Day 6 Christchurch to Kaikoura
Woke up with stiff legs and ventured back onto our kiwi experience bus with the delightful Dillon. A nice driver, but a strange sense of humour - in other words, not very funny. We drove for about two hours and arrived in Kaikoura, a small town specialising in whale and dolphin tours because of the canyon in the sea about 1.6km deep which attracts loads of these mammals to feed. Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad over the past few days, with pretty much all of new Zealand stuck under rain. We drove over to a seal colony, and it seemed that most were escaping the wetness of the rain by instead getting wet in the sea. We walked around and photographed the few lazy ones that were there though. As Kaikoura is dominated by the sea tours, there's not much else to do, and with the weather being poo most of the hostel decided to spend the afternoon in the movie room watching About a Boy and American Beauty. In the evening we got talking to a group of 5 girls on the same bus, turned out to be a really good bunch and we would spend the next few days hanging out and doing a lot of the activities together.
Day 7
Went to bed early as had a ridiculously early start at half 4 to get over to the dolphin encounter centre to go dolphin watching. The dolphins were attracted to the area because of the canyon, and were all totally 100% wild. They would go around in pods of up to about 500 so we would go out in search on the boat to find a large enough pod to swim with. As the weather over the past few days had been, as i said earlier, poo, it was a bit hit and miss as to whether we would go out, but luckily some of the wind and rain had died down so we set off. There were still some rather large swells so we were all given a sea sickness warning, but being the hard man that i am, i refused to take the sickness tablets. After about 25 minutes at sea, a few people were feeling a tad queasy, but I was feeling ok. We found a pod of about 60 and kitted up with our wet suits and went in off the back of the boat. Was amazing, we were told to make noise to attract the dolphins so there was a large group of people making weird and wonderful sounds through their snorkels with dolphins swimming underneath. The visibility was reasonably poor, but this made it all the more exciting when a group swam over to you as they appeared to come out of nowhere. You could catch ones eye and they would follow you where you swam. If you swam round and round in circles, they swam around with you, and would dive down when you dived down, and more or less play with you. This was really amazing seeing as they were totally wild, and you got the impression that they were as intrigued and willing to play as you were with them.
Then got back onto the bus and headed towards Nelson, a small town near to the Abel Tasmin National Park. The Centre of New Zealand was located here so Rich and I decided to walk to it. Not quite as epic a journey as walking to the centre of the earth, but it still consisted of a steep walk and pretty decent views from the top. Pre dinner we were treated to a beer tasting experience where Fiona answered the million dollar question at the end correctly and managed to win some tickets to a bar event in Queenstown. For dinner we were treated to a delicious roast lamb and sat with the girls drinking beer on an evening which could have been a typical English Sunday evening at the pub.
Day 8 - Abel Tasmin National Park- Valentine's Day
Awake nice and early again to drive over to the National Park for a day of kayaking. The Park was surrounded by the ocean and we could kayak around the rocks and take in the views stopping off at various different secluded beaches led to by our tour guide Eric who was 23, but we all were convinced he must have been at least 40 - or there abouts because of his "old hands and wrinkly eyes". We kayaked apparently 12km altogether, seemed to take an age to get back to where we started, and the group learned that Emily and Charlotte were in fact the world's worst kayakers whereas Laura and Fiona were probably the world's best (although me and Rich won the inaugural 100 stroke race).
As today had been valentine's day, the girls had very kindly offered to cook Rich and I dinner. So for half 8 we were to be ready at theirs for a delicious chicken and pasta dish with candles and chocolates. We arrived showered and fresh, and brought wine and much to the ladies delight a red rose each (we are soooo smooth). Had a really good evening chilling - can't really complain after having 5 lovely ladies wine and dine us two for the evening!

Day 9 - Nelson to Westport.
Woke up slightly dehydrated shall we say after lots of wine and not so lots of sleep. Had a new bus driver named Toddy who was very informative and seemed an all around nice guy. Along the journey we stopped off at the Nelson Lakes National Park - a lake with one of the best backdrops ive seen. Luckily, as Nelson is the sunniest place in New Zealand, the sun managed to follow us to the lake and we could swim and jump off the platform in a variety of poses. Great fun. Next stop was on the Buller River where we went jet boating for about an hour or so. The first leg was reasonably slow to be honest, but was supposed to be the more informative part where we learnt about the area and the trouble that the floods have caused - sometimes making the river rising by about 20 metres or so. The second leg was much more fun and was the speedy part where we revved the boat up and turned sharply around the rocks and did the odd 360 spin too. Again a lot of fun, and the guide and driver seemed really enthusiastic which was a bonus for us. At around half 5 we arrived at our hostel in Westport where we settled for the evening after we cooked a very bland meat and potato dinner and rich melted a plastic fork whilst stirring the beans.
Day 10 westport to Lake Mahinuapua
After a much needed 9 hour pass out we arose for the bus journey to poo. On the way we stopped off at a couple of places to walk around including the pancake rock formations which look like pancakes - it's all in the name. We then carried on in the coach and made our way down to the infamous poo pub owned and run by an 86 year old gent called Les who had been catering for and accommodating the kiwi experience busses for 19 years or so. There was also to be a beach themed party here tonight so we stopped off at a local town to pick up supplies. A beach party theme is actually quite hard to "think outside the box" for and come up with a prize winning outfit, and after I failed to find any shell suits at the local sports store i settled for the easy peasy Hawaiian shirt/bright boardies option. Rich dressed up as a mermaid which involved gaffa taping his legs together so he literally had to hop around everywhere, Hayley went as sea weed and looked pretty awesome, Fiona went as a beach bride, Charlotte as a beach babe with big sunglasses, and Emily and Laura went as a bat and ball! Very drunken night, very fun night too. Hayley won a canyon swing prize for her outfit and the other two prize winners were a washed up condom and my personal favourite - Wilson from cast away. After a kerfuffle with Fiona giggling and being sick at the same time, and there not being enough bed space, i eventually passed out at about 4am ready to be up again for 8.

Day 11 - Lake Mahinuapua to franz Josef national park

A lot of tired and hung over people (especially laura) on the bus this morning as we stopped off at a local Bushman museum where the owner showed us a dvd about how the natives used to hunt and catch deer for farming using helicopters and various daring measures (including jumping out of the helicopter) to catch the deer. We then walked around the strange little museum with various little traps - one awesome one squirting the cool little posh daddy's girl square in the face. We also saw some possums who the kiwis seem to hate as they eat everything. Eventually arrived at our rainforest retreat hostel in Franz Josef, with the glacier in the background.Emily, Charotte, Fiona and Hayley also went for their sky dive this afternoon. They were buzzing on their return - said it was the best thing they'd ever done. Luckily Emily was able to breathe through the clouds although she did dribble just a tad on the way down. Fiona also gave her diving buddy a full on smackeroo. Had a hot tub anda pasta dinner to help prepare us for the full day hike on the glacier tomorrow.

Day 12 - Franz Josef Glacier Hike

Pretty awesome day today - not often can you say you spent the day hiking the world's steepest walkable glacier, and one of only 3 glaciers in the world surrounded by rainforest...and the fact that you were hiking on ice! Put on the crampons (not croupons or tampons) and led by our guide called Kruddy who we then nicknamed Poo we explored 13km of crevasses,big ice holes, waterfalls and at one point water - having to cross over putting your feet into the ice cold water to find the footstep to work your way across. The photos do more justice of what I can write really.

In the evening we enjoyed a well earnt hot tub, even if it was pretty dirty and Rich was drinking a carton of milk surrounded by girls drinking champagne. That's how we roll.

Day 13 - Franz Josef to Wanaka

Pretty stunning scenery on this drive. Especially the reflection of Mount cook on Lake Matheson even if it was a bit cloudy and we couldn't actually see mount cook, but the postcards looked cool! Also stopped off at lake Hawea and lake wanika - massive massive lakes along the road side - and very quiet. Made the water look incredibly still which led to some awesome reflections. Hghlight was me falling off a little chain fence backwards in slow motion in front of not one, but two buses at a viewpoint all looking in my direction. Brilliant.

Arrived in Wanaka and had a bargain $6 bbq and some beerskies whilst a domestic was going on between a drunken girl and her fiancé who lived in the hostel - classy.

Day 14 - Wanaka to Queenstown

After spending the night dreaming about bunjee jumping - my dream involved something like the water come up to the bridge, so i was going to jump off straight into the water and I complained. Strange. First stop today though was puzzle world. Now i've never really liked puzzles so a world full of them didn't exactly inspire me with joy. There were a few cool illusions though, some random rooms and then puzzles to play with in the cafe. Not really my cup of tea to be honest.

Next was an hours drive to the Kawarau Bridge where the original bunjy was to take place. I was actually more excited than nervous believe it or not and was quite eager to get it done. At 43 metres it wasn't extremely high, but was higher than your average diving board. Quite exciting being up there and diving off, although the buzz didn't last that long because you weren't free falling for ages. Still, ticked the box.

Arrived in Queenstown at the Discovery lodge, got a dorm with 8 beds so our kiwi family could stick together. Fabian planned to dye his hair blond and we all chilled out in the room preparing to get absolutely sozzled.