July 19th (Sunday) - Day 140 - Nelson (Abel Tasman National park) Our bus pass includes a number of extras, the Able Tasman national park. The bus picked us up from our hostel and drove us for an hour over to the national park. Once there we jumped on a boat which took us 45 minutes north into the park. It dropped us off on a really stunning beach and we than had to make our own way back. All 12km of it. It was designed to take 4 hours but we had over 6.5 before...

July 17th (Friday) - Day 138 - KaikouraWe decided that if we have time we can see more of Christchurch when we get back in 2 weeks after our loop of the first island is complete. Hence we booked the first sector of our bus pass up north to Kaikoura. As soon as we left Christchurch there were snow topped mountains as far as the eye could see. This is when I knew I was going to fall in love with New Zealand. Everywhere you looked you were treated a really nice view...

July 15th (Wednesday) - Day 136 - New Zealand - Christchurch…We arrived on time but the line for immigration was huge and there were only two people working the 'All Passports' desk. They seemed to be quizzing everyone for ages which always gets me worried given my immigration history. Funnily enough when it got to Sarah and I she was stamping our clearance forms before she even started to talk to us. (Apparently English people are exempt from most the rules so...

July 11th (Saturday) - Day 132 - MelbourneWe got up and jumped on the free tram round to the Melbourne cricket ground (MCG). This is home to cricket (durr) but also AFL (Aussie rules). We were after some tickets for the afternoon game between Richmond and Carlton. However the ticket stand did not open for a few hours because there are normally spare tickets for a game so you get them when you arrive. Instead we got back on the tram and went to the markets we visi...

July 6th (Monday) - Day 127 - AdelaideWe arrived in Adelaide a little after 6am. As expected we had not got much sleep which was not helped by the bus driver who loved the sound of his own voice over the microphone. It was 4 degrees when we got off the bus and we had a 10 minute walk to the hostel. If you ever want to be woken up try it! Luckily the land lady of the hostel had given us the door code so we managed to get inside. We spent the next 3 hours in the TV...