Today I went to visit the French town of Akaroa, which is located on the Banks penisula and was formed by a volcano. Left Christchurch at 9am on the scenic tour bus. The first stop was at Birdlings Flat Beach on the Kaitorete Spit. The driver gave us little bags to collect stones which (they come up really nice if you polish them). So we all got off the bus and went down to the beach to collect stones and I took a couple of photos as well. Then it started to...

Thursday 25 November - Today I went on a trip to Edoras, which for you heathens is from Lord of the Rings. Was picked up at 9am and we set of into the Canterbury High Country which is where the Edoras location is. The exact location is Mount Sunday which is in the Mt Potts High Country Station which is in the Erewhon region in the Canterbury High Country. It was about a two hour drive from Christchurch. About 30 minutes from Christchurch was the Rakai Gorge...

23 Novemeber - Got the 8am bus from Queenstown to Lake Tekapo. Again the weather was rubbish - raining, cloudy and overcast - sounds a lot like home! First went through a little place called Cromwell which had some giant fruit. Cromwell got its name because when it was first settled it was settled by Irish. Someone from the Crown had to come and survey it and the locals didn't like him and wouldn't serve him in the pub or something like that. So to get his...

22 November - Got up really early as I was supposed to go rafting at 8.15am, but when I got there it was cancelled due to insufficient numbers, so I had to go on the afternoon raft that left at 1.15pm. So just wandered round the town, went on the internet and got some food. I was going on the Kawarau river, which is a tamer river (the other one I could have gone on was the Shotover river which was a higher grade and due to all the rain all the boats were tippi...

21 November - Was time to get back on the Kiwi Experience bus. Left Te Anau around 9.30am and headed back to Milford Sound. Stopped for a photo about 30 minutes later at the Eglinton Valley, then continued until we got to The Chasm (which I had already seen). Although the weather was ok in Te Anau, the closer we got to Milford Sound the worse it got and it soon started to rain. We got to Milford Sound just after 12pm and got straight on a cruise ship called The...