After a sleep over in Sydney airport, yesterday morning we arrived into Christchurch, New Zealand. We had a nap as soon as we got into our hostel, and then went out to celebrate St. Patricks day! We thought a curry was well deserved after many nights of cooking our own dinner. We then went to a very lively irish bar where people were irish dancing outside, and we all had a guiness (some cheated with a little blackcurrant!) This morning we experienced our very first Stray bus journey. Unfortunately it didn't kick off to the best start for us girls. As tom went out to get the breakfast we decided to snooze our way through Sarah's alarm and woke up very late - only 15 mins before we were supposed to be getting the bus!! We were very quick (i couldn't believe the shocking lightnining speed from Sarah...a note for sarah's dad - she definitely took in your best piece of advice just before leaving England!!) and caught our bus with time to spare!! We have a very enthusiastic guide with us for this part of the trip. To start with he set a challenge - who could see a person outside the bus smile at 7 am in the morning. There was no winner! Later on we made friends on the bus by taking part in his bus quiz to get practise in for the evening's pub quiz. When we arrived at Kaikoura first of all we saw a seal colony. Then we booked to go on a whale watching trip. This was incredible! We were told that the average boat trip gets to see on average 2 whales. Well in our two hours on the boat we got to see 10 whales and then right at the end a pod of about 30 dolphins!!! The dolphins we jumping and doing twists and somersaults out of the sea, having a whale of a time!!! We took some amazing photos.

Libby xxx