slept well (but not enough) and got up for breakfast the next morning. Christchurch is lovely and we had a stonking breakfast before doing a bit of shopping and then picking up our van.

We picked up 'the icebreaker' and headed out into the Canterbury Plains to Lake Tekapo. It was a lovely drive through the mountains and we finally got to the lake at about 9pm. We parked up and sorted out our bed (which is extremely comfortable) and slept by the lake. our view the next morning was spectacular: turquoise lake, purple and pink lupins and soaring mountains topped with snow. We went for a trek up Mount John up to the observatory (where Howie found out lots of things about the stars etc - ie. very geeky things) and then down along the lake. After lunch we then got back on the open road to Mount Cook.

It was glorious weather on the journey out and we got lots of lovely views of the Alps, but when we woke up on Friday, dark clouds had settled over the mountains and the walk we had intended to do was just impossible. Never perturbed, we quickly changed our plans, and drove out to Queenstown a day early; and what luck that we did.

Queenstown is beautiful and seems to be a town that has everything. There is so much to do here, it's impossible to be bored. Today, the weather is glorious, so we trekked up the Tiki track to the top of the gondola overlooking the lake, and there we partook in some luge-ing. The luge track was great - we had one go down the 'scenic' route and then down the advanced route. Howie 'let me' have a headstart down the advanced route, but then tried to overtake me, so I cut him up on a corner and won (hoorah). We then trekked back down the rather tricky walking track and got back to the town. We have another night here before hitting the open road again and toting on down to Te Anau, but we pass back through here just before Christmas, just in time for our Christmas presents... As presents to each other we have booked in with AJ Hackett to do a bungy jump on Christmas Eve. Argh! Getting rather anxious at the thought of it, but also can't wait.

Next stop: Te Anau.