We arrived on Sunday evening into Queenstown and managed to find our way to a holiday park, opting for a 3 for 2 deal on our accommodation which meant we would have 3 nights in Queenstown.

After a really long drive from Franz Josef that day, I was keen to get out of the van and stretch my legs so we headed from the holiday park into town. We discovered that we had arrived in the middle of the first Queenstown winterfestival which meant there were all kinds of things happening in town while we were there.

We had a wander around the town centre, seeing what we could in the dark, but immediately enjoying the buzzing party atmosphere the town exuded. We found our way to a bar in the centre with some deals on drinks and relaxed there for a while, having a few drinks and in the end decided to just have our dinner there too.

After a while, eventually tiring of the loud drunken English lot in the pub who were dancing like maniacs to the band playing, we went for another walk around the centre before meandering back to the van and settling down for the night.

The next day we had a late, lazy start and spent most of the day around the holiday park, sorting out laundry and relaxing after so much moving around over the past while. In the afternoon though, we headed into town and booked some activitied for the following day at the iSite, before heading to the legendary Fergburger for some food. My brother wouldn't stop raving about this place after his visit to Queenstown and we weren't let down, as we enjoyed our massive tasty burgers.

After eating, we had another wander around town, finally seeing Queenstown in the daylight and taking in the great view of the lake and the mountains surrounding the town.

We found a cool bar serving locally brewed beer with fire pits outside and sat listening to a guy playing some great music on a mobile upright piano outside the bar as we enjoyed our beer.

Knowing we had a lot on the next day, we didn't want a late night, and headed back to the holiday park via Cookie Time to get some hot cookies then read before bed.

On Tuesday we managed to get up at a decent time, and got dressed in all our warmest clothes before heading down to the information centre in town. Here, we were picked up by a shuttle bus and taken a few miles out of town through amazing golden canyons to the site of our first activity for the day, the Shotover Jet.

Having seen loads of videos of this jetboat in action, including my brother's video of his ride on it a few months earlier, we decided we had to try it. After getting kitted out with our waterproof jackets and lifejackets, we hopped into the big red boat docked at the riverbank, and held on.

The ride on the jetboat was amazing, as we shot off through the jagged, rocky canyons and wide, shallow curves of the Shotover river. We clung on to the heated handrail, whooping as our driver skimmed round corners inches from the rock faces and pulled 360 degree spins in the middle of the river in the amazing jetboat, designed to work in water only a few inches deep.

The boat ride seemed to go on for ages and we loved every minute speeding through the canyons surrounded by fantastic rugged highland scenery with rocky cliffs and hills covered in golden grass and the snow-dusted peaks of the mountains in the distance.

Eventually though, our ride was over and after getting back onto dry land, we caught the first shuttle back to town. By then it was lunchtime so we made our way down to the wharf area beside Lake Wakatipu and got some mediocre but cheap Thai food for lunch.

After our slightly disappointing lunch we made our way through town to the gondola station at the base of the hill behind our holiday park. Here, we caught the gondola which carried us up the incredibly steep hillside, past bungy ledges to the centre at the top.

From here, we took in the amazing panoramic views of the area around Queenstown, with the town strung along the lake stretched out below us, and the hills encircling it with the mountains in the distance.

After admiring the view we walked a bit further up the hill where we donned some big plastic helmets before joining the queue for our next bit of fun, the luge. After a quick instruction session once we reached the front of the queue, we were ready for our first run on the luges.

Sitting in our little plastic buggies, me with my knees miles out the side thanks to my height, we set off down the smooth concrete track by pulling back on our handlebars. We were amazed how quickly the luges gained speed (although I'm sure my weight helped me out somewhat) and how quickly you could go on them, as we sped round the corners, often tipping up onto one wheel, as we raced to the bottom of the track.

Once at the bottom of the track, laughing at how fun and how fast the luges were, we jumped back onto the chairlift before being whisked to the top of the hill for another run.

With two tracks to choose from, we opted for one more run on the 'scenic' track before trying the advanced track on our third run. All in all we had 6 runs on the luge, loving every second of it as we raced each other down the tracks, winding down the hill through tunnels and over bumps.

However, the most fun at the luge was probably checking out our photos which were taken automatically by cameras both on the luge track and on the chairlift. We made particular effort to pull funny poses and faces for the photos, and some of them were so good we decided we had to buy them.

After our fun on the luge we took the gondola back down the hill and made our way back to the van at the holiday park. We had some wine but then, quite tired out after a busy day, we both ended up falling asleep and napping for a while in the van. We made sure to get up in time for us to walk into town for the Mardi Gras parade planned for that night, however.

By the time we made our way back into town, the place was heaving. We made our way down to the wharf where a stage had been set up with bands playing, and a whole street had been closed off and was filled with food stalls. The atmosphere was great despite the cold, as everyone came out to enjoy the festivities.

We got some hot spiced apple juice and mulled wine and watched some of the bands, including the 'Queenstown Ukelele Orchestra' performing some impressive covers until the parade made its way into the square down at the wharf.

The parade consisted of loads of locals carrying home-made paper masks of all shapes and sizes on sticks above their heads, as they walked through the streets. Some of the masks were great, with some really creepy faces.

We watched the bands and the parade a bit more before deciding to find a bar, eventually opting for Cowboys which had some good deals on beer and seemed to be busy with locals. We sat and enjoyed a few beers there before deciding to try and get some food. Swayed by a voucher we had for free garlic bread, we opted for Winnies, a popular local pizza place which was heaving when we arrived. After waiting a bit for a table we eventually got our huge garlic loaf and a massive pizza and managed to finish the whole lot, thanks to our appetites built up during the day and the fact the food was really tasty.

After dinner it was pretty late so we headed back towards the holiday park, stopping to watch some hopeless, and probably drunk, skaters on the ice rink in the centre of town then making our way back to bed.

On Wednesday morning it was time to leave Queenstown. After our now-standard eggy breakfast, we nipped to the supermarket and got some food supplies, before making our way out of town and heading south. We drove along the side of Lake Wakatipu, the lake that Queenstown sits on, with the Remarkables on our left. At the end of the lake we continued south through farmland which got less and less hilly, before turning and heading west towards Te Anau.

As we approached Te Anau more mountains resolved themselves in front of us, the jagged peaks of the Fiordland National Park. Arriving in Te Anau itself we were treated to some amazing views of the beautiful long lake lying at the foot of the mountains, perfectly still in the sunshine.

We made a quick lunch here before carrying on, taking the road north along the side of the lake on our way towards Milford Sound.

The road to Milford was amazing. At first we passed through areas of golden grass tussocks such as the massive Eglinton Valley, ringed by huge mountain peaks but with a flat, grassy valley floor. Along this valley we stopped at the mirror lakes, clear blue oxbow lakes which reflect the mountains sitting opposite them in the valley.

From here the road climbed through the rainforest, eventually climbing into the rocky, towering peaks of the Fiordland, with incredible viewpoints along the way, of the snowy peaks and deep rainforest valleys.

Nearing the end of the road, we passed through the 1.2 km Homer Tunnel, roughly hewn straight through the mountains, spitting us out in a gigantic steep valley we had to wind down on a twisty alpine road, before eventually finding ourselves at the shore of Milford Sound.

We had arrived just beofore sunset, but we were able to admire the view of Mitre Peak and the surrounding mountains and cliff faces silhouetted in the last of the day's sun.

After that we checked in at the Milford Lodge holiday park which we had booked when in Queenstown. Because it was freezing cold, we spent most of the evening in the lounge at the park with a bottle of wine, reading, only taking a break to rustle up a quick dinner of pasta.

Evneutally it was time to return to the cold van but we had a surprisingly comfy sleep despite the cold.

In the morning we managed to get up and get our breakfast, before heading down to the terminal at the shore of the Sound to catch our cruise, which again we had booked whilst in Queenstown.

We opted for one of the smaller boats for our cruise but none were actually busy for the first cruise of the day, and there were only about 7 people on our boat. This was great as it meant we could move around anywhere on the boat during the cruise to get some great views.

The boat set off and made its way up the south side of the Sound (Not actually a sound but a fiord) crusing close to the towering, sheer cliff faces which were too big to really appreciate the scale of. As we made our way out towards the Tasman Sea we just stared around us in awe at the scale of the cliffs, and I kept trying to imagine the size of the glacier that would have carved out the massive valley, chewing its way through the mountains.

It was great to get up close to the sides of the fiord as we cruised, where we could see the trees clinging to the bare rock all the way up the cliff faces, growing quite large despite the lack of soil thanks to the high rainfall in the area. After about an hour we emerged from the fiord and could see up the coastline of the Fiordland, as well as back towards the well hidden entrance of Milford Sound itself.

Here, the boat turned around and made its way back into the fiord and along the north wall this time. On the way in we had to shelter inside the boat to avoid massive spray from the waves we were cutting through, but once inside the fiord things were quite calm again.

As we cruised back through the fiord, we were able to get up close to groups of seals basking on rocks and right under waterfalls plunging from hanging valleys hundreds of feet above the boat. Since the sun had climbed a bit since we set off, the south face of the fiord was now lit beautifully by the morning sun where it had been in shadow on our way out.

We loved standing out on deck just drinking in the scenery as we cruised back towards the terminal, returning just before midday. Once back on dry land, it was time to hit the road once again. This time Lucy had a shot at driving the Milford road as we experienced all the amazing scenery again in reverse.

This time we stopped off at The Chasm, where the Cleddau river has carved out a narrow ravine sculpted by swirling stones into incredible smooth rounded formations, and at mirror lakes again where we had an even better view of the mountains reflected in the pools.

Upon returning to Te Anau, we stopped at a bakery to grab some pies and cakes for a healthy lunch down by Lake Te Anau. Managing to find some free wifi, we were able to call our friend Makouri who we'd met in Fiji, and arranged to meet him that evening in Dunedin.

With our plans made, it was time to continue east on our coast-to-coast mission. The road took us through miles and miles of farmland and huge areas of golden grass tussocks, without much variation. With Lucy driving until it got dark, we reached Gore where I took over and drove us the rest of the way in the dark until we finally appraoched Dunedin.