Greetings from New Zealand!

So we have been here a week- already!! We had a couple of days in Christchurch which seems a pretty yet sleepy city! Went up the cathedral, had a ride on the tram and went to a free and interesting museum. Bumped into some girls we travelled with in Thailand too! Then we started the Magic Bus, first stop being Kaikoura just north a bit where we stayed for two nights and went whale watching (see video!) which was amazing (once I had got over the scariness and roughness on the boat!!). We saw three huge sperm whales diving down into the sea, some stunning scenery and hundreds of dolphins swimming with the boat. We went out in the evening to the small towns only busy pub which was an interesting evening with a touring BeeGees tribute act! :s The next day we went on a bit of a hike to a seal colony and got really close to them, even though they do smell quite a bit! We are travelling with four other girls at the minute- two English and two Swedish girls who are all lovely. It's nice to make friends after we left quite a lot in Australia. The next day we moved on to Nelson but didnt arrive until late afternoon so that was quite a long day on the bus, however us six got dropped off at a skywire place. Here we went up a mountain and then sat four in a row in 'flying' jackets, hats and goggles and zipped down this one mile long zip wire between two mountains at about 90kph!! Less scary than it looked, I actually really enjoyed it! The next day was another long bus day to somewhere iv forgotten the name of where we just stopped for the night in a very nice and cheap hostel (with a bath!!) before moving on to Franz Josef today. Franz Josef seems like a really stunning place, it is famous for the glaciers here and tomorrow morning we are going on a full day guided trek into the glaciers which I am really looking forward to but suspect will be very hard work!! Really like New Zealand, it is a stunning country- just very cold and not easy on the wallet with all these activities but nevermind!

Hope you are all well and enjoying the sunshine!! Think of us in the snow!

Love from Jemma (and Josie by proxy)

xxxxx