We jumped on the stray bus tour at 7am, found our seat for the next 18 days and the mingling began straight away. We picked the front seats because we liked being first off the bus for every stop or as some people might call us 'bus w***ers. What we have learnt on this trip we hate queuing. Every day consisted of playing boat, float, goat (like yellow reg and I spy) and New Zealand rocks (guessing if the next song was a kiwi artist) while we journeyed down from Auckland to Queenstown. One of the happiest moments of every day was when we stopped at New World Supermarkets. They are like Superquinn or Waitrose but so much better. Congratulations New Zealand you do supermarkets very well and that's in Sarah's professional shopper marketing opinion!!

Our first stop was Raglan which is a beautiful costal surfers town we didn't sign up for surfing because it was a tad bit cold for us (yes we have lost our Irish skin and can't deal with cold now) but we signed up for sunset yoga on inspiration point. It was absolutely sensational and we all felt very zen. Namaste.

The next morning the adventure side of NZ began and we abseiled 80metres down caves with waterfalls to see glowworms up close. It was mesmerising when we turned off our head torches and sat in the darkness. It was like star gazing.

That night we spent the night with a Maori tribe and learned about their culture, sang and danced the haka and ate alot of chicken.

The next morning we went to hobbiton  and did the tour of the production set of 'the hobbit'. The hobbit houses were so cute and colourful. We then spent the night with another Maori family.  We really enjoyed this night because all the money goes towards the kids in the local town. The lady who runs it was inspirational and she shared alot of heart felt stories about the town and kids. The town used to thrive by forestry but this is now a dying employment so there is alot of poverty in this area. She shared the letters the kids wrote about thanking stray passengers and we of course welled up.

The next morning we were en route to blue duck ranch.  That night we played Papa Gs famous drinking game when we arrived. This was a great way to get to know our new group. Dani had signed up to horse trekking the next day so had an early night while Sarah realised she was related to Michael Flatley and taught Norwegians and English how to Irish dance.

The next stop was Wellington where we would eventually get the ferry across to the South Island but first we had to see what the night life had to offer - it would be rude not to. Beer pong tournament was in full swing, some cheesy tunes in a nearby nightclub and a hangover trip to catch the ferry. Wellington had shown us a good time.

The scenery in the South Island is absolutely stunning and all so varied, driving along the coast line was so beautiful and we took lots of photo breaks and got to walk on many trails along the way. Dani signed up to her skydive in Abel Tasmen. She jumped 16,500 feet out of a plane with Nigel and Dani C. It's all about the Dani sandwich. We were on a serious high afterwards and in the afternoon we did a trek around Abel Tasmen national park.

The weather was not in our favour over the next few days. It was raining constantly so we were not able to trek the tongariro crossing or fly the helicopter on the glacier. In Franz josef we spent the whole day jade carving and made heart bracelets for each other. Jade is a famous stone in New Zealand and in Maori culture you wear the jade for one day and then gift it to your loved one. We tried to carve the same heart from the same stone but unfortunately for Sarah her heart for Dani kept breaking so after the 7th attempt and 7 hours later we picked a different stone and success. The next day on the bus we held a little ceremony and swopped our Mana. No two hearts are the same.

We arrived in Wanaka the next day and went to a vintage cinema that had a mix of seats from airplane seats, a car and couches and we watched Captain America. It was a LONG film and the couches were way too comfy so Sarah caught up on her sleep. The next 24 hours involved us blowing a small fortune but also ticking so many things off our bucket list. We learnt how to fly a plane, ran naked across 45th parallel, swung 109m backwards across acanyon, ziplined and free fell off the world's first double zip line and then to top it off jumped headfirst off the Kawaru Bungy. We were on a serious adrenaline buzz and that night we went to the famous Fergburger. Hello Food Coma my old friend. We introduced the group to our favourite Argentinian drink - Fernet!! Sarah had been carrying the bottle around for the whole trip so we dying to crack it open. After the fernet effect kicked in we did our own little pub crawl with the cool group of stray passengers. The highlight being the ice bar.

The next morning we were sad to leave Queenstown but caught our flight to Auckland and enjoyed our last supper which was an overload of sushi. We were sad to say goodbye to NZ but excited for our next adventure in South east Asia. And the sun...