I've decided to be really sad and start with the sentence.....it was time to visit the land of the hobbits (No Mr. Barnes not the one you fantasise about) a.k.a New Zealand. The first few days in Auckland were spent recovering from the manic past few days as well as fitting in time to do a free tour of the city - which I must say was excellent as well as catching another England game at the hostel. Thankfully ben and myself got a deal when booking the room for the first night that included a free drink, free meal and best of all a an hour on the roof top sauna - which was brilliant with a good few of the city including the famous Auckland Skytower in sight. On our way from the airport to the hostel we got chatting to an English girl from London - Katie - who had made the same extensive plans as us of what to do and see in New Zealand - let's just say it didn't take long to find out what everybody wanted to see however we managed to recruit her in to our crew and soon had a campervan hired between us. First stop was Rotorua a.k.a. egg town (it smells of eggs due to the sulphur). Ironically we managed to break all the eggs we had just purchased as they hadn't been put away. The quick thinking crew used a towel to mop up the mess - this decision haunted us for the rest of the trip particularly Ben who discovered that washing an eggy towel in with your clothes just causes them to smell as well. Therefore the clothes needed another wash and well the eggy towel could never be freed of the smell, it was simply wrapped in a plastic bag and hid out of sight although it's smell haunted us on many occasions. Aside from the minor incident we visited Hell's gate given the name due to it's appearance and indulged in the natural spa available there after taking the hour walk to see the boiling water and mud pools. Taupo was the next port of call where we did a couple of interesting walks but the weather prevented us from doing the skydive on 3 occassions forcing us to head off and vowing to try again on the way back. Having heard there was expected bad weather to hit the North Island we set off at night on the 5hour drive with me benhind the wheel. After a couple of hours we noticed a police block up the road where we asked to pull over, the police officer asked me to speak into a device he had in his hand which after a few seconds the word failed appeard on the screen. He then asked me the mandatory question ¨have you been drinking?¨ which of course the reply was ¨no¨ i hadn't drunk for 3days. His next question was have you used any mouth wash recently (surely my breath couldn't be that bad) again i answered no. So he pulled out the blow device of which of course the reading came back as passed. I finally told him that i had recently had some tic tacs to which his response was they must be strong tic tacs. This was the interesting point of the long tiring journey where i was left as the only one awake for most of it. We arrived at Wellington at around 3am where we parked up in a public car park and went to sleep until 9am when we had to move the car. We spent a few days in Wellington exploring the city but hopped on the ferry to the South Island quickly as we heard it was the place to be. On the South Island we started in Malborough sounds with some more trekking and we finally paid to use a camp ground providing our van with electricity where we metsome hippie Australians in there 40's who kept us entertained with there stories and complaing of how long it had been since they had had any wacky backy. In the morning we decided to head out on another couple of walks, the first took us to a waterfall that just appeared out of no where in a forrest. The second we set off but after walking a kilometer along a road we realised it was going to take ages to get to the beginning of the actual trauil so i volunteered to run back and get the van. Once back at the van it didn't take me long to figure out we were stuck in the mud and had to get the owner to tow me out destroying the wonderfully kept lawn in the process - i left feeling slightly guilty however it wasn't me who parked half on the gravel half on the grass (Katie). After this we made our way down through Kaikoura where we took in the local wildlife of whales and sea lions. At one point at the sea lion colony i was walking with Ben and he was watching a sea lion about 10m on the rocky shore when i pointed out to him he may want to stop walking in that direction as there was a sea lion lieing about 2m away from him on the grass. It was then onto Christchurch which is a beautiful city (which is very much like an English town). Here we took in more of the world cup games at bars that were open until 9am, one in particular had a screen the size of a cinema in which to watch the football - brilliant. On our way to Queenstown we made a day visit to my great uncle jack, whilst i popped in to introduce myself Ben and Katie managed to lock themselves out of the van, having to call a lock smith to sort out the problem. It was a short but pleasent visit where my great uncle kept passing me stuff to take back with me i eventually had to decline to take anymore stuff as my backpack was getting decidely heavier. We were soon back on the road down to Queenstown. The journey to Queenstown was probably the most magnificent in New Zealand as we passed through snowy mountains with huge lakes with mist lieing over them. It really was amazing. In Queenstown however the sight seeing was swapped for activites, including skiing (twice in Ben's case) - Ben very kindly paid for my ski hire as a birthday present for me before leading me down the slopes with me wearing jeans (not a good idea). On our final journely down the slope Ben noticed a lump he could use as jump which he neagted and landed beautifully, i dutifully followed his lead however my landing was not so gracegul as i stacked it and ended up being covered in snow (ny this point it didnt'really bother me as i had already stacked it about 5times when Ben kept going down the steepest hills available). The following night was my actual birthday where the mandatory drinking session ensued for me to wake up in the van by myself the next day to confused wondering where the hell everyone was. I found out the next day when my colleagues returned that after returning to the van i had passed out and despite their efforts to wake me i was having none of it. They went back out met some local people and ended up staying at their house. The lads they met even took Ben skiing the next day. After recovereing from the drinking session a day later i booked myself up for the biggest bungy jump in New Zealand which includes a 134m of falling. I was third to go after watching the first 2 jump from the glass section in the bottom of the gondaler from which we jumped. The experience was amazing and despite some nervouness on the journey there when it came to it i was ready. The adrenalin rush is amazing and the falling sensation undescribable it was a great end to Queenstown. We made our way down to Milford sounds which was another amazing road trip. Again passing through ice and snow covered mountains but what makes it even more spectacular is the rain that pours down the mountain sides in mini waterfalls over the place. There is also a few hundred meter long tunnel that passes through one of the mountians that has dripping water, hardly any lighting and jagged rock walls rather than the usual smoothed ones found in most tunnels. Once we reached our destination in Milford sounds we discovered there was absolutely nothing to do except the walks (walks that you can't do in winter - great planning as usual) and a boat trip out in to the waters where glaciers used to stand. So we booked up for the boat trip the next day whilst spending the evening in a bar watching probably the greatest film ever made 'space balls' - a definite highlight of the trip. The boat trip the next day was beautiful as the millions of temporary waterfalls continued in the rain (milford sounds is the most rained on place in NZ) and you could see clearly the cuts through mountains where Glaciers had once stood. We also got to see a few more sea lions. Having visited the southern most point of our trip we turned North and headed up to Wanaka where more walking and more panoramic views followed. We were also rudely awoken one morning (at 7am) by a man telling us we couldn't park in the car park we were in over night telling us that if it was the police here instead of him we would have been fined. Deciding it was already 7am and the police hadn't spoke to us yet we rolled over and went back to sleep after he left as we could say that we just arrived that morning. We then headed to Fox Glacier for a day and franz Josef glacier the following where we took in the awesome sight of these massive ice blocks palced in valleys that could have easily been a place used for an indian jones film. Ben and Katie went walking on Franz Josef glacier an experience they really enjoyed but after my bungy jump i couldn't afford to do the walk as well so i did my own little excursion. Finally it was time to head back up to Taupo with a stop over Tongariro national park to do some more walking and for Ben more skiing as well as giving us the opportunity to watch the world cup final. We hadn't wanted to do the Tongariro crossing walk but unfortunately in the middle of winter you need specialist equipment and experience and despite our many walks in New Zealand that didn't qualify us. Back at Taupo it we spent 2 more days all of ou booking up for the sky dive again but unfortunately it was not to happen instead we rented 7movies for 7dollars and bought a years supply of popcorn all of whichwas finished within the 48hours of waiting to sky dive. We finally made it back to Auckland and back into a hostel not before a final night out after a drinking session in the van and feeling threatened of what the massive Maori girls in the club might do to us. Back in the hostel where showers and more importantly toilets instead of bushes were freely available we lived it up a bit making use of the hot tub on the roof twice before we caught our plane a couple of days later....