Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Emma. Happy birthday to you xxxx

In Christchurch and Nick is very excited at the prospect of feeling an earthquake! It's quite quiet but nice city. Got a bratwurst from a German sausage man in a van which was yummy then watched some men playing giant chess in the main square. Visited the art gallery too but Nick wasn't too keen on so unsurprisingly didn't stay for very long! Then wandered back to motel through botanic gardens (cue photo) then had nice italian for dinner with a vino. Christchurc...

So... Realise today that there's no chance we would have made it across Arthurs Pass yesterday. Saw on the news last night that half a bridge was missing because of the flooding! But they bodged it back together in 5 hours (as you do!) and so we left this morning. Weather had turned around and definitely glad we had to wait until today to drive in the sunshine. Back in shorts and jandals... Summer is here... Again! Arthur's Pass is just stunning! Massive plains...

Well... It seems we stumbled upon a natural disaster of sorts. Left Franz Josef this morning having not done any glacier hiking. Could gave waited until 3pm to do a half day but would've meant waiting in the car for 5hrs cos had to check out at 10am. Also was horrid and rainy and grey so if the trip went wouldn't have seen much anyway. Weather was awful again so started heading to Greymouth in the hope to drive Arthur's Pass the following day when the weather m...

After getting to sleep about 3am we were up again at 6am to wait for our taxi to collect us from our hotel for our Milford Sounds trip. Had been told we'd be collected at 6.45am and 7.10 am so we checked out then Nick waited outside the hotel for 20mins while I went to eat breakfast... and stashed some toast and a pain au chocolat. The plan was that Nick would go after I got back but didn't happen. Started the journey to Milford Sounds... Left 7.30am arrived 1pm...