We spent two nights in Christchurch first time round, and that was plenty. The middle of town is still cordoned off due to the recent earthquakes and everything else is quite spread out and hard to get to when you don't have a car. The town is starting to get back on its feet and things are re-opening (like the punting on the river) but it is thought that it will take around ten years for it to get back to its former glory. Sadly, at the moment it feels a bit lik...

The day of the England vs Georgia rugby world cup match in Dunedin was awesome, there was such a great atmosphere. We hung out in town for a bit in the morning watching the street performers then headed out in earnest after eating lunch and painting England flags on our cheeks. The pubs were filled with Brits and Kiwis pretending to be Georgian fans, just to p*** the Brits off. It was working; Jak was sufficiently enraged to turn round to a few people wearing Geo...

Milford Sound was beautiful, in an 'oh look, more beautiful rugged scenery' kind of way. Unfortunately it was overcast by the time we got there and visibility was poor so we could only just about make out the waterfalls lining the walls of the ford. I imagine it is breathtaking on a clear day but as it was we weren't blown away. Jak went bungee jumping the next morning - the Nevis bungee with a 134m or 8.5 second freefall, the highest one in the country. You hav...

On our last day in Nelson we didn't do anything of note: we visited a second hand bookshop, went to the supermarket for supplies, watched a film at the hostel, visited the town 'cathedral' etc. In the evening we watched the opening ceremony and the first match of the 2011 Rugby World Cup at the hostel. We moved on to Greymouth the next day, where most of the people on the bus went for a brewery tour. We tried about 8 different types of Monteith's beer plus their...

On our first full day in Wellington we had a looong lie in (heaven!) before going for a general meander around town. It's a good place to meander: everything is nice and close together. We decided to be cultural and went on the free one-hour guided tour of the 'Beehive', aka the Kiwi Houses of Parliament (or Parliament House seeing as they no longer have a House of Lords). It was really interesting to get an insight into how New Zealand is governed and its histor...