We had decided that staying in Auckland would most probably bankrupt us before we knew what was happening so we decided to head towards the South Island where the scenery is nicer and it's allegedly a bit cheaper. New Zealand is not known for its public transport but what train services remain are well worth the trip. With this in mind we booked ourselves on the Overlander which runs from Auckland to Wellington in the south of the North Island. The train was amazing passing through beautiful countryside across viaducts and through deep gorges past high mountains ands rivers. As the train takes a leisurely 12 hours to get to Wellington we stayed one night in the Capital city before boarding the ferry to take us to Picton at the North of the South Island. After a sedate crossing of 3 hours we jumped on a bus to take us to Christchurch which was another 6 hours away. The bus followed the East coast nearly the entire time and it gave us a good look at the snow capped mountains out of one side of the bus and the South Pacific on the other side with its lazy seals sunning themselves on the beach. We had arranged to meet a couple that we first met in Moorea in French Polynesia as they were doing a whole season snowboarding in Wanaka. They had managed to find a brand new hostel that was doing opening special prices so we booked in there for a while and headed out for a curry, a few beers and the chance to swap some good ol' travelling tales!

Christchurch is the most English of the NZ cities and has not been as quick to embrace the multicultural side as Auckland and Wellington but is still the largest city on the South Island. Christchurch is a great place to explore the surrounding areas from. To these ends we have decided to make it the place that we are going to start looking for work in. I have applied to a few agencies and Katie has begun to try and extract blood from a stone as that is easier than getting registered with the New Zealand nursing council.

Our second thing that we decided to was improve our chances of seeing things and get ourselves a set of wheels. After some searching around the usual local cheepo car markets we stumbled across an advert in one of the hostels advertising a cheap van. This van had been kitted out with a bed and bedding and all the extras including a stove, plates, cutlery, cool box, snow chains, another tent, chairs and a pair of polka dot wellys! We phoned the number on the advert and it turn and out that the couple selling the van had just left Christchurch that morning and made the 6 hour drive south to Queenstown. She told us that they were leaving the country in 3 days time and had to sell the van and in the same breath she said that they would take any reasonable offer. After some careful consideration we got them to drive back the next day and we got the van for a steal at 1750NZ$.

The next day we drove the van out to the peninsular for its test run over the surrounding hills marveling at the scenery. The thing drives well although its not the quickest thing on the road but hey, were in no hurry! With transport sorted and nothing much more we could do towards our future employment it was time to go exploring starting with some good old fashioned snowboarding so we packed our van and headed out to Mt Hutt.