Well, NZ has been a busy month!! Hired a car to get around... have now accumulated quite a lot of stuff though - have had to go out and buy a suitcase!! NZ has been fab... done loads of really good stuff... spent lots of money! Run down of NZ: South Island: Christchurch - landed here Easter weekend... spent a few days round the city... shopping! Went round the botanic gardens - hence the zillion flower pictures!! Went up a mountain to a lookout and had our first encounter of the sheep kind! Nice city... real English feel to it... Drove from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo... only stayed for one night as a stop over to Queenstown... nice lake... did a 3 hour walk round it and up MT. John... really pretty Queenstown - nightmare! Really busy as it was Easter - also loads of annoying Americans about!! Did an adventure day - went on the Shotover jet - a gfast jet on the Shotover river that swerves around rocks and trees and stuff... then we got a helicopter - v. scary - had a crazy pilot! to a white water rafting place... went down the Shotover river in a dinghy - managed to all stay in ours! Good day!! The next day I did a bungy jump... 134m Nevis - really scary - it was so high!! Built up my courage then just went for it... got a real ground rush... Bex just watched... Onto Milford Sound - a fijord out on the West cost... did a cruise down the fijord - saw some really cute fur seals... rained pretty much teh whole time we were there... good thing about that was there was loads and loads of waterfalls! Back across to Wanaka - pretty lake and a really funny place called Puzzling World - see the photos - you'll see why! Especially like the big and little room photos!! Up to Fox Glacier - walked to the glacier face ... really cold!! Saw the melted ice flowing out of a tunnel in the glacier... also found a big ice boulder that had fallen and been washed down... Onto Franz Josef Glacier - did a guided hike up the glacier - hard work! had spiky shoes on but still slippy! Plus it rained all day!! Still good though... found a small ice cave and lots of crevasses - one which we had to slide through! Up to Punakaiki - lots of pancake rocks - layers of rock that look like pancakes... supposed to be blowholes too but sea wasn't rough enough... Across to Kaikoura - stayed for a couple of days - and guess what - yes it rained!! Went swimming with dolphins... absolutely amazing!! We were really seasick though which wasn't great but still well worth doing - it was one of my life ambitions! They were so cute - swam all around us - we were swimming with a pod of 300! Unfortunately as I was so seasick there are no photos!! :( The same day we swam with dolphins we had to drive up to Picton to get the ferry across to the north island - not ideal! Wellington - Nice city... was good to be somewhere a bit more in touch with civilisation!! The places we had stayed before were really small with not much there! Went to the museum and up to the botanic gardens on the cable car... also had a look round the art gallery - I know v. cultural! Taupo - came here to do a skydive! had perfect weather for it (for once there was no rain!) - was really good - did a 12,000 ft jump - the plane was the scariest bit -it was tiny!! felt a bit sick when we were spinnning round once the parachute had opened but the freefall was amazing! Got a dvd and photos to show everyone when I get home... Rotorua - this place is one big thermal area... loads of weird and wonderful coloured pools and rocks... see photos... also home to a load of geysers... really weird seeing steam just coming out of the ground everywhere... also v. stinky - loads of sulphur which smells eggy! Waitomo - came to see glowworms - and we weren't disappointed! Did a tour round a couple of caves - samw millions of glowworms in one of them - really pretty - looked like little stars... the other cave was full of limestone formations - stalagtites, stalagmites etc... Auckland - nice city - shame about the weather - guess what - yep - more rain!! This time it has been torrential!! So not much else we could do apart from go shopping!! Did have one ok day on our first day here - went to the marina, up Mt. Eden and up the Skytower... also took the ferry across to Rangitoto - a big volcano in the sea just off Auckland... did a tour round it and walked to the summit... saw lots of lava flows... Impressions of NZ: > lots of sheep > lots of mountains - with v. windy roads > lots of lakes > lots of deer > lots of rain!! Ahh just like home! Although I hear that lately it has been really nice... roll on Fiji!! Need to get my tan back!!