Safely arrived in Auckland and spent two days in Ponsonby, which is a backpackers hive of Auckland. Spent the two days exploring the area and got a ferry from the harbour to an island called Waiheke with rocky bays, beaches and emerald seas. It was a lovely small island. On the second day we got an overnight bus to Wellington (12hrs) and got on the ferry over the Cook Strait (the worlds third roughest sea, but saying that it was a moderate day!) to the South Island in a small town called Picton, full of backpackers as it is the gateway to the South Island. We spent another two days here in Picton, sampling world famous Marlborough wines at the wineries and vineyards and hiking along the Queen Charlotte Track to view the Queen Charlotte Sounds, which consist of headlands, peaks, beaches and watery reaches formed when the sea flooded into deep valleys after the last ice age. After these two days we got the bus to a picture-perfect peninsula town backed snow-capped 2610m peaks (lonely planet et al, 2008!!). It is most popular for its marine life, which include seals, dolphins, whales and crayfish! We biked to a seal colony where we stood 5m from seal without realising (some women had to point it out for us!) We also sampled NZ mussels, yum yum! After two days here we will be heading to ChristChurch to pick up our campervan and tour the rest of the South Island for 10 days....

The rest of the time in Kaikoura was spent on a deep sea fishing tour where we caught about 10 perch and I caught the only blue cod (get me!) as well as two massive lobsters. We cooked these on the barbie and they were delicious! We then travelled down to Christchurch to pick up our wicked campervan and made our way to The Banks Peninsula and Akoroa. It was a lovely little harbourside town with stunning views. Here we experienced our first night camping in the van. The goal of being here was to swim with rare hectar dolphins, unfortuantely there are no pictures of this...just memories! As we were in the sea making whale noises to attract the dolphins!! It was a great experience but the sea was bloody cold! Luckily we were wearing wet suits which there are a few pictures of. Then we drove down the coast and had a stop off in Timaru before heading inland to Lake Tekapo. Here the lake was very inviting with turquoise blue water, we did try and have a swim but again bloody freezing water and very slippery rocks! We then made our way to Mt Cook with another stunning scenic drive. This was a very basic camping experience with no electricity for miles. We camped at the bottom of the mountains at first thinking it was Mt Cook and later realising we had to trek a 4hr walk to see Mt Cook! It was worth the walk though as we got to eat our lunch on a glaciier filled lake at the base of Mt Cook, icebergs big enough to sink a mini titanic! The sky at night on our camp site was so clear that the stars were massive and bright and we think we could see the milky way, the moon was so bright that even though it was pitch black we had a shadow. There were these creepy vulture like parot birds known as kea which screached like witches in the night! Then we made our way down to Wanaka (lord of the rings land) where we are finally having some chilling out time before we make our way to Queenstown..........

Wow, we think Queenstown was our best place yet. Beautiful scenery and weather as well as a multitude of activities to keep you entertained, however you have to be both an adrenaline junkie and a millionaire to enjoy queenstown to the fullest! Rob and I unfortuantely are neither of those, but we did still take part in a couple of enjoyable yet comaparitably placid activities of getting a sky gondola to the top of a mountain and lugin (go-karting) down and jet-boating through the Shotover canyon river. We met up with Kim and Ryan (uni mates) who were a bit more adventurous than us but it was great catching up with them! It has inspired me to try out new activities as we continue along our travels! But I doubt you will ever find us dangling from the bottom of a bungee rope! So, after Queenstown we travelled over 400km to the rainy West Coast (knew it was waiting for us somewhere!) where we climed Franz Josef glacier, it was a great experience with an awesome view of the valley at the top. We had to wear these things on our footwear called crampons which are metal ice spikes to help grip the ice....they were more of a hindernace to Rob when he snagged his feet together and went falling flat on his face right in front of about 30 other climbers all waiting for us to pass. Only injury was his pride though!! After the glacier climb we soothed our muscles in the glacier hot springs which were 40 degrees, same as a hot bath which was very relaxing. There is nothing quite like finishing the day with yet another bowl of bean and sweetcorn pasta...this is a different type of 3 beaner!! We then travelled yet another 450km back to Christchurch where we treated ourselves to a night in a Japanese hotel and another meal out at a amazing restaurant....you need some pampering after 11 days sleeping in the back of a nissan van! I (Trudi) finally picked up the courage to get my Tragus pierced (the thick cartilage on the inner ear) which really hurt but I'm glad I braved it. Don't worry Hilary Rob's hole free! Then we flew back to Sydney to greet a massive thunderstorm....which has lasted for 3 days! Good old Oz weather! Nothing quite like a day on Bondi beach in a monsoon! So as you can imagine our plans have been somewhat disrupted here, it's a good job Sydney has plenty of entertainment i.e. Aquarium and finally got to see Avatar in 3D, the best film ever! Australia is turning out to be extremely expensive, paying the equivalent of a night in the Ritz for an 8 bedded bunk bed dorm....character building!! No-one ever told us Australia was twice the size of Europe...ignorantly we thought travelling from Sydney to Darwin was like London to Newcastle, but it is more like London to New York....in a bus! So tomorrow we are off to Coffs Harbour for 2 nights and then Byron Bay for 4 nights to do a bit of surfing hopefully and somenbathing and R&R...touchwood!