Day 198 and I was once again woken by the slamming of the front door which only meant one thing. Burns had just been outside for the toilet. He assures me he goes every morning at 7 and 9 and if he doesn’t then something is wrong. I finally finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (a good read) and we drove to the Top 10 campsite in town. We paid for 4 people and parked up and then started the long and arduous process of sorting the washing and charging everything up. I watched the DVD of my bungy again which was cool, as was Helen, Luke and Burns’. The washing took ages to dry and the girls got tired of waiting for the dryers so they headed to town. Burns and I went later, with Luke staying in the camper (I think he was playing boggle or writing his blog for hours). Coops got her haircut having been moaning about it for ages, Helen walked around the shops while Burns and I went to the internet. I met up with Ben from Sydney and Tina who he was travelling with and Helen and I arranged to meet them out tonight as we were going out for an early Day 200 celebration. In the camper I watched some of The Office and then at 7 we got ready to go out. The idea of eating in a restaurant was very appealing and much better than cooking in the camper. Luke was either ill, in a strop, or just not feeling up to it, cause he was pretty much sleeping when we about to go out and after trying to persuade him for a while, we left him to it. We had dinner in Avanti which was a bit pricey but we were treating ourselves. I had Lamb Shanks which were lovely, but I was a bit disappointed with the amount of meat I got. Burns and Helen had awesome steaks, while Coops after craving Pizza and then Steak, shocked us and ordered Salmon. When paying, the usual fiasco of sorting the bill ended up with us being $10 short. After everyone being adamant they put the right amount in, we realised it was Laura who was trying to get away with paying $10 less (or she just can’t count). In another bar called Winnies we met Ben and Tina. It was nice speaking to other people and being out with a beer rather than in the campervan. Ben informed us that he and Tina both find campervans make you go to sleep early and eat chocolate. After a couple more bars we ended up in Altitude Night Club (I got in in shorts and flip flops). Most of the time it was just Burns Tina Ben and me as the girls had an hour long chat in the toilets (as girls do...). As we left about 130am, Laura (pretty drunk) stole someone’s hoody from a chair and just left with it. I was shocked that she would do such a thing. The girls even banged on peoples campers as we walked home (they were both pretty drunk). In the camper we could hear them both complaining about being drunk, Laura even saying that the world wouldn’t stop spinning when she shut her eyes. All in All a very good night out and well worth spending lots of money on.

Day 199 and I was woken up by some serious Kidney pain. All the beer I drank last night clearly needed to be gotten rid of. Coops and Helen were pretty hungover, and Luke was complaining that the camper stank of a brewery. We managed to empty the waste for the first time in ages. It was horrible, it stank of sewage, and it emptied itself for a good 10 minutes. Finally when it was all out we drove to Arrowtown for its 25th Autumn Festival. It was a very small and pretty town which was over crowded with loads of tourists and locals for the festival. It seemed that the entire day was dedicated to selling food as that’s all we saw for the first half of the main street. Burns had a pie. Coops had a slice of Pizza. There was a street performer there, and after watching him for few minutes we realised he was nothing on the Queenstown one. Helen and I bought hot dogs as we wandered round all the stalls. To me, it felt like a giant car boot sale, but the girls assured me it was a very nice market. There was a selection of crazy bikes being ridden around by all the kids at the festival. By crazy I mean, ones with tiny wheels, tandem ones, ones where you would sit in a bucket seat, unicycles etc. Luke and Helen were keen to have a go. Luke spent 5 minutes trying to get on a unicycle and when he was on he came straight off. After riding the bikes for ages we sat by the main junction in town for the parade. (Coops had bought another pastie as she was starving and got ripped off for $6). The parade consisted of loads of classic cars, followed by local businesses showcasing themselves on floats. It was pretty entertaining all in all. Afterwards I got a massive ice cream which took me 30 minutes to eat. We left about 3-4ish and went to Fresh Choice to get dinner. I then slept in the upstairs cabin as we drove to Te Anau 2 hours away. We parked in a school car park and instantly Coops fell asleep. Dinner was stir fry and Coops didn’t want any. We had made the beds by 9ish when as Burns went to the toilet outside a local man told him we couldn’t park there. This meant we had to drive 15 minutes out of town to find a layby to park in. At one point we drove down a lane but then saw it was private property and an old man was shooing us away. Eventually we found somewhere but were fearful of a fine as we went to bed

Day 200 and Burns Alarm went at 6 and he drove us back into town where we parked at Fresh Choice. We slept for a few hours there, then bought food and petrol and headed for Milford Sound. Burns was driving and I was navigating. It took us about 2 hours, with the highlight being the awesome scenery. The mountains and cliffs were so steep and we were literally driving through clouds at one point. When we got to Milford we parked and headed to the boat terminal. As soon as we stepped outside we saw the sandflys and Coops was instantly wary of them. We asked Liam, a sales guy at the boat terminal, which was the best tour to go on. Coops asked him how many stops the boats make, and his honest answer was "Dunno Mate". He gave the impression he really didn’t care. He was brutally honest and said all the trips were the same and that it didn’t matter which company we chose. We booked onto the cheap tour as we had a free pass for 1 adult. Our ferry left at 3.15 so for lunch we had sarnies where Coops came up with another Coopism and called the road atlas 'The mapbook'. As we boarded the boat I mentioned how lucky we seem to be with the weather when we do these tours. It was sunny and bright and made the scenery look amazing. I was snap happy with my camera and would end up taking over 100 photos. The boat had free tea and coffee so we made the most of that. The area the boat was going was formed by a glacier in the ice age, which caused the 'Fiord' to be formed. It is over 300 metres deep and the highest cliff (Mitre Peak, named cause it looks like a Bishops Hat) is over a mile high, roughly 1600 metres. On the ride back into the harbour we were lucky and saw a pod of dolphins. They were huge, about 3-4 metres long. Some were jumping and flipping out of the water, while the others were swimming up by the bow of the boat. After the cruise we realised there was nothing else to do so we drove and headed back to Te Anau. 60km outside Milford we stopped in a camping area and made dinner. Helen claimed she was exhausted (but not tired as they are 2 different things). Burns and I watched the office while the others read.

Day 201 and it was a freezing cold start and after breakfast and tea we drove towards Te Anau. Helen and I kept our bed out at the back of the camper and I slept for most of the drive. The drives are so boring, and as I cant read while driving sleeping was the best option. We had chosen to drive towards Arrowtown and Queenstown and then onto Dunedin on the east coast. In Arrowtown we had bacon sarnies for lunch and Luke tried to explain why he wasn’t putting deodorant on each day. Something about it being bad for your pores. I claimed that it would be better to not smell than have bad pores under your arm pits. Burns also noticed that the back light cover had come off and the complaints about the camper started coming thick and fast. I think everyone is getting a bit fed up of the confined space and all the problems with it. The girls went for a walk while us lads played frisbee. There were 2 other kids playing and they soon they joined in with us. Luke tried to teach one of them how to throw the frisbee in his weird style. After teaching him for a while I turned round and saw the kid throw it and it hit Luke flush in the face. It was well funny, and Luke didn’t seem to impressed with this kid. Coops was sitting in the drivers seat while she wrote her journal, and coincidentally as we pulled away a warning came on saying 'Dipped Light Left' We soon realised that the left headlight had broke. We blamed Laura. In a garage called Stewart Motors some northern English bloke fixed our light and we headed to Queenstown centre. I got my haircut while the other went onto the internet. We parked the camper outside the Top 10 campsite and then all went in and used their showers. We all agree there very good, and no one checks who uses them so we made the most of it. It was freezing cold outside and we drove to a carpark to cook, Pesto Chicken which was awesome. I then cracked open a new chocolate slab and everyone else got theirs out. We played Billionaire and I won 6 of the 8 rounds, which is unprecedented. We then played P&A which I won at also and everyone got bored of it. Burns was being tediously slow and Laura got so annoyed she stopped playing after that round. We drove to the layby where we park and would sleep for the night. Burns let out the worst fart ever and Laura and Helen were nearly sick it was so bad. We went to bed all wrapped up in loads of clothes, Helen had leggings, a hat and a hoody on.