Time flies when you're having fun and we are having the time of our lives; can't believe that we have only a week left in this truely amazing country. New Zealand is without doubt the best country we have yet been too. This place is mad (especially the south island) and the people are so friendly.

I last emailed back in Auckand which seems an age ago so brace yourselves for a long email.

Hired a car in Auckland and left in the middle of a thunder storm, could almost be home, and headed for the Waitomo Caves. Here we did our first adrenaline rushing activity. It consisted of an 35 metre abseil into the cave, a flying fox (a zip wire) over the underground river, black water rafting the actual underwater river in complete darkness gazing up to the roof of the cave to the gloworms (it was literally like looking up into a star filled sky) and finally climbing out of the caves via two waterfalls. It was brilliant and only the start of things to come.

From there we went east to Rotorua. This town is famous for it's geothermal activity with geysers and mud pools but we were there for something different, zorbing. It's difficult to explain exactly what this is but here's my best shot. It's basically the closest experience i'll get to feeling like i've been in a washing machine. You're brought to the top of a hill, put into a plastic sphere with, thankfully warm, water and pushed down the hill. It's so stupid but all you can do is laugh all the way down as you're thrown head-over-hells again and again and again, excellent for a person with a bad back like me! While in Rotorua we also got our cultural brains out and went to a Hangi, a celebration of the Mauri culture. It was really good.

When we arranged our journey around the world there was one thing at the top of my list which i wanted to do above all else, a skydive. We got to do this in Taupo. Feeling confident we booked a 15,000 feet dive and got ourselves ready. I thought i'd be really nervous but i was surprisingly calm. One the way up Mt Doom was pointed out to us and when we were at 15,000 we could see both the east and west coast of the North Island, that's how high we were. Now this was a tandem skydive (i don't trust myself enough yet to jump out of a plane on my own) so i was slowly moved to the door. Before i could look down my head was brought back for one last photo and out we went................aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.............oh my god..............i can't believe i'm doing this! It was unbelievable, words cannot describe it, when we landed i just wanted to get back on the plane and do it again.

From there it was all relatively quiet, went to Napier (famous for wine making and art deco buildings), drove to the longest place name in the world (forgive me for not remembering it) which is in the middle of nowhere. This was a good idea until we nearly ran out of fuel. Got into a village on petrol fumes (no joke) to find that the petrol station only opened on a tuesday, this was saturday. After some of laughter at me in the local shop the garage ower was called and she thankfully came out and turned on the pumps for us; we shall forever be in her debt. Got into Wellington that night just before the storm hit which tore through Wellington for the duration of our stay.

Got a very rough ferry crossing to south island (people sick everywhere, even tables and drinks were being thrown over) and arrived into Piction. Picked up our second rental car and off we set.

Used Nelson as our base as we went sea kayaking along the Abel Tasman National Park. The sun was shining, the sea was clam and even a few seals and a penguine came to see what we were at; it was a good day. Left there and drove to Fox Glacier where we climbed a glacier in the middle of heavy rain and gale force winds. As we climbed the mountain to get to the glacier i could feel the energy seeping away, i was cold, wet and miserable and worst of all, i had paid them for this torture! But it was all worth it in the end and as the rain eased off and the wind died we were left on top of the glacier looking down, unforgetable.

Arrived into Queenstown not knowing what to expect. Booked ourselves in to do a Canyon Swing. This was scarier than the skydive. It consists of jumping off a platform into a canyon, a 60m freefall into a 200m swing, the biggest swing in the world. To make it better i did it backwards, it was awesome. After that there was only one thing left and that was to do a bungy jump. If you're only going to do one, which we were, you may as well do the biggest, so we did, all 134 meters of it. You're strapped up and move to the egde. All i could think was don't look down, don't look down. I was given the countdown, 5.........4........3........2.........i was away, i didn't want to wait for 1. The ground rush is mind blowing, worse than the sky dive, but glad to walk away saying i had done it.

Left Queenstown sadly, it's a beautiful city surrounded by snowcapped mountains, and headed for Milford Sound. Did our little cruise around the sound, amazing scenery, and now we're in Dunedin, the Edinburgh of New Zealand. Here we stay today and then off to see some whales hopefully in Kaikoura. From there we hit Christchurch and jet off to Sydney on Thursday.

Thanks to all who have emailed, it's always good to hear from home and i'll next write from Australia. Oz here we come!

Paul.