After a 40 min flight, we arrived in Christchurch (still hungover). We got the Shuttle bus to our apartment, dumped our stuff and headed into town. Christchurch is very pretty in places but quite scary in others. After wandering round for what seemed like forever we chose a restaurant to have a late lunch/early dinner and then headed back to our apartment.

The next day was the start of our adventure. We went to the supermarket earlyish and picked lunch (and wine) for Mum's impending arrival and then jumped on the bus to the airport. Mum's flight was a bit delayed so we had a few beers and timed it perfectly for Mum coming through. After big hugs we got the bus back into town. We had a nice lunch and a few glasses of vino and then went into town. We went around the Catherdal and the Art Gallery and then stopped on 'the strip' for a few beers. We couldn't be bothered to go back and change for dinner so stayed out and went to a restaurant called Liquidity. We started with a bottle of bubbles (VC of course) and had the tasting menu which was amazing. We stumbled home via the internet and headed to bed.

Then the day arrived for us to pick up the campervan! After sorting the paperwork (and working out how to do eveything!) we got on our way. The campervan is huge - 6 berth - and took a few junctions to get used to. We spent our first night in Hanmer Springs. We parked up the van and headed to the Hot Springs. It was lovely, as the sun was going down we sat in pools that were hotter than a bath and felt very relaxed. The back to the van for our first supper - PASTA!!

Our next stop was Kaikora. It was quite sunny when we got up but by the time we left it was tipping it down. We got to our campsite and had some lunch and by the time we'd said 'it's brightning up' 10 times it did! We drove down to the Seal Colony and went on a bracing Costal walk for a couple of hours. It was great and we were able to get really close to the seals - so cute! We headed back to the site and parked up and went for a couple of beers. Steak for tea and some yummy red wine - camping is fun.

From Kaikora we drove up to Blenheim - it's nothing like the name might suggest - it's a dump! But our campsite was nice, by the river so we had a curry and planned our route from there.

Our secong day in Blenheim was very relaxed - chilled out in the morning and then after lunch we went on a wine tour of the Malborough Region - Cloudy Bay, Villa Maria, Forest Estate and Lawson's Dry Hills. The wine was great - so good we had to buy 10 bottles! That evening we did some bangers on the BBQ and got stuck into our wine.

We were up early the next day for the big drive to Frans Josef - 8 hours (after stops for tea and Tim Tams and Lunch). We got settled into our campsite and had lamb chops (on the BBQ again) and booked our trips for the next day.

We woke up the next day to be greeted by the most beautiful views from our campsite up to the snow covered mountains. Mark headed off early for a full day on the Glacier and Mum and I caught up with washing etc and then did a half day on the Glacier. What an amazing day for all of us. It's an awesome sight and, although hard work climbing the ice steps, a day we will not forget. In celebration we had a bottle of bubbles from Cloudy Bay and a lovely chilli con carne to warm us up.

Time to move on again and our next stop was Wanaka. We all loved it here. When we arrived we went to Puzzling World - it was fab - a big maze, 3d image rooms etc etc - much fun! Our first night we found a fab Bar - BarLuga - with real fires inside and out so we had a bottle of wine and then tried to get a table at The Cow (a spin off of the famous restaurant in Queenstown) but we couldn't get a table so we headed back towards home and had a pub meal before walking back to our campsite.

On the second day we went to Mount Roy and started on the climb up which promised amazing views. It certainly delivered! We didn't make it quite to the top as it was much harder work than we thought it would be - after 4 hours we managed to get about two third of the way up! After such a trek we decided we deserved a pizza so headed back into town to The Cow and had an early meal - really great pizza. After all that effort we decided our aching limbs deserved a taxi back to the camper. Next stop Te Anau.