Hey blog watchers! Hope you're all well and eagerly awaiting another travel blog! We sadly leave New Zealand tomorrow so here's what we've been up to for the last week or so here.

Spent a very relaxing afternoon and evening in a beautiful little town called Wanaka. Definitely our favourite place in New Zealand, it is a quiet little town with a few nice restaurants and cafes, which rests on Lake Wanaka with a snow capped mountain range as the backdrop. You will probably see from the pictures why we liked it so much and the weather was beautiful which mad e a relaxing lay by the lake with our books complulsory!

Next morning we were off to Queenstown, sad to leave Wanaka but our schedule demanded that we move on. Arriving in Queesntown we found it to be much like Wanaka with a lake and similar scenery but much busier. Lots of shops, more restaurants and bars and most importantly FERGBURGER! This seemed to be the staple diet of most backpackers and was recommended by our driver so we thought it would be rude to give it a miss. The risque menu offered every kind of burger you could ever hope for including some rather dubious options like thew Bun Laden, Sweet Bambi, Cockadoodle oink and more besides. it did turn out to be be the best burger we had ever tasted but unlike our fellow travellers we chose not to have three plus a day to save the budget and the waist!

Queenstown is a beautiful place so we decided to take the cable car to the top of the mountain to make the most of the views over Lake Wakatipu. The views were simply breathtaking and we spent a long time just in awe of them and watching a paraglider swooping over the mountain.

We spent 5 days in Queenstown which was great as we had been non-stop on the road since Auckland. We also hired a car with some friends and drove to Milford to take the boat out on Milford Sound which is apparently not a Sound it's a Fiord, but I am not entirely sure of the difference. Either way the views were stunning. Mountains rose high out of deep oceans and waterfalls fell hundreds of feet down sheer rock faces, it was amazing! We also saw seals and a penguin which made our day!

On leaving Queenstown we hired camper vans with Scott and Katie for five days. The camper vans themselves were a great treat but the places that we visited were absolutelybrilliant.It was noce for a while to be governors of our own itinerary (although Jon took most responsibility for this given that he couldn't drive - see earlier blog about misplaced driving license!). Some of the places we went to could not have been reached int he Big Green Kiwi Bus and toilet breaks on tihs trip were kept to a minimum!! So here's what we did over the five days.......

Our first stop was Mount Cook National Park. Mount Cook is the highest mountain in Australasia which at its highest reaches 3754 metres! Its Maori name is Aoraki which means 'Cloud Piercer' and when we arrived we realised why. After taking more photos than a Japanese tourist and doing one of the recommende walks we left to make a head start on the next days driving, opting to camp between Lake Tekapo and Lake Alexandrina. Although this was not a powered site and so we froze most of the night, the remoteness, lack of company and views over the lake were worth it! What a view to wake up to, it was great!! I had a middle of the night text from Kerry and phone call to Uni to find that I had been awarded a Distinction for my Masters - woooooooooooooooooooooooohhoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!! You can imagine how much sleep I got that night!!!!

Next day we headed to Kaikoura and found ourselves a powered site for the next two nights. That afternoon we decided to take a fishing trip. Kaikoura means eat crayfish in Maori and is renowned for good fishing. it didn't take us long to see why. We had the most brilliant afternoon just the four of us on a boat called 'Molly D'. After a slight mishap with a rope and our propeller we were underway. On the way out to see we saw a seal colony and then we stopped to drop our lines, which had been down no more than 15 seconds before we had got a bite!! Very excited we reeled in our catch to find that Jon had caught a shark, which we put back and I had caught a soldier fish - the big orange ones in the pictures. Between us we caught about 12 soldier fish, three sharks and Katie caught a very impressive looking blue cod! Since cray fishing had apparently not been successful that day the skipper kindly gave us two from his freezer.

Needless to say after three days of eating fish we nearly turned into one! Having said that there was a great sense of satisfaction gained from catching, seeing filetted and cooking our own dinner - not to mention how tasty it was!! The crayfish which we ate the second night was especially amazing! Our last night in kaikoura everyone kindly chipped in for a bottled of Champagne to celebrate my masters result and Jon made a lovely card so that was a nice treat and lots of fun!

After Kaikoura we headed to a French village on a volcanic peninsular called Akaroa. On the way I had to make a stop in Christchurch for some emergency dental treatment for an abcess that had made itself painfully apparent over the last 24 hours, but never mind! Akaroa was beautiful and the views of it's little harbour were lovely, especially from where we stopped for coffee on our way back to Christchurch the next morning - see pictures!

We dropped the campers back off in Christchurch and are here for two nights (tonight being our last) before we fly to America! We are really sad to leave New Zealand behind and vow it is somewhere we will return. Having said that our disappointment is eased by excitement of the next and last leg of our journey.

Time certainly does fly when you're having fun and whilst we are seriously getting excited about seeing everyone at home, were not impressed to realise that that will be in less than four weeks! It is strange to think that it is almost christmas since it is 25 degrees in Christchuirch today and definite sunbathing weather. We have had a lovely afternoon in the park here having a picnic which we shared witht he ducks! What is also strange is that we fly out of Auckland at 8pm on the 22nd November and arrive in Los Angeles at 10am on the 22nd November so will in effect gain a whole day.

After 8 weeks of non stop bing on the move and our longest stay in one place being 5 nights we are looking forward to chilling for the first 5 days in America and the last 10 after our road trip with the Swedes, which I am sure will be lots of fun!

Ok so thats about it, waffle waffle, blah blah, over and out!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx