The flight from Singapore to Sydney was at 8:00pm and was to take 7 hours then we had a flight from Sydney to Christchurch 3 hours later. We didn't get any sleep on the Singapore to Sydney because by the time we had watched a few films and had our food we tried to sleep but there was a baby screaming for ages then when I thought I was nodding off it was breakfast! We also jumped ahead 2 hours and had a 3 hour wait in the airport and a 3 hour flight to Christchurch. It was about 3:00 the next day when we arrived in Christchurch and we got stopped by environmental agency and customs because Ady had muddy trainers attached to his bag which they made him scrub before we were aloud through!

Our first impressions of Christchurch were that it was so much like England! It felt like we were coming home to the cold after being on holiday! The streets and a lot of the houses looked the same as back at home and even the cars drive on the same side and our right hand drives.

We arrived at our hotel that I had booked on the internet before we left and we were really surprised how good it was! I had booked a hotel rather than a backpackers because I knew we would be tired and would probably want our own room to go straight to sleep in. The hotel So was really modern and our room was great with mood lights, jet lag light and flat screen T.V. It also had a gym to keep Ady happy although I did make the effort and went a few times!

Christchurch is the most English of all the cities in New Zealand. After a much needed sleep we went out for the day to have a look around. They had an old restored tram in the city centre so we decided to have a goon that around the city. We were going to get off at the museum stop but the tram driver was so entertaining with all his information and stories we ended up just staying on till we were back at the beginning again! We decided to also do the gondola ride to the top of Christchurch to see the views which were spectacular. We went on a small trek to a lookout point where you could see so much amazing scenery and the weather was really sunny which made the cold more bearable!

The next day we did a bit of shopping to get some warm clothes as we still only had summer clothes except a hooded top! We couldn't believe how friendly the people were here it took us ages to get around the shops as we ended up spending 20minutes talking to the checkout staff in most places!

The museum was really good in Christchurch and we got to see the paua shell house that was once in Bluff. The owners Fred and Martyl had collected so many of these shells that they covered almost the whole house and they opened their house up to the public and it became famous in New Zealand. When they passed away all their belonging were given to the museum to display so the museum built a replica house for it all to go in.

The next few days we just spent strolling around and enjoying the sunny weather and we even tried to actually have night out but ended up back at the hotel by 11 as there just wasn't much going on!

We decided to hire a car and drive to a place called Hanmer Springs north of Christchurch. The drive took us around 2 and a half hours to get there and when we arrived it was snowing! We decided to go there to visit their popular outdoor thermal hot pools. Later in the day we decided to brave the weather and go. We had to get in our swim wear and walk outside in the freezing cold and snow to get to each of the pools! They have 9 pools there each varying in size and temperature. The sulphur pools were the best as they were so hot but they were also the smelliest! We spent a couple of hours there until we were all shrivelled up then we went for a game of mini golf were Ady managed to get the upper hand a beat me ( but I'm going to get him back!). That night we had a voucher to go back to the hot pools. We weren't going to go because of the weather but we thought we may as well as we had the voucher, and it was actually really nice being in the hot pools in the night time and there were lots of people there too!

The next day we drove to Dunedin which in the end took us 7 hours! This was partly my fault as I insisted it would be great to do the scenic route rather than the normal way which probably would have taken a lot less time but the scenery was great and we still got to Dunedin!