G'day all,
Hope you are all okay. Another week has flown by for us and we have lots to share. We cannot believe that our NZ leg of the trip is nearly over we are ready to move on now but gutted we have to leave, we are so in love with this country. These last couple of weeks are going to fly so we have lots more to cram in. We have now spoken to STA Travel and the restrictions in Fiji have just been lifted so we are clear to fly there now, we are so happy we were so worried we'd have to cancel it.
Since leaving queenstown we have seen some incredible things. First being Milford Sound, what a spectacular area of the country, the most dramatic place we've been. The photos are great but in no way do it justice. We took a boat tour and it just blew us away, even in the rain it was breathtaking. We also had our first meeting with the famous Kea birds. For those of you who haven't heard of them they are like a big green naughty parrot, the pictures show them trying to pick bits of peoples cars, they steal things, try and eat your food and are just hilarious little characters to watch we loved them.
Since then we've been on the Southern Scenic Route all the way to Dunedin where we are now sat in an Internet Cafe catching up cause it's chucking it down.
We had a couple of days doing nothing after Milford Sound as Zoe was knocked out with a nasty cold and had to spend a couple of days in bed, this meant us missing our trip to Stewart Island which we were gutted about. She's all better now (Special thanks to Dad for sending photo cuddle it really helped lots - Love you x) The Catlins coast was another incredible part of the country and where our recent wildlife frenzy began. We arrived at Curio Bay and watched four wild yellow eyed penguins coming out of the sea and returning to their nests, it was amazing. The next day we watched hectors dolphins (the worlds rarest) playing in the surf in the bay about 20 metres from us. Since then we've travelled through the catlins and been almost within touching distance from huge wild sea lions, one even chased us off the rocks and they are pretty scary when annoyed.
The last couple of days we've been on the Otago Peninsula. Again so much wildlife, lots more sea lions especially. We went to the Royal Albatross Centre yesterday and took a tour to watch five nesting birds and saw more circling around the peninsula, they dominate the whole sky with their 3 metre wing span they were so great to watch. We also went to a penguin reserve where we went through dug out camoflage tunnels and sat in viewing boxes within metres of adult and chick yellow eyed penguins then we spent a rainy evening stood on a beach in the dusk until about 10:15pm last night and watched groups of small blue penguins coming out of the sea and climbing up the beach and over the road to their nests, another amazing experience they are the cutest little things. We are pretty overwhelmed by the amount of incredible wildlife right on our doorstep in ths country it's so nice to see.
From here were headed up the east coast, through to see Mount Cook, then up and out on Banks Peninsula before heading into Christchurch and sadly handing back our lovely home on wheels and getting onto that plane.
Not wishing our time away at all but we really cannot wait until we get home and see you all, we really have missed you lots.
Right think we've run on enough and it's time to go get some lunch.
Take care all of you
Speak soon

Z & P
x x

p.s Coopski's hope your keeping that bun nice and warm in your oven, give ihim/her a cuddle and kiss from us x