River Valley is a beautiful location. Down in a tree field valley our hostel sat by the river in the arse end if no where! This was good though as it meant the whole bus was together for the night and enjoyed a few bevs and a sing song together! our dorm room was basically one long piece if wood with mattresses lined up on it and another layer on top like a giant bunk bed! the kitchen was really small though however this is where we hit a new low: *big gasps* 'SALT AND PEPPER!!!!!' how sad is that we both agreed!! we cooked our own tea, opting out of the hostels offer of roast beef for $15 to save money for wine. priorities!! We had a day off of activities, horse riding is not for us! and we've both been white water rafting before. we enjoyed some down time in the hostel lounge reading, playing Jenga and laughing at our skydive videos! we also had the chance to observe the rest of our bus that stayed behind, like ourselves many of them had reached the sniffing stage of living on the move. deciding if that shirt you've worn for the last week will do one more day or if that milk and ham that's been jumping between fridge and 'cool bag' for the majority of the week is safe to eat!! you learn to become pretty flexible rather quickly!
In the morning we wondered down to the river and had a go on the cable car which gets you to the other side, be careful to avoid the rope burn though!! that afternoon we headed to Wellington.

This is the capital of New Zealand and the home of The Hobbit premier. The city had clearly embraced it with posters and slogans in every shop and a four storey high figure of god knows who outside the cinema. clearly not a hobbit fan!!
We took a walk around the ridiculously windy city before a night out. I'll be first to admit that I had one to many!! Grace wasn't far behind me, leaving her camera somewhere in a bar. bye bye camera number 3!!
After surfacing near noon grace and I went to gorge at nando's with the Solihull girls, penny, fi, Charlie and bee and had a good laugh about the evenings events. I spent the rest of the day in bed you tubing missed tv.
Wellington was our last stop in the north island and where we had to leave the girls as they were staying a few more nights :-(

The ferry crossing from Wellington to Picton was 3 hours long and HORRENDOUS!!! for the first hour atleast. the see was so rough, it was impossible to walk around the boat without practically falling over. I imagine I was walking like this the previous evening! disgraceful i know mother.
we found a tv room and sat on the floor watching coach trip for the rest of the journey. We had a few new additions to our bus, Dale being one of them. Dale is from Nottingham but recently moved out to Auckland with his Mother and her boyfriend. Dennis was concerned that Dale had spent the past month playing final fantasy in his room so suggested he get on the kiwi bus and broaden his horizons. he is absolutely dead pan, not a bad bone in his body...and done literally nothing! grace is compiling a book called 'Dales Firsts' to give to Dennis upon his return!
Our other new member is Max, he's only 18, from London but went to Millfield. he played rugby for England under 18s and was offered a place at Bath rugby club. instead he's teaching sport at a private school in Sydney. Grace and I have enjoyed reading him for the duration of the South Island!

When we arrived in Picton we were told that in the early hours of the morning someone had thrown rocks at our bus and smashed the windows so we had to wait for a new bus to come from Christchurch! luckily it was a sunny day so it wasn't to strenuous killing time and getting to know the newbies!
The bus finally came and w made our way to Kaiteriteri.

This little town is absolutely gorgeous. definitely a much sea. the beautiful beach used to be called murderers bay but they changed the name to golden bay to make it more appealing!!
The hostel was one of the nicest we've stayed at. We decided to cook in a big group to make things cheaper so about 12 of us chipped in and made a big chilli which was fab. good bonding too!
The following day we had a few hours to chill on the beach and enjoy the scenery before heading to Westport. it was such a shame we didn't have more time to spend here.

Westport didn't have to much to offer us, the weather wasn't great but the hostel was nice and very homely. We had a BBQ with our bus family and found out lots more about Dale!
Dale has a big beard, he informed us that this was because he used to work in a salt factory and wasn't allowed one so is now rebelling! as dale rightly says, everyone needs salt! he was actually pretty important in the factory, he was in charge of the finish dishwasher salt. it was surprisingly interesting!! before the salt factory he worked at the door factory where he played part in making the doors for the Olympic village canteen!
Dales Firsts began this evening starting with peppers and raw onion!

The next evening was spent at the Pu Pub. this hostel is run by 87 year old Les! only the kiwi bus is allowed the stay there, every evening is a different theme. ours was anything but clothes!
In the afternoon we went to lake, it was much like iron bru, something to do with the leaves falling in the water! here dale had his first swim in a lake and jump off a jeti.
We headed back to the hostel for our free dinner, steak! oh Les, what a babe! he was stood by the BBQ with his apron on and a chefs hat saying 'hot stuff' on it. gutted I didn't get a picture!
The cheap jugs of cider were flowing well as we attempted to get creative and make costumes.
the evening was hilarious as guaranteed with piggy back pool, limbo and dancing. and an incredibly drunk dale!

Franz Josef is home to the worlds fastest moving glacier. we were hoping to take a helicopter ride to the top and have a 3 hour hike on the glacier however the cloud was too low and all the trips cancelled. instead we took a short bus ride to the base of the glacier and went on a walk, the glacier was pretty, 'peters pool' not so much!
Out hostel here had a 25 man hot tub, apparently it was to hot to actually get in though! We spent the evening with our bus family; Lucy and max were cooking tea, the domestic they were having provided ample entertainment. who knew carbonara was so complicated!

On our was to Wanaka we stopped at Lake Hawea which was absolutely beautiful, so still and mirror like. Wanaka is a cute town also sat by another stunning lake.

We arrived in Queenstown early evening and found Amy and Swanks for the evening. We also caught up with cuddles our original bus driver and had a few drinks. On Friday we had to be up early to catch the bottom bus.

The bottom bus first took us to Dunedin. Dunedin is the Gaelic name for Edinburgh hence the city's very Scottish influences. it even had the icy cold weather to match!! our bus driver don was well passed retirement and had an utterly delling commentary so I slept the majority of the way. at lunch time one of our American travellers told me he was tired of listening to don talking about the girl STILL sleeping at the back of the bus!! In Dunedin we stopped at Baldwin Street and walked up it, this is the steepest street in the world! for those of you Guinness Book of Record collectors it's in the 1998 edition.

On Saturday we had a new driver. phew! Rhys was much more entertaining and youthful! we drove along the coastline, an area called the catlins, making our way to invacargill. the catlins is stunning. we stopped at a beach home to sea lions. we were lucky enough to see them on the beach and get close to them. think we pushes our luck though as they chased us off the beach which was actually quite scary, they're HUGE and have a surprising pace on them when they want to! We also stopped at another beach where the worlds rarest penguins live, there are only 3,000 left, the yellow eyed penguin. after sitting and waiting in the cold for 40 minutes one finally came out of the water. I'll post the pictures I managed to get but they will require some imagination and squinting!!
On Sunday we were due to visit Milford Sound however the road had been closed on and off due to landslides. We weren't able to go until Tuesday so went back up to lovely Queenstown. Here we caught up with our bus family and went out for a big dinner, beverages and one last night of dancing together.
We left Queenstown on Wednesday and headed to Christchurch. Grace stayed in the city for one night before flying out to Sydney Thursday afternoon to meet Adam. Cyd came and picked me up and fostered me for the week :-D

Just whilst I remember!...
At the end of each row of grape vines is a rose bush. roses will catch any diseases before the vines hence the farmers can monitor any diseases.