Hi sorry its been so long we have been really busy.

We arrived in Christchurch not knowing what to expect after the earthquake we knew the centre was closed so we booked into a hostel on the outskirts. It turned out to be an old jailhouse and was really cool I felt like I was on Bad girls we have bunkbeds in an original cell creepy.

We walked into the centre to have a look and the damage was obvious from really quickly although the centre of the quake was a little way out from where we were. A lot of the roads were still closed but we managed to walk to the centre and have a look at some of the damage. A lot of buildings had collapsed onto the road, there were huge cracks up the roads and pavements even some of the bridges had cracked. Each bridge over the river to the city had a big metal gate and security on it to stop people going in. Not all of the damage was behind this corden walking around we saw houses which had been evacuated and taped off. Every building had been inspected and given a certificate to say whether it was safe to use or not. The whole down was very quiet with very few people around, it was really eerie and we didnt feel comfortable taking pictures which is why there are none on here.

Luckily for us we left the next afternoon to start our Kiwi Experience.

We left Christchurch at 4pm and drove a few hours north to a town called Kaikoura which has whales, dolphins and seals living there. We didnt arrive til really late but went to the pub for a few drinks to meet people who we would be travelling with for the next few days. As we were leaving early the next day we wanted to make the most of being somewhere so got up at 5.50 to walk to a view point with a couple of other people. We went to watch the sunrise but it was to cloudy and we couldnt see very much typical.

We left at 8am having not seen much at all to travel to Picton which is the ferry port to the north island, we got a new driver and new people. We then headed for Nelson, which was very pretty and had a little bit more going on. We walked to the "centre of New Zealand" as our driver described it but it was only the surveyers centre (we werent really sure what this ment). It was a long walk up a big hill but was fun as there was a group of us.

There was beer tasting in the evening which put Ash in the mood so she headed out for a few drinks with some of the others while I had tea and bsicuits in our room with our other room mates.

The enxt morning we drove to Westport which is on the west coast. On the way we stopped at this freezing cold lake and some of the crazy people jumped in before realising there were eels living under the jetty. We didnt as it was too cold but very pretty.

I went horse trekking in the afternoon which was really good, we went through a lake and around the river it was really fun, also a good way to meet other people from our bus which was good.

Our hostel that night was nice, some people were going out on a three legged bar crawl but we were knackered so living the party lifestyle we are we stayed in doing washing. Very exciting.

The next morning we drove to Lake Mahinapua where we were having a fancy dress party!!!! So our driver kept stopping at random towns for us to buy stuff, the theme was Tight and Bright, which was rubbish and really hard. The only reason we had the party was because there would have been nothing else to do as the pub we stayed in was in the middle of nowhere.

It was quite a good night in the end although we had the oub to ourselves and most people had gone to bed by 11 so wasnt a wild night.

There was plenty of gossip the next morning after lots of bed hopping and hangovers, we didnt get involved in this though luckily.