Hello lovely people!

We've just completed a fantastic 3 weeks in the south island. We've done things at a bit more of a leisurely pace than normal, which has been great, and still managed so see loads.

Our first stop was a lovely town on the northern coast called Nelson. From there we had access to the Abel Tasman National park. We took advantage of the nice weather and spent a day tramping (that's what they call walking/trekking over here!!) We were right trampers and found some lovely tramps to tramp on!! We travelled south from here towards Franz Josef glacier, stopping in a tiny place called Punakaiki along the way to admire its wild coast line and unusual 'pancake rocks'. Franz Josef is one of a few accessible glaciers in the south island so we threw on some crampons (spiky shoes) and hiked up the glacier. It was fantastic, a really cool experience. Around this area they get 7metres of rain a year so as expected the weather was horrendous. The blizzards hit when we got to Wanaka, a beautiful little town beside a lake, and I have officially never been so cold in my whole life!! Whilst walking through a park one day to admire the fab view of the lake we were hit by bitter Antarctic winds and only running into a supermarket saved us from freezing to death. I began to question the fact that it was actually Spring here, coming into Summer!

Next on the agenda was Milford Sound which is also on the west coast of the south island. It is a glacial fiord and is very well known for it's beautiful scenery and wildlife so it's an obvious stop for the thousands of tourists travelling around. We took a cruise for 2 hours and saw penguins taking their daily bath, dolphins swimming around the boat and seals sunning themselves on the rocks. Luckily the weather was fab so the scenery was spectacular.

Queenstown is recognised as the 'adventure' town in New Zealand where it's possible to do almost every adrenalin inducing activity under the sun. Unfortunately when we arrived the weather was awful so all we wanted to do was glare at the TV and get the hell out of there the next day! But things took a turn for the better on our second day there and the temps went from 4c to 25c, crazy! So we fell in love with Queenstown at that point and stayed a little longer than planned. While there, we went on a jet boat which was scary as hell but great fun. Our driver was mental and loved trying to throw us out of the boat with 360 degree spins...he didn't succeed though, although he nearly managed to throw our camera out of the boat at one stage!

Our favourite places in the south island were left until last. Lake Tekapo and the Banks Peninsula were definitely highlights for us. Lake Tekapo has the most amazing colour, it almost looks fake as if someone has painted it a blue/green colour. We have noticed that about a lot of scenery in NZ....it's like computer generated scenery from a movie-almost too perfect!! Banks Peninsula is home to a tiny place called Barry's Bay so this was definitely a place we had to visit especially when we had to drive through a town called Geraldine (Ger's mum's name!) to get there. It was by pure chance that we discovered Barry's Bay, a little slice of heaven (I love using that phrase now!) and we ended up spending two lovely days there soaking up the sun. Not too many tourists visit there and the hostels had a real homely feel to them so it was like having a mammy and daddy taking care of us!

We are now in Christchurch feeling very excited about flying to Sydney tomorrow! Our time in NZ has flown by and we've had a really great time here. Lots of good memories from such a beautiful country. We're on to serious stuff from here on in, work work work, ahhhhh!!!

Congrats to my cousin David who got married last week. Really wish we could have been there. The pics look great and sounds like ye all had a brilliant day.

Take care and love to you all.

Missing you lots,

Linda and Ger xxx