Timefor some more from the Kiwi Experience.

Day 6 - Franz Josef to Wanaka. We left early to get a good photo opportunity of Lake Matheson, and it was worth it, as you can see in the photo's! The lake is absolutely flat in the morning due to lack of wind, so it has a great reflection of the trees and mountains. We also stopped at a place called the Blue Pools. Our bus driver said we should go in swimming, so I did. I dived right in and my heart nearly stopped! Turns out it's a small inlet in a river of glacier water! It was freezing. One guy actually stayed in and swam. Crazy. When we got to Wanaka, I fell in love with the place. It's soooo beautiful. Even Merle said she wants to live there. There's lake Wanaka on one side, and mountains above them. The day was gorgeous, so we went for an ice cream near the lake. That night we went for a few drinks in the bar opposite and played pool for free.

Day 7 - Wanaka to Queenstown. Another early start. We stopped at a place called Puzzle World jsut out of Wanaka. It was cheap to get in and there were 4 rooms with different optical illusions. Our favourite was the room where if you stand outside the person on the left looks much bigger than the person on the right. It's what they did for Lord Of the Rings. There was a tilted room that when you sat on a chair you went up the way instead of down (or so it looked). It was really wierd. THey had a massive maze and the cafe had heaps of puzzles to complete at the table too. We stopped at the Kawarau bridge so some people g\could bingy. This is the original comercial bungy place. Some people also left to go and do the Nevis bungy which is 134m high! I wanted to do it, but it was too expensive. Next time I'm here they'll havae a 216m bungy, so I'll do that instead! We got into Queenstown and got a group photo taken. I actually managed to smile for a photo, but never bought it. In the afternoon I went to do my Canyon Swing. It was alright, but I thought it would be better. It's a 60m drop off a ledge, then a massive 150m arc through the canyon, hitting about 150km/h. I maybe should have done a bit more of acrazy jump and maybe it would have been better. Queenstown is quite big, but has a nice laid back feeling to it. It's on a lake, so you get great views to sit and do nothing. That night we went out for a few drinks in the bar at the hostel then to the "world famous" world bar. it was alright I guess. In the hostel bar there was karaoke and one of our crowd did MC Hammers Can't touch this. It was amazing. The best karaoke I've ever seen.

Bottom Bus day 1 - Queenstown to Dunedin. Not much to report on the way to Dunedin, apart from I got a huge portion of fish and chips for about 1.50! We got to Dunedin and first went to the worlds steepest street, Baldwin Street, read the sign. We then wandered around for a bit before we did the Cadbury's factory tour. This wasn't as good as we'd hoped for. We had a wierd old woman taking us round and showing us machines. Only good part was the free chocolate we got. Wish I'd gone to the brewery tour instead! That night we went to a Cambodian eat in / take away place and I had Nasi Goreng. Mmmmmmm.

Bottom Bus day 2 - Dunedin to Invercargill. This was a nice day for seeing stuff, but not for weather. The whole day was spent travelling through the Catlins. We stopped at t beach and saw some sealions. We were only about 10m away from them. They are massive! We also stopped on another beach to collect Abalone shells, known as Paua here. They are so nice. I found 6, but found out they are not allowed through customs as they have meat on them. Gutted. Curio Bay was awesome. We went for a 1.5 hour walk and saw a petrified forrest (trees turned into stone by some process involving lava). We saw 2 penguins too and they came really close. Then we went to Invercargill, which was grey. Really boring, so nothing to mention here!

Bottom Bus day 3 - Invercargill to Te Anau. In the morning we stopped in Riverton to go to a Paua jewellery place. We got the chance to make our own jewellery, so I did it. I'm quite pleased with my effort. Wonder who will get it?! Don't remember much else about the way there, but Te Anau is a great place. It's another small town on a lake. We all had a bbq in the hostels garden. That was fun. Then we went for a few drinks to the local bar and listened to the live band who were quite good.

Bottom bus day 4 - Tea Anau to Queenstown. This whole day was for Milford Sounds. Milford Sounds is a Fiord with stunning scenery, hopefully the pictures will show how nice it is. We went on a slightly misty day, so it looked quite mysterious. We went on the 2.5 hourboat tour with commentery and also went to the underwater observatory, which lets you see the marine life in the Sounds. Other than this, the whole day was spent travelling. Probably 7 hours on the bus in all. That night we did pretty much nothing as we were tired.

Since then, we've come back to Christchurch where we saw Casino Royale finally. We also spent another night in kaikoura where I finally got to swim with the seals. It was amazing. They come so close to you, and they are really agile in the water. There must have been 100-200 seals in the area, and at least 20 of them came in to see us. Sometimes you would look down and one would be swimming underneath you. Today we came from Kaikoura to Wellington which was a 3 hour ferry journey. It was a nice day for it so I got some more nice photo's. Wellington is a nice cuty. It seems quite chilled despite being New Zealands largest city. Another early night tonight as we're up before 7 tomorrow.

Hope this has quenched your thirst for info on our travels. I'm sure I've missed out stuff, so if I remember I'll put up another blog.