The Kiwi Bus picked us up at 9am but we had to sit at different ends of the bus as everyone who was already on there, decided to have 2 seats each, and no-one was kind enough to sit by their friends so that we could sit together. Not a huge problem really, but after 7months of traveling, things like that really start to bother you. Our first experience of mud pools was at Wai-O-Tapu, where we stopped for 20minutes to get some pictures of bubbling mud. It was ...

Taupo welcomed us with the worst downpours we had seen since being in New Zealand. It poured down for hours so we didn?t really get to explore till the Saturday. We stayed at the Rainbow Lodge which was centrally located and was friendly enough. We rested the first night and Ben had arranged to meet his family in the morning. They picked us up in the car around lunch time and we went back to their home which was lovely. Margaret is Ben?s mothers aunty and live...

Yet another early start for us, 5.45 am again! Hopefully it?s the last one as we are really starting to hate them. We had to catch a shuttle bus from Nelson, back to Picton in order to get the ferry to Wellington in the North Island. Had a bit of a wait once we got to Picton, but the owner of the Villa hostel we stayed at earlier in the week was kind enough to let us use their garden and kitchen for the morning. We caught the 1.15pm ferry and were both really sor...

We decided on just a day trip around the Abel Tasman National Park rather than a 2 night trip as we both didn?t feel like slumming it in a tent overnight. We stayed in Nelson, which was the closest town to access the park. We spent 3 nights at Shortbread Cottage. A small hostel which sleeps only 12 people and leaves bags of shortbread on your pillow- it was gorgeous. Nelson is a busy town and the craft market was pretty good, but except for that we didn?t really ...

Had a short journey from Kaikoura and arrived in Picton around 11am. We checked into the Villa Hostel and had a nice room. The hostel was very homely and had some good features such as an Xbox and a hot tub!! Again like most of the South Island there isn?t a great deal to do here so we did a nice hill summit walk which over looked the Marlborough Sounds. It had an awesome view!! We spent the next 2 days purely catching up on some sleep and arranging our next adve...