Kia Ora!!

We have landed in New Zealand - had a good flight, we sat together and next to a really nice girl who was travelling on her own so the time flew by!!

Thursday February 14th

We arrived in Christchurch to 13 degrees and rain, wind & cold!! The first day we went and bought rain coats ( we had these plastic things that were so sticky - they weren't good!!) Iain had booked us into a lovely Tudor-style cottage that was so cute - very romantic and on Valentines Day we went to the Antartic Centre where the US & Italian Antartic research people do all their work and we went into the touristy bit that had a snow fall room and then a freezing snow storm room where you wore ultra glam puffa jackets and rubber boots and you got frozen to death at -8 degrees with a wind chill of -28degs - pretty damn cold!! We watched little blue penguins who have all been rescued and are disabled in some way gettig their lunch ( 1 very cute blind 1 that had to be hand fed on the keeper's knee!!)

In the evening we had a lovely 4 course meal on a lovely old tram that toured around the city so we could see all the sites - the food was very impressive and was all cooked on the tram!

Friday 15th Feb

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MUM**

This day was really bad for weather so i had to go and buy a pair of trousers and a wooly hat to keep me warm!! We got the free shuttle bus around the town ( really just an excuse to keep warm as we had already done Starbucks!) We went for an early tea at a fantastic Mexican restaurant in an old warehouse - had 100s of tequilas and yummy food. In the evening we went to a wildlife reserve where we watched a traditional Mauri cultural performance which was good to see the difference between Mauri people and Aboriginal people ( totally different!) The ladies got dragged up on stage to do a ball throwing dance and the men had to do a traditional Haka dance! After the show we had a guided tour aroud the park to see the Kiwi bird ( New Zealand's native bird which is also an endangered species) They are small little fat birds with huge beaks and they can't fly!

Saturday 16th Feb

The worst weather i have seen in years - floods everywhere and blowing a gale!! We got our pick up to collect our hire car which is a litte 8 year old space wagon thing that was mega cheap and we were off on our way to Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula, oh we stopped on the way to stock up on food and i bought a very fetchingly tacky pair of leopard print wellies that were on sale!! uh ahah no wet and cold feet for me!! ( You wil see in the photos when we upload them!)

We were meant to be camping but no way could we do that so we upgraded to a basic cabin at the holiday park which was pretty cheap and it even has a TV, Fridge & kettle - great bargain!!

Akaroa is a lovely little town where the French settled so it is very Frenchy (?!) and pretty and still has quite a lot of street names in French - quite quirky!

Sunday 17th Feb - TODAY

Wow what a difference a night makes!! We woke up this morning to blue skies and sunshine!! Today we had our swimming with dolphin tripped booked and yes the weather was beautiful so it didn't get cancelled like yesterday's trips!

It ws absolutely fantastic. The Hector Dolphins are only found in New Zealand and are the rarest and smallest in the world, an endangered species with only 7,000 left so we were very loucky that only 1 tour company is allowed to take people out! We got kitted out in our mega thick wetsuits ( water in NZ is a lot colder than Oz!!) and little booties and then headed off on the speedboat to see if we could sot any, they won't let u off the boat if the dolphins are scared or if their are calves about, eventually we found some that liked the boat so off we jumped into the middle of the sea!! Wow it was choppy, that bad that i was actually feeling seasick in the sea!!

We spent about 45mins in the sea and we had to make calling noises and click our fingers to attract the dophins as then they want to play and it was amazing, these gorgeous dolphins just swimming around us and we were lucky enought to see 2 jump and sumasault out of the water! A totally once in a lifetime experience! I felt a bit rough coming back but worth every minute of it!

We are loving New Zealand so far and are off down the East Coast tomorrow to a place called Oamaru where we will camp for 2 nights.

Goodbye for now,

Love C & I xxxx