Dear Kate and Martin Thank you for buying us the Queenstown luge for our wedding present. It was the most fun thing we did in Queenstown. So as you can probably guess from that opening paragraph we made it down to Queenstown near the south of the South Island, an epic journey from where we started up in Waipara covering two days of driving. There was lots to see on the way, all the normal beautiful scenery, plus many of the normal tourist attractions. For...

Dear Panda Thank you for buying us the Waipara Sleeper Train for our wedding gift. It was exactly like staying in Thomas the Tank Engine so it was lots of fun. Each of the 'rooms' at the hostel was a converted train carriage. They had their own little living area still with the original seats and a cute little bedroom at the back with the narrowest double bed you have seen. The side door could be slid open to reveal a little balcony and it was a short walk awa...

Dear Ross Thank you for buying us the Marlborough Food and Wine Festival tickets for our wedding gift; a classy and sophisticated outing in the heart of New Zealand's premier wine growing region where we got to taste some rather nice wines washed down with some local delicacies. A very classy affair… well as classy as New Zealanders can get… which basically means that they all put on their best clothes before they go out and get completely trashed. It cert...

Dear Chris Thank you for buying us the Interislander and a boat trip for our wedding present. It was very kind and generous of you. The Interislander is the ferry that travels from Wellington in the North Island to Picton in the South Island. It is known as the most beautiful ferry ride in the world as almost half of the journey is spent traversing the Marlborough Sounds, a series of inlets and islands overlooking a pictureperfect deep turquoise blue water,...

So after a month circumnavigating the North Island, we make a welcome return to Wellington in time for Waitangi weekend, a brief stop off before we hit the South Island. A welcome return because it coincided with us leaving Napier, a lovely place but it was time for us to go, for three key reasons: Firstly the hostel we were staying in was a bit weird. No one spoke to each other the whole time we were there. I know modern backpackers have a tendency to stare a...