Good Morning readers,

I am currently in the town of Franz Josef, (near the glacier but unable to see it) sat in an internet bus, which is exactly as the name implies, a bus in which the internet can be used. The bus is stationary I might add.

The first thing that must be said is that I have important news, readers may wish at this point to seat themselves and prepare for feelings of faintness. On Wednesday 1st November at approximately 5pm I jumped out of a plane at 13,000 feet, attached to a man named Tomas.

Now if all readers have picked themselves up off the floor and are once again reading, you will be glad to know that, obviously, I survived the experience and would recommend that all people do it, it's like nothing else in the world. The strangest thing is the moment at which the person you're strapped to is sitting on the edge of the plane and you are dangling outside the open door with nothing holding you up apart from the harness, then before you know it you're outside the plane and the world is spread out 13,000 feet below you. You have the most amazing 360 degree view and it feels a little like you've been plunged into freezing water as you're spinning in mid air. It's not for the faint-hearted, but it is incredible!

Unfortunately it is once again raining after a few days of gorgeous weather, but I know that summer is on the way so I'm not too bothered. It seems that I may once again have given the impression that I'm not enjoying myself and this is not at all the case, the only problem I'm having is filling nine weeks alone. I wouldn't say for a moment that I regret coming alone because I don't, I think it was the best decision I ever made, but when you don't have a constant companion it's hard to take full advantage of a lot that New Zealand has to offer, like the hikes for example. Also there are a lot of places that I could stay for longer, but I don't know whether I like them or not until I've visited them so it's hard to plan ahead to any great degree. Well enough of the difficulties of time management and on to the events of my South Island adventure so far.

I have now travelled on the stray bus with four different drivers, the first two had the fairly normal names of Jared and James, but since then I have travelled with Spanky and am now with Catwalk. Don't ask me how they came to have these names because I have no idea! The South Island of New Zealand is much bigger than the North, but has about half the population of the North Island. It is in all honesty mostly sheep. The weather in the south is much nicer (normally) though. As regards Lord of the Rings I can at this moment see the mountains where they filmed the lighting of the beacons in the second film and have passed a number of other locations all over the country although I can't remember the specifics.

I have been on the South island since Wednesday and for the first two nights we stayed at Old Macdonalds Farm (I kid you not) which is actually a working farm that doubles as a campground and backpackers. It was fairly nice there, though facilities were limited, but the main disadvantage of Old Mac's was that Peacocks, Chickens and Ducks were wandering about free, you can imagine how much I enjoyed this experience. In fact I took the opportunity to sunbathe on a bench for a while and at one point I heard a quacking noise, only to open my eyes and discover that the entire bird population of the farm had descended near our hut and I was completely surrounded (take a moment to mentally picture me in this situaution, yes that is pretty much how it was).

I'm now on the West coast where there are even fewer people and those that do live here have a character all their own, there's nothing like getting to know the locals. The night before last we stayed in Barrytown where the grand total of the population is 40 (no really) that was an experience to say the least! I now have to get off the internet as my time is running out so I'll end the entry here by saying Happy Birthday Mark! Hope everyone enjoys the firework display that will no doubt be as fun as it is every year!

Bye for now

Love

Kate

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