We arrived into Christchurch after a stupidly scenic flight over the country. We were staying with friends of Pip's family, Wendy worked with Jenny in Reading. Driving through Christchurch was a shock, the earthquakes that beseiged the city still leave the place in tatters.

The following morning we went to get our campervan, who we named Jenny, she is magnificent! Any doubts we previously had about size and space were quickly doused when we saw her. We headed to a supermarket to get our first shop, and then onto a Buskers festival, one of the biggest in the world. Despite the boiling heat we still managed to have a good time (a particular highlight was a comedian named 'Mullet Man'). We then returned to the house for our last night with Jenny and Ivan, which involved a mouth-watering barbeque, a skype with some friends back at home and a lot of (futile) cheering for Andy Murray.

We awoke bright and early the next day to begin our journey in the campervan. The drive to our first campsite (Okains Bay) really opened ouy eyes to the beauty of New Zealand. The diversity of the country was summed up by Mike during the drive 'It's like someone has taken all my favourite bits of loads of countries and stapled them together'. It did seem very odd how the country looked like Tuscany, then Dartmoor and then an American style town in the middle of nowhere.

After Okains Bay we drove down to the Mount Cook national park, situated right underneath Mount Cook itself! After marvelling at the mountains, we then remembered that we were climbing one the next day. We started climbing in the midday heat and we soon realised that the ascent would not be as easy as we anticipated. Sam strode on ahead, and as tiredness began to set in a sign which cheerfully stated 'Only 1810 steps to go!' dampened our spirits further. Forunately half way up we found a cool pool of water which gave us all plenty of energy (which was lucky as the steps disappeared after). We soon got to the top, which had ice on in the middle of summer! Only once we got down did we realise we had ascended nearly 900m, sitting us at around 1800m at our highest point.

We left Mount Cook and headed down south, through Twizel (where a lot of The Lord of the Rings was filmed) and on through the country. The landscape changed again from the Alps/Scotland to the mountains of the American Rockies and plains, with huge stretching roads and empty towns with the highway going straight through the middle. Eventually we found ourselves in Dunedin, a university city near the south of the south island. We drove around for a long while before finding a caravan park to stay at and all had a much needed shower! As it was our first major city that we had been to we were eager to sample the night life of the city. However some of us were somewhat too 'eager' and we ended up back at the carmpervan, although only after certain members' backsides had had a good tour of the cities pavements, and in some cases only after a nap. It was a pretty dire night.

The next day we left Dunedin after a quick tour of the city, including Baldwin Street (the steepest street in the world). Sam also tried shooing his hangover by hiring a surfboard for a few hours whilst the rest of us bums sat around on the beach. We made good time driving to a campsite just past the small town of Owaka, in the stunning Catlins area. We were caught in a random breathaliser test en route. Luckily due to Mike's distaste for his budget beer, he passed with flying colours.

After spending a night there, we did a quick tour of the area. This included some beautiful waterfalls, the Cathedral Caves and Jack's Blowhole (yes we all found the name very funny too). The drive to Invercargill was very long, and it was lengthened when we decided to go to Bluff (the most 'southerly' point in New Zealand, it isn't the most southerly..). Here we also had our first proper encounter with sand flies. We were only out of the campervan for a matter of minutes, but we left with bites all over us and, in some cases, blood streaming down our legs.

From there, we begun to venture into one of the wettest parts of the entire world, the Fjordlands. Today we arrived in the sleepy town of Manapouri, on the way we visited a limestone cave, open to the public that winds its way for 300m underground. Were it in the UK, one would almost certainly be required to be accompanied by at least 7 members of the health and safety gang all banging on about low rocks and heads. There were glow worms in the caves also.

Plans for the next few days are to head deeper into Fjordland, visting Te Anau and Milford Sound before working our way round to Queenstown.

Mike and Luke x