Hi everyone!

This is our very first blog entry, so here we go...!

We FINALLY reached New Zealand at 2pm on Saturday after around 30 hours of travelling since we left Heathrow at 10pm on Thursday. (We think it's around that many hours, it's slightly confusing to work out with all the time differences!). It was an 11 hour flight to Bangkok (the airport was like a greenhouse, couldn't wait to get out!), then another 8 hours to Sydney where we got to see the sun rise coming into the airport, with the opera house lit up below us. Catching 40 winks was a bit of a task in an aeroplane seat though...!

Once we arrived in Wellington NZ, after a slightly more turbulent 4 hour flight (we saw lightning around us!), we were met by dad's uncle Eddie and wife, along with his son, Simon, and family whom we are staying with now before we start our Kiwi Experience backbacking adventure. They'e lovely people, and have an amazing house half way up a hill, so the views are AMAZING! (Wellington is pretty much all hills and trees). They have 2 kids, Sophie, a very mature 11 year old, and Boston, a very lively 8 year old boy! Sophie recieved a phone call last night to say that she got into the Year 7 Wellington netball league that she trialled for that day, so that's pretty amazing. (Netball's very big round here!). Simon and his wife Gill had some friends over Sat night so we stayed up playing card games and drinking wine til the early hours, which perhaps didn't bode too well for the jet lag! Think we've just about recovered now though...

Yesterday Gill and Simon took us for a drive around the city to get our bearings, and we took a stroll along the waterfront before having some good ol' chips and a coffee in a cute little cafe. You CANNOT ask for a simple coffee in NZ! They have around 15 different varieties with strange names, flat whites, long blacks, short blacks, all with different ranges of milk and froth etc...! (Em's worked out that flat whites are her fave so far). We then went to see Boston's and his friends working on a funky go-kart that they've been building themselves from scratch (a pretty mean feat for 5-8 year olds!) before we went to Eddie and Liz's house for tea and cakes. Although their accent hasn't changed in the 30 odd years they've been here (Eddie still has the Liverpudlian!) Sophie's and Boston's are very strong and it's funny at times! (Em's tried to pick it up already).

Today Em and I are going into the town to have a look around ourselves whilst everyone's at work and school, and we'll take a look at the Te Papa museum which has loads of exhibitions on Maori culture and history etc. Soph has made us promise to go to the earthquake section to experience one for ourselves! (They have quite a few here as Wellington's on a fault line). Plus Te Papa is free :) It's nice and sunny outide so I'm off to catch some rays!

On wednesday we're catching our first Kiwi Experience bus to the ferry to take us to the South Island for our first month of backpacking, before coming back to Wellington to do the North for another. Exciting stuff!

It still hasn't really sunk in that we're on the other side of the world! Love to all you upside down people,

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