Woke up to a stinking, hot, sweaty room when somebody's alarm went off at 10am. I've felt better, but didn't feel too bad actuallly. I was looking forward to having a shower until we found there was no hot water. Pain in the backside. And it was really miserable weather this morning and cold.

Wahoo, I won first prize for the fancy dress. I got a t-shirt that says Paris, London, New York, Barrytown, Milan! Haha. Shame it's like an XL!

We made a stop at a really bizarre place called Pukakera. It's a museum type place in the middle of nowhere. It's mostly dedicated to how New Zealanders used to have to "control" the population of deer and later had to capture them for deer farms. All because some idiot introduced deer to the country back when it was discovered, and they ate everything in site. We watched an odd video about it all, then had a wander around the quirky place.

From there on, the weather cleared and it was really sunny. And the scenery was absolutely spectacular. There's huge forested mountains, snow capped mountains, and there's waterfalls popping out the mountains all over the place. The South Island scenery is absolutely beautiful. It's by far the most scenic country we've been to.

We arrived in Franz Josef at about 6pm and checked into our accommodation for the next 2 nights called the Rainforest Retreat Lodge. Nice place and only $26 (£13) a night. Me, Therese, Mel, Craig and Paolo got a 5-bed dorm to share again. We now call ourselves the family! Mel is from Essex, Paolo is from Italy and Craig is from Manchester.

Me and Therese nipped to the supermarket and bought a half chicken for $7 (£3.50), so not too bad, a fresh ciabatta loaf and some hummus for tomorrows sandwiches.
The chicken was lovely and we had some ciabatta with it plus finished our veg chilli we made last night. Lovely tea.

We were all shattered tonight and we've got a long day tomorrow, but we went across to the Monsoon Bar for one drink and to watch Mel and Conny try to win a 241 skydive. It was a stupid game called Peggy. Both of them were blind-folded, then somebody attached 3 pegs to each of them. They had to find the pegs in the quickest time. It wasn't even a funny game really. They didn't win anyway.

We all went back for a fairly early night, but just ended up chatting for half the night! We couldn't stop laughing either because Paolo sleeps like Dracula! We've been teaching Paolo the northern language. He's started using northern words and doesn't even realise it - it's hilarious. We've learnt a couple of words off Paolo to, like freakin, so we use them daily now.