Bonjour, c'est moi Emily! :)

Anna (Dad's cousin's wife) went up to Auckland for the weekend of the 28th-30th, so Stephanie & I were put on Lenny duty! I absolutely fell in love with the border collie, earning him the title of my official new Kiwi Best Friend! We spent much of the weekend exploring the nearby beach and woodland walks together, despite losing several layers of skin due to the incessant wind and rain. Don't tell Anna but Lenny and I even enjoyed a few sneaky bedtime snuggles in bed ... it was a pretty chilled weekend in which I devoured as many of Anna's books as I could lay my hands on.

On Saturday 29th, Stephanie and I paid a backpacker-friendly $2.80 for a 1.5-hour round trip to the Christchurch city centre and back, (no more taxi's for us!) to meet up with a good friend that we'd made on our 1st Kiwi Exp bus. We had a great catch-up about the world, the universe and everything over wine (which he kindly bought for us :) ) beside a roaring open fire, and were even given free chips because the waitress burnt our onion rings (we are true Brights after all!). We then nipped into the nearest Pack 'N' Save for some supplies as we seemed to have eaten Anna out of house and home (we backpackers need our energy!).

On Monday 31st we braved a torturous 7:15am start to catch our bus ride to the teeny tiny coastal town of Kaikoura (meaning "to eat crayfish" in Moari) after a few viewpoint stops, arriving at The Lazy Shag hostel (no kidding!) at around midday. I assure you that the meaning behind this name is purely Chistian, a 'Shag' being a type of Kiwi bird! ;) We booked ourselves onto a dolphin swimming activity that afternoon, which Stephanie of course was tres excited about. Unfortunately, the weather was still pants after a week of storms, and we were told that there was a very slim chance of even seeing any dolphins, let alone swimming with them. Considering that the average pod of dolphins ranges between 100-1000 off the coast of Kaikoura, we were pretty disappointed! We decided to decline the activity that day as we weren't too keen on spending our money on a rainy boat ride without experiencing any of the marine life, but we met some great characters at the hostel whilst fighting for the warmest spot by the fire, and chatted into the evening over some leftover bags of chips and beer - not bad! We then watched the film Stepbrothers in the evening with everyone in the TV lounge before heading to bed.

We decided to stay another day in Kaikoura in case our chances with the dolphins improved, and in the end decided to go with their half price offer of a wildlife tour, as this place is still famous for it's abundance of marine life because of the closeness of an oceanic trench just off the shore. Stuffed full of gingernuts, hot chocolate and wrapped head to toe in blankets on the boat, we enjoyed seeing around 25 huge Albatross, who with a whopping wingspan of up to 4 metres (!) are the largest seabird on earth. We also saw a bunch of seals, but sadly, despite being informed of a pod of Hector dolphins (the rarest in the world!) found nearby by another boat, they were hiding too well and we didn't see any (though Steph swears she saw a fin or two!). Later that evening we decided to pop to the local pub for an evening quiz of hilarity with the 6 people in our dorm. In contrast to Queenstown, Kaikoura is a very small little town and at one point we found ourselves as the only contestants! However, 6 more teams joined us gradually and our group named ourselves 'Team Munchies' (food on the brain, methinks). After 6 rounds of questions, including one about where the Cockney landlord experienced his first Kaikoura, er, fornication, (didn't I mention they're an odd bunch?) the answer being the middle of the rugby pitch (!) we came a respectable 2nd place!. Our prize was a $25 bar tab - not bad, not bad at all! This small, local pub even had a pole on the dance floor ... what is it about Kiwi's and poledancing?! ;)

On Wednesdsay 2nd June, Stephanie & I ferried the 3 hour journey to Wellington (aka Wellywood) to stay with our family Gill, Simon, Sophie and Boston again. It's been great to see them once more, but I can't believe that we were last here a mere 2 weeks ago - it feels like months already! So we have now been travelling for about 3 weeks, with 2 months to go. I annoyingly have left my waterpoof jacket at The Lazy Shag so am going to send an addressed envelope off for it today (Thursday) and Stephanie is set to buy a new camera.... Tonight we are going to have a little girlie night out with Gill and Sophie to go and see a new "Step-up" esque dance film in 3D which will be fun!

Oh, and would you believe it, the sun has finally come out, despite being told that people were actually boating across the North island amidst the floods that have occurred!

Until next time, much love! Moi (and Stephanie) xxxxxx