After our skydive at Lake Taupo we drove south over the desert road to New Zealand's capital Wellington. Spent a day wandering around the stunning Te Papa national museum containing among other things the iconic Britten racing motorcycle that a Kiwi built in his back yard and still an inspiration today. Went up the famous cable car and put our toe into its Friday night nightlife.

Took the ferry (an ex-P&O Portsmouth to Cherbourg job!) across to the south island. The crossing can be very rough but it was merely cloudy for us destroying some of the views cruising through Marlborough Sound. After calling in to the Montana winery we drove south in the gloom and stopped at a place called Kaikoura. Saw (and smelt!) the seals before south again the next day to Christchurch. Some areas of Christchurch were a bit dodgy but all was forgiven when we found some nice English sausages! Did a tour of the city centre with its funky tram that goes in and out of indoor shopping centres and went up a million steps on the church spire for the view. Got an even better view when we drove up the surrounding hills - all cities should have an overlooking hill we think!

Next day went to Akoroa on the Banks Peninsula. This was originally a french settlement and all the road names are still in french. The area is stunning despite one inlet being called "Flea Bay"! Afterwards we went on to Mount Cook (highest, biggest and tallest etc) which name in Maori is "Cloud Piercer" - its well named as all the other mountains and lakes was visible but the biggie was shrouded in cloud and rain. On our way south to Dunedin we past loads of loons peddling penny farthings from one side of the island to the other in the pissing rain. Despite getting late we called in to see the very spooky Moerwaki boulders - perfect spheres of limestone that occasionally drop out of the muddy cliffs - look more like alien eggs to us! Tried to check into a couple of hostels at just gone at 8.30pm (still in the rain) and most places had shut for the night - south island definately in 1950's time-warp anyone would think it was 2am from the look on some people's faces! Eventually a Polish backpacker let us into the hostel he was staying at.

Dunedin has the world's steepest street, a beautiful railway station, albatrosses and the Speight's brewery so we kept ourselves occpied for another day before heading on to Queenstown.

Just outside Queenstown was the first commercial bungy jump site - the 43m high Kawarua bridge. Kym was sensible so it was left as usual to me to behave like a 12 year old - even got to touch the water! Next day we went Jet boating at Skipper's canyon on the Shotover river - the 8.2 litre V8 boat can run in as little as an inch and half of water when up to speed at up to 55mph. Our driver managed to ground it on one of the spin turns and had to push it off the rocks - excellent fun. Also saw the old Pipeline bungy which is now defunct (put out of business by the one I used) and had fun hurling rocks of its wobbly 102m high bridge.

Next day went to the very beautiful Milford Sound and did a cruise - chose the right company as our boat only had 11 people on it including us and the crew!

Next day drove north up the bleak west coast. We were thinking about doing a heli-hike up to one of the glaciers but wasn't massively impressed with either the glaciers or the "informal and cosy" hikes with a million other people!

Drove a bit north again stopping off at the stunning Pancacke Rocks at Punakaki and stayed a couple of days in bohemian Nelson beofre getting ferry back to the north island. Stopped off in Wanagnui that holds an awesome motorcycle street race every Boxing Day (we were a bit early!) and past the volcanic cone of Mt Taranaki that was simlar enough to Mt Fuji to be used in the film The Last Samurai. We cannot comment as the top half was obscured by cloud - aargh!

Stopped off at the Waitomo caves (along with 5000 Korean tourists) to look at the truly wonderous glow worms inside the cave - these were so good the Koreans were reduced to whispering (!) showing how amazing they were!

Last but not least we stopped off at Hamilton for a look at a statue in tribute to Richard O'Brien who wrote Rocky Horror Show. Made in back to Auckland for a proper Friday night drinky-pooes!