The population of Stewart Island is 400, there are only 19-25 children in the school (the only school) and there is only one town called Oban on Halfmoon Bay. We had an early start on the ferry to Stewart Island. There is a chain at Stirling Point in Bluff which you can see from the ferry and this signifies a link between the South Island and Stewart Island. A Maori god sailed the south island and when he got to where he wanted to stop he dropped his anchor t...

We finally finished work and with Jean and Lea we headed east back to Dunedin. We went to the Chinese Gardens which were amazingly peaceful especially since they were in the middle of Dunedin! We also spent some time looking at flying over to Fiji for a few days, but when we found out it would cost $3000 for 4 days we decided we might just find a nice island in Asia for half the price. From Dunedin we headed into the Catlin's which is an area on the south eas...

We have been away from England for six months now, so if all goes to plan we're half way through our trip and it's been a busy few months. We've rafted down a 7 metre waterfall, been on a dolphin and whale safari, zorbed, seen an All Blacks game, watched the sun set from a natural hot pool, seen a huge natural geyser, walked on a glacier, rode in a helicopter, shot rabbits, bought a campervan, been bungee jumping, snowboarded, luged down a mountain, been abov...

We finished work on Friday 20th December, we were meant to work the Saturday but our aching bones decided not to and then it rained the whole of Saturday anyway so it must have been fate. Some friends we had been working with had headed to Oamaru the day before and we went to join them on Sunday. The weather was really nice so we went for a swim on the beach as our campsite was right on the water. We had a BBQ in the evening which was really nice but Jeff was a...

We're still working hard and temperatures are just getting higher and higher, regularly going over 30 degrees and even hitting 38 one day. We've been doing a variety of jobs from more planting, to installing wires and irrigation lines to more boring shoot thinning and wire lifting. Jeff has been able to spend some time "looking busy" by driving the quad bike around which he likes a lot. We're still going down to the lake for a swim on the hot days but now th...