Merry Christmas! It's Christmas Day here in New Zealand and the sun is shining. Wanaka is absolutely beautiful and an excellent place to rest and rewind after the hectic Christmas Eve we spent in Queenstown... Christmas Eve morning, we both woke up all of a flutter, because this was the day we would be getting our Christmas presents to each other... A bungy jump over the Kawarau River in Queenstown. It's a 43m drop from bridge to swirling river, which might not...

So after the long, arduous trek into the Fjordland of NZ, we're back in Queenstown with our tails between our legs. The Milford Sound weather well and truly chewed us up and spat us back out. After spending a couple of days in Te Anau chasing glowworms, avoiding rain showers and sampling the (excellent) venison pies, we headed out on the Milford Road to Milford Sound, reckoned by Sir Ian McKellen (as if one needed any other reccommendation) that it was one of th...

We're here in Te Anau, the most southerly point of our NZ trip and it is cooollllddd. Not as cold as England at the moment, I'll warrant, but it's still chilly. We drove here from Queenstown yesterday, through some more fantastic mountain scenery, by some lakes, stopping at Kingston for some photo opportunities and on to the plains before getting to Te Anau. We're spitting distance from Milford Sound here so it's all fjords and forested mountains. Rather spectacu...

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 the...

When Animals Attack. The best bit of a visit to the zoo? Naturally, when your other half gets attacked by the animals. In the space of an afternoon, Howie managed to befriend a wallaby, get stalked by an emu and have his beard cleaned by an amorous parrot. Seriously. The day had already got off to a questionable start, because - for various reasons - by the time we got to the zoo, Howie was already hungry and we were barely talking to each other. Fortunately, H...