We have been driving around New Zealand for almost a week now and we are absolutely loving it. What a beautiful country.

We started off by heading to a city called Dunedin. It is known for its cafes and its proximity to a beautiful area called the Otago Peninsula. On our first day in the area we went on an amazing walk, although it also ended up being quite tough. We went all along a beautiful beach where LP said there was a chance of seeing penguins. As we were walking down to the beach we saw signs saying you were only really likely to see the penguins in the evening, and it was only lunchtime, so we weren't expecting to see anything. As soon as we got to the sand though, we spotted a penguin stood by the sea! It was wicked. We sat and watched him for a while before walking on. After a few minutes we saw something black up on the sand ahead. It took us a few seconds to realise it was a sea lion. He was quite a way off though and obviously spotted us because he moved back into the sea. As we got up to the point where we had seen him though we spotted him in the water. As we stood there he then came out of the sea and moved up the beach towards us. It was awesome. We kept thinking he's get scared and go back into the water but he kept coming closer and closer. I thought he was going to eat us so made us run away up into the dunes. There we found and hide and from there could see about ten other sea lions on the rocks below. It was amazing. After the hide we decided to climb up what looked like a manageable hill behind us. The hill turned out to be a mountain of sand (called Sandymount, funnily enough), and was really tough work. The views from the top were awesome though. The hills and mountains took so green and bouncy here that I swear if you cut them open there'd be cake inside.

Anyway, the next day our muscles were hurting so we decided to have an indoor day and headed to Dunedin's Cadbury factory. They make so many different bars here, and the factory was really cool, although no good for my diet! We were very disciplined although I did fight the kids on our tour for chocolate.

After that we drove to a very remote area called The Catlins. We had a campsite to ourselves that evening and the next day went on an amazing walk through a rain forest (they have loads here). We then drove through the area for five hours along a beautiful and deserted road, before settling in Te Anau for the night. This is on the west coast.

The day after that we went on a trip to beautiful Milford Sound. The drive up there was incredible. We went through amazing mountains, so incredible waterfalls and met a couple of kea, parrots that live in the snow. Milford Sound was awesome, and because it was raining there were hundreds of incredible waterfalls. IT was so windy though that at one point our boat nearly capsized and we couldn't get as far up the fiord as we should have done. It was still amazing though.

Then yesterday we drove to beautiful Queenstown. Dan booked his bungy and we had a wander around the town and had our Friday Starbucks. We had a lovely meal that evening in a cozy little cafe called VuDu.

This morning I went for an amazing run all along the lake here. Although it was cold it was sunny so I could see all the surrounding mountains really clearly. It was so picture-perfect it almost didn't seem real. When I got back we went off for Dan to do his bungy jump. I think I was more nervous watching than he was doing it. It looked extremely scary and I'm very proud of him for doing it.

Tomorrow is the first of our three days skiing and we're really looking forward to it. Talking of which it's now 10pm here and we've got an early start so I better wrap up now. I hope you're all well. Please stay in touch.

Big hugs,

Laura and Dan xxx