Hello,

Been a while since we've done an update and boy have we been busy? (Yes)

We continue to rack up the air miles and are now in New Zealand. A slight twist to our trip here as we've stopped using hostels as our main accommodation, and buses/trains as our main transport. Instead, to mix it up a bit we've hired a campervan which will be our kitchen, bed and transport for the next month.

Our van is great. On one side a sunset that has been spray-painted on, and on the other there is a squiggly yellow and blue pattern. It's quite beautiful and not at all conspicuous (!) Raglan - as the van is called - is great but like most our transports so far we have a couple of minor niggles: firstly every time a large truck drives past the 'swoosh' blows in the drivers wing-mirror which requires the window to be wound down to push it back out. The other negative feature is that little Raglan does not like hills. Those of you familiar with the geography of New Zealand will appreciate that this probably doesn't make us the most popular people on the road, but we get there in the end and when the scenery is so beautiful why rush?

Our first stop in NZ (after Christchurch where we landed) was Kaikora on the east coast. Kaikora is famous for the abundance of large marine animals that congregate here for feeding, breading and general partying. So we did as most tourists do and booked ourselves onto 2 trips: Whale watching and dolphin swimming.

Whale watching...hum well we did see Sperm Whales. In fact we saw 4 (or the same one four times?) but you only really see the tails and to be honest we were a little disappointed. These are huge creatures but from a tail on the horizon you can't really see this - you just had to take it on trust. Pete was also quite frustrated with the guide's complete lack of sperm based gags.

There was however one very funny moment when our guide announced that they were going to use an underwater microphone to listen for the whales - he actually called it a 'hydrophone' but I think he made this name up. Anyway he produced a microphone on a long stick attached to headphones which he had round his ears. He dipped the hydrophone in the water and announced 'I'm now listening for the whales'. At which point Polly and Pete instinctively put our hands to our mouths and made loud "wooooooooooooooooooooouuuuurrrrrrmmmmmmmm' noises - the universal sound for whales. We found this hilarious the German tourists who were sharing our boat? Yeah they didn't find it quite so funny.

After the let down of whale watching we thought dolphin swimming would be ace. This meant getting up at 4.30 in the morning, wearing two wet suits and racing out in the early morning sun, across the ocean, to find dolphins. Unfortunately the sea was incredibly rough that day so Pete joined half the tour group at the back of the boat staring at the horizon feeling rather queasy. We eventually found the dolphin pod and it was an amazing spectacle. 50 - 80 dolphins all racing along next to our boat - wow just let us in the water. Unfortunately the dolphins had other plans as our guide announced on the tannoy "Really sorry guys but the dolphin behaviour today is really bad for swimming and it wouldn't be fair to let you in the water" noooooooooooooo.

So we got a refund but let's review: we got up a 4.30, got dressed into rubber suits, felt sick for 3 hours and paid for the privilege - see holidays aren't all glam.