Milford day was absolutely awesome!! We'd spent the last 2 days in Te Anau in the pouring rain, even resorting to creating our own monopoly 'bored' in Donde to keep us entertained! It was so cold one evening me and Sul went to find a cosey pub and sat down next to a log fire with a hot chocolate, looked up, and guess what was on tele....CORANATION STREET!! An incredible moment for both of us! They'd closed Milford Road because the weather was too dangerous, but thankfully the sun came out on Thursday and they let people down the road as long as you had chains for your tyres. So we hired some chains and dragged Donde over the snowy mountains towards Milford Sound. We passed a particularly fit lake, Lake Gunn, which was so clear and still that the reflection of the snowy mountains behind it was just the same as the mountains themselves! We got a cruise round the sound when we got there and saw loads of waterfalls as it had been raining so much, and on the way back dolphins started swimming along with our boat! In the afternoon we stopped at The Divide and me, Grant and Rick climbed 2 hours to the top of Key Summit. At the top it got really snowy, almost covering some of the warning signs. Luckily we made it down without walking into any snow-covered ponds (ahem, Richardson!) and we headed back to civilisation.

We arrived in Christchurch on Saturday and as it was sunny we had a barbeque at our campsite! Later on we went into the city centre but were a little disppointed with the chavtastic little strip of bars that we found so ended up in an old faithful Irish Pub. Much preferred the quaint little surfer town Kaikoura which we drove to the next day! Last stop in the South Island was Hanmer Springs, where we went in some sulphur pools, bit pongy but lots of fun!

Arriving back in the North Island yesterday we drove straight to the Tongariro National Park in hope to do the Tongariro Crossing but were told it was still too snowy for inexperienced hikers to go up there (do they not kow we've been to a GLACIER?!?!). So instead we walked to the Taranaki Falls then to Tama Lake. After we drove to Rotorua and treated ourslelves to a campsite with power and watched The Devil Wears Prada and City of Men (ahhh Rio!) in the campervan!

This morning we went ZORBING!!!! Me and Sul shared a zorb (a massive clear plastic, air cushioned ball) and they filled it with water then we rolled down a hill! We screamed all the way way down, ha!!! We're now back in Auckland ready drop Donde off and fly out to FIJIIIIIII on Friday. Not sure how we'll go on without our daily baked beans, and as for associating with the outside world, I'm actually a little scared!!!!!