Hi there!

So much ground covered since the last blog. We spend a lovely couple of days in Wellington, the first just going around Lower Hutt - where Alex's Ma lives - and the next actually in the centre of town. Went to the main museum and saw a massive squid! The biggest in the world. And the rest of the museum was pretty cool too. The town is lovely and lots of enticing shops which I am steering clear of as I know the consequences would be disasterous!

We then spent a whole day travelling south to get to Christchurch, a boat and coach journey. But as will all the buses here the bus drivers give you enough time to have some tea breaks and give a running commentry on what is going on outside the window, so sort of incorporated some sightseeing into this journey.

Christchurch is described as being more English than England and I think I would agree. It is pretty small, most places in NZ seem to be, and there is the river Avon to punt on! We spent the morning sightseeing before going to a tiny cinema to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which was amazing.

The next day we joined up with our Kiwi Experience and travelled across to the West coast to a tiny place called Westport. All along the way we all get out a go on little walks or whatever to break up the journey so we went to visit a little waterfall in the middle of the day which was cool. That afternoon we also decided to do the jetboating which was amazing! A tiny flat bottomed boat which can fly through water only 4inches deep, doing spins and twists, driving inches from cliff faces and swerving around them. Great fun!

Yesterday we took the coach down the West coast and saw some amazing scenery. Pancake rocks, coastal walks, seal colonies! Also in the evening we had our big night organised. We had to dress up as something beginning with the letter P... so I took what would otherwise be a Hawaiian outfit and called it Polynesian/Pacific Islander. Easy! There were some great ideas though - pine tree, pirate, pilot, pick n mix, present.... etc etc.

Today we just drove down the west coast some more and have reached a place called Franz Josef from where we will go on a glacier walk tomorrow! Very excited!

Started to cook every day because of the expenses so getting pretty bored of pasta but other than that all is good! xxx