After spending a couple of days in Christchurch I've started properly touring the South Island now and the travelling is back on track.

The scenery in this country is breathtaking. Everywhere I look I see hills, mountains, lakes and valleys that all look as thought they could easily have been used for Lord of the Rings. Ive seen a couple of places that were actually used in the filming, namely mount cook, but its not hard to see why they filmed here. As usual, the photos dont do it justice. Not because of my inept photographic skills which I assure you are top notch, but its sadly the case that seeing a photo on your screen will never quite compare to being surround my beautiful snow capped moutains, green hills and the freshest air you'll breath.

Its not all been one long bus ride across a post card of course. On my first day of my tour I went quad biking which was a right laugh, and one of the many many high speed/death inducing activities that this country is famous for such as sky diving, bungee jumping, hand gliding, white water rafting etc. So far its just been the quad biking for me, I'll be doing more while im here, but Im not so sure i wanna sky dive after i realised it actually involves jumping out of a plane. A plane. Jumping out of. Crazy.

Along the way from Christchurch to Queenstown we've stopped a few times, firstly in westport where we had a fancy dress party. The theme was bin bags, so as long as you made your costume out of a binbag, it passes. I summoned every ounce of creativity I could muster to dress up as a bin. Some other bright spark had the same idea though, and other notable entrants included a priest, a playboy bunny, a policewoman, a nun, a french maid, a skeleton, a gimp, and a B.M.W. (work it out!). A great night was had by all and its probably the first and last time ill be dressing up as a bin. And yes, i did shower afterwards.

Like the outback in Australia, New Zealand has managed to produce some fascinating characters who live in the middle of nowhere, grow long beards, and act strangely. Les was one, he owned the hostel where we had the fancy dress party, and at 80 years of age he is doing pretty well for himself! He was actually really cool, but far from your stereotypical geriatric octogenarian! A rather stranger specimen was bushman pete, the deer hunter. A brief history of New Zealands wildlife goes something like this- Western power colonises country, introduces own wildlife, new wildlife runs riot and causes all manner of problems, Western power realises error of its ways, says oops. Basically, they introduced deer and within a few years they were everywhere, and destroying other animals natural habitats. In comes bushman pete. We watched a video of him and he would literally get in a helicopter fly low next to a deer and then jump out and wrestle the deer to the ground with his bare hands! Which reminds me, I have eaten some deer while out here, so i must add that to my list of 'things i hadnt eaten before i cam travelling'...

The most notable stop off along the way here was at a glacier called Franz Josef. We stayed at a nearby town then spent the day hiking across the glacier. It was definately one of the most unique things ive ever done and certainly an experience im unlikely to have again. Its basically a MASSIVE piece of ice in between 2 mountains. Once again, look at the photos, but once again they dont do it justice. When we were towards the top at times all you could see was ice and it was like we were in Antartica rather than New Zealand! The views were once again spectacular, but the experience of hiking up it was equally amazing. Our guide was literally cutting steps in the ice as we were walking up, clearing the path for us. It is one of only 2 or 3 glaciers in the world that is located in such a temperate climate, so thats how I was able climb up it without completely freezing my crown jewels off. Its also why you get the glacier in between 2 tree covered hills- a rare sight.

From Franz Josef we headed towards the beautiful Lake Wanaka where some people ticked the 'i want to jump out of a plane at 15,000ft' box, and other people ticked the 'i want to jump off a bridge into water with elastic tied around my feet' box. I ticked neither.

So im here now in queenstown for a few days, maybe a week... maybe more... Its a nice little town and we've had a couple of good nights out here already.

Right im gonna have to go cos theres this irritating Scottish bloke next to me whos decided to use his microphone and hes speaking annoyingly loudly. How rude. I really dont care what time he finishes work tomorrow but we all know now.

Take care all, stay in touch.

Si