After a big night out in Queenstown, getting up to catch the bus for 8am was not a particularly nice experience. Nevertheless I took the long drive as an opportunity to sleep as much as I could. The hostel in Christchurch, named the Jailhouse, is in fact the last remaining part of a jail, closed in the early 90s. It was a little weird staying there and definitely something different to the norm, but made a welcome change. We took a bus to Sumner, a nice area on ...

My last day in Queenstown, what did I do??....last Fergburger for lunch! That was a given. Luckily the weather was clear enough for us to finally do luging. We took a trip up the gondola, then up some chair lifts and took 6 rides on the luge. Basically luging is kind of like go-karting down a hill. It was great fun and of course the guys macho competitiveness came out and they raced round like maniacs! After freezing at the top we went to an Irish pub (Pog Mahon...

I had been somewhat concerned about whether I was ever going to see Milford Sound, particularly as I'd missed out on the Tongariro crossing and Franz Josef already, due to poor weather. This time, the trip had been cancelled all week due to a massive landslide, some of the rocks were over 200 tonnes! However, I got up at 7am and was pleasantly surprised that it was finally going ahead :-) The journey to the sound was around 4 hours on the coach, but the scenery ...

Just before leaving Wanaka we took a trip to "Puzzling World", which amused us for a little while, but wasn't as fun as I thought it would be. Then we made our way to Queenstown. We stopped off to watch a few people Bungy Jump, the others booked there's in for the week ahead. The scenery around Queenstown is stunning, with the Remarkables (a mountain range) set right by the town. First stop in Queenstown: Fergburger! So many people had told me to try it I had to...

After the disappointment of Franz Josef we headed to Wanaka. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Keighley and Brett had also just arrived there as well, so we met for a cuppa by the lake. They came to the hostel to cook and we spent a couple of hours in the bar downstairs. They had to leave for their campsite, so I stayed out with the rest of the people from the bus and watched as "bus wars" progressed, the kiwi bus (us) against the stray and magic buses. It ...