So I left Queenstown early on Mon 2nd Jan, 7am for the 2.5 hour bus ride to Te Anau where you base yourself to visit the famous Milford Sounds. I had pre booked 'Bob and Maxines' hostel which was a georgeous wooden buidling right out in the countrym with fields of sheep etc around it- felt very like home! Thankfully they did pick up from the bus as it was quite a distance from the centre of Te Anau! The monday afternoon I took one of theor free bikes from the ho...

Queenstown, I just love it!! Arrived safely on 29th December after a long 9 hour bus trip for Christchurch. I had pre booked a hostel due to the new years rush, called 'The Last Resort' - not a great name I must admit, but was alovely wee hostel. Right in the centre of town but still very quiet, just 14 beds, 4 beds per room, they have a dog called Coco and free brekafast, computers, wifi and towels. Perfect!! A great place to stay and nice and cheap too. As I ...

So I arrived in Christchurch after my 6 hours on the bus from Picton. Driving to Christchurch was alovely drive and alsong the Kaikoura coastline I was able to see lots of seals from the bus window, really beautiful sceneic drive. On the bus journey I was sitting beside a lovely wee elderly lady who is from christchurch and lives there so we were chatting for a good few hours. She had been in the garden on Fri 23rd Dec when the quake hit and she said she had to ...

So on Tuesday 27th morning I had to say a sad farewell to Emily, Jac and Matt. Emily kindly drove me to the ferry point to take the Interislander ferry across from Wellington to Picton. Taking me from the north island of New Zealand to the South Island.It was sad to have to say goodbye as it was such a lovely 4/5 days with them, especially over Christmas and we knew it will be a while before we do see each other again. I also had that feeling on being solo again,...

I arrived in Wellington (horray, bus came, and on time too!!) on Friday 23rd December, very very excited about seeing Emily Phillips! Em picked me up at Te Papa museum, with Jac in the car...was soo great to see her but felt weirdly normal too, like it was a regular thing for us both to be in New Zealand. My first introduction to Wellington was us stopping off to give wee Jac his bottle and then us driving off, leaving the lid of the bottle on the car roof...so t...