So our last night in Oz, we dropped in on Steve and Cath to abuse their hospitality for a final time and try to make them drink beer on a school night.The next morning our hosts dropped us off and we were on our way to Christchurch on New Zealand's South Island to meet our new traveling companion, a 20 foot campervan that was going to be our transport, bed, kitchen, shower and toilet for the next ten days. First impressions were not good as it looked tiny with just our meager luggage inside but the engine works and we how to make the bed so the basics are there, fingers crossed.

The guy who showed us round the van was suitably impressed by the ambition of our grand route round the South Island.We were aiming in 10 days what should really take a month. Edging gently out of the carpark we drove south and made our way to Lake Tekapo for mountain walking (my choice) and soaking in interconnected heated swimming pools overlooking the lake (Rachelle's). So far we were massively impressed by the landscape, like the Scottish Highlands but bigger and with lakes that are all a deep turquoise from rock powder in glacial runoff. Via Mount Cook where I had a walk and spotted three avalanches while Rachelle claimed to have wandered around the museum (but I only saw having a cup of tea) we continued our punishing schedule past Queenstown down towards Milford Sound.

Thankfully the long journey was as good as the destination, winding through alpine landscapes along the side of magnificent lakes through farmlands and finally winding its way through 50km of valleys cut from the bedrock by huge glaciers during the last 15 or 20 ice ages. We had the great fortune to be there while it was raining, an unusual sentiment but the rain created thousands of spontaneous waterfalls to pour down the sheer mountain slopes either side of the road as we drove through. A boat trip around the sound was even better as we could focus on the landscape rather than the pretty nasty drops either side of the road. We rounded off the trip with a visit to an underwater observatory meaning it was well worth the 560km round trip.

Trundling back to Queenstown in the love wagon through herds of sheep and some pretty nasty weather we were torn between extreme sports, for which Queenstown is famous. After I vetoed bungee as I am a big scaredy cat, we signed up for canyoning which turned out to be a weird hybrid of abseiling (rappelling for our American readers), zip wire slides, jumping, sliding, swimming and diving our way down a gorge from top to bottom.The water was pretty cold but after 20 minutes we were numb and having enough fun to not really care. The scariest bits were when we had to zip wire halfway over the gorge, abseil down and then drop into the water and of course the horrible jumps. Rachelle jumped from six meters into the river; I bottled out of the 10 meter jump but managed to redeem myself a little by hurling myself off the 8 meter jump.Rachelle, now high on adrenalin is already pushing for a skydive in North Island, lets see what happens.

Before I sign off some thoughts on our lovely campervan, it is growing on me but very slowly.I am still hitting my head several times a day but the fridge always provides a cold beer at the end of each days driving so there are compensations. Rachelle loves it though and is having a great time so overall everything is good as usual.

On a final note you will all be pleased to know that I have been wearing clothes again as it is a bit chilly here. However I have developed a bad case of traveller's beard and Rachelle has challenged me to not shave for the whole time we are in South Island so keep checking for developments.

Love A & R