Hello from Queenstown!

Its been a while since Ive been able to update this journal. Partly due to slow computers and because of lack of time! Oh its such hard work being a traveller!! The last time I was in touch was on top of Mount Doom. We have since done a lot of driving South and are now in Queenstown, in the South Islands. Drove from Mount Doom to Woodville (to visit Sez’s friends) then over to Wellington for the crossing over to Picton, South Islands (this is where we spent St. David’s Day) and guess who was on the boat with us crossing over, non other than Tony Christie! (Is this the way to Amarillo!?) as well as the Drifters!? Anyway, we had a good crossing over and arrived into Picton 3 hours later. Picton was so beautiful, really felt as though we had just landed in Hawaii. From there to Nelson to search for the famous lakes, funnily enough no one had heard of the lakes when we finally arrived in Nelson and it turns out they were nowhere near Nelson, of course, how silly of us not to know that! So we then went a few hours south, found them (really beautiful) and camped there for the night with a campfire and wine celebrating St. David’s Day. Over to Kaikoura in the next morning as we were swimming with dolphins at 5am the next morning. Dolphin swimming is a total must for everyone, it was simply amazing! Apx. 400 wild dolphins swimming all around you, jumping overhead, swimming in groups and brushing past you. It was amazing, such a great experience… and to really put the icing on the cake that day, as the boat pulled into the harbour the skipper told up that 2 orca whales (Killer whales) were right in front of the boat. The boat stopped and we spent 20 minutes watch 2 KILLER WHALES swim and play around right next to the boat, it was amazing, you could see their white bellies as they swam around twisting and turning, a really emotional and beautiful moment for us all. Over to Christchurch where we met up with good old family friends Rich and Clare Burriage who ever so kindly not only put us up for the night but fed us with an amazing roasted NZ leg of lamb with cous cous, salad and plenty of wine, it was lovely! I even got to relax in their hot-tub over looking Christchurch the following morning! This is the life! From Christchurch down to Lake Tekapo from where you can see the top of Mount Cook (highest peak in Australaisa). Liz was unwell with a bad throat so Sez and I decided to do a 4 hour trek to St. Johns Observatory the following morning to see the views and it was worth it. Really pretty views of Mt. Cook. Now we stupidly decided to not follow the map for the walk down and try and create our ‘own little adventure’. BIG MISTAKE! We first of all had to scale a barb-wired fence and then somehow climb down a really steep mountain face, it was not nice and Sez spent most of her time on her bum! Anyway, we finally managed to get down safely and realised that it had only added on loads of extra time to our walk so it would not be recommended! Was so hot by the time we got back to the lake that I stripped to my bikini and hopped in to cool off! From the lakes to Wanaka which is where the World Famous Puzzling World is! Great fun, especially for only 3.50 quids (no pound symbols on these keyboards sorry!). Really nice to have a quiet morning out and feel like kids again! From Wanaka it was down to Queenstown which is where we are now. We were meant to be doing a Sky Dive today but AGAIN ITS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO CLOUDY WEATHER! Not happy, really gutted in fact but Im sure we’ll manage to do one somewhere! We went out to Queens last night and had a really good night with some other friends we’d met and we’re off to Milford Sounds later today for once again, more amazing scenery. The South Islands are just so beautiful, every corner has something else amazing to look at! Right have already gone on for too long so love to you all and hope you all enjoyed your St. David’s Day!

Love Sara xxx