Oops it's been a while since I've blogged. Apologies. Since we left National Park, we've been to Taupo, Rotorua and Tauranga and we're now in Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula. Taupo has a big lake and nice views of the volcanoes. There's pumice on the lake shore and very insistent ducks. Instantly it has shops. It was comforting to visit The Warehouse and Pak 'N' Save after a few days in the back of beyond! We saw the Huka Falls, which were a bit underwhel...

Here in NZ, it's easy to believe that only one film series has ever been made. I can't escape Lord Of The Rings. Every hostel we stay at, it's the only DVD anybody watches. I have tried to make sense of them but it just washes over me. At the moment you could also believe that the only song ever written is The Cave by Mumford and Sons. It's this year's Hey There Delilah, She Will Be Loved, Bad Day or You're Beautiful: an average but catchy ballad that gets so ov...

Well it's been over a week since I last blogged. That's not very good.We're now in Picton. The glacier walk in Franz Josef was good, very sunny and hot actually. I felt like I had been shrunk to the size of a Borrower and found myself in a massive freezer. It took a lot of time to get anywhere. We had lots of different nationalities in our group, including some Brazilians whose English wasn't great, so they had some trouble understanding what was going on! We did...

We're in Franz Josef, a town with only 4 shops - a book shop, a supermarket, a souvenir shop and a petrol station. The only reason people come here really is the glacier of the same name. I have convinced myself to join Simon on a half-day Glacier trek, which we are leaving for in about an hour. I'm a bit apprehensive about whether I have the fitness and how cold it will be up there. It's something I've never done before though, and this trip should be about doin...

What we've been up to lately: Last Friday we went from Queenstown to Dunedin. On Saturday night we checked out some of the night life, which was very lively. The main difference is that people go into a club and get straight on the dance floor, no one really hangs round awkwardly near the bar. Also we saw students skateboarding around town bare footed, which was weird. Sunday we met up with my cousins who I hadn't seen in about 8 years, which was really cool. We...