Sorry we havent updated for a while, Yesterday we went to the International Antarctic centre, its 15mins outside of the city centre and we got picked up by the Penguin Express. When we arrived we both brought the extreme pass which entitled you to do every activity inside the centre, the first show we watched was the penguin feeding, shortly after that we had a Hagglund ride, a Hagglund is a swedish built off roader, its used by he Swedish army and its one of the most commonly used transports in the anarctica. We had a ten minuite drive up and down hills and through water. When we got back to the centre we entered the SNOW and ICE experience room. To enter his room you must wear a jacket and shoe covers, the room temperature is kept at -8 degrees and its filled with snow, it also has a igloo, ice slide and snow ski inside. Every 30mins there is a storm, they dim the lights and drop the temperature to -23 degrees, they also use wind machines to increase the wind speeds so it feels even colder. it only lasts about 4 minuites but thats enough time to lose feeling in your fingers and nose. Once we left here and thored out we had our penguin encouter, we were taken into a seperate room and got to meet a penguin called Pedro, he was really cool around people and just walked around us, at one point he walked right over Kellys legs, there was a guide there giving us some information about penguins and the encounter lasted about 30 minuites. After lunch we went into the 4D extreme theatre, inside we watched a short film about the antarctic in 3D and also got sprayed in the face with water and air at certain points in the film. in total we spent around 5 hours in the centre and then got the penguin express back to he city.

Today we had a guided tour around Christchurch and some of the surrounding areas like New Brighton, Lyttelton and the port hills. On the tour we saw alot of last years earthquakes damage, buildings half collapsed, some houses literally hanging off cliffs and alot of buildings with shattered windows and cracks in the walls. we got to visit the Takahe lookout, this is a lookout on top of a very big hill were you can overlook Christchurch and behind the city you can see the Southern Alps and the ocean.

Next week we have booked our Lord Of The Rings tour, sounds geeky but its also a tour of the glaciers and Mt Cook, we will also be going to the Hanmer Springs for the day to visit the thermal pools which are naturally heated by the earth so keep an eye out for updates.