After leaving Westport, we headed down the coast along what is known as one of the most beautiful and scenic coastal drives in the world. It really was stunning, and as I said before, even though it was raining it just made the rugged and raw coastline seem more majestic. We stopped for a short coastal walk along the way and saw a seal colony which was pretty cool! We also stopped at the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks, which are incredible eroded rock formations along t...

Heading over to Westport on the west coast wasn't too nice really, the weather wasn't on our side; it was very wet and windy! However, that didn't stop us going on a short walk in the Nelson Lakes national park on the way (luckily the weather had brightened up a bit on the way!) and some of the boys were even brave enough to jump in! I would have.... but it was soooooooooo cold outside, and they all swam like lightening to get out afterwards! It was a fun stop th...

So after a horribly early wake up call we headed down to the ferry terminal in Wellington and boarded, luckily it was a gorgeous blue-skied day, so the views from the 3.5 hour ferry crossing were stunning! It was a very rough journey though and I had to take some sea-sickness tablets, it crosses the notorious Cook Straight which is where the Pacific Ocean crashes in to the Tasman Sea. The end of the crossing was the most beautiful part, travelling through the Mar...

We arrived in Wellington at about 4pmish on 7th June and just did the usual supermarket rounds, nothing too interesting. My German friend Diddi and I cooked a delicious lasagne (thankyou Nanny for teaching me - I've never forgotten how and my friend wanted the recipe!). After that we just chilled for a bit, then headed for a night out on the town, which was eventful to say the least! It was a great night because it was the last night that our North Island group w...

About three hours south of Taupo is a little out-in-the-sticks lodge called River Valley. We were just here overnight as we were meant to go white water rafting this morning. Unfortunately the river was over 4 times higher than the safe cut-off point for rafting! It would have been fun, but it would have been too dangerous so we couldn't. So instead, we jumped in the shallow part of the river which was FREEZING, then jumped in the hot tub for an hour, which was a...