Milford Sound was beautiful. We had a pretty early start, and the weather looked grim, so I had my fingers crossed it would clear up, which it luckily did (first sun in 2 weeks there!) The bus journey from Queenstown takes about 4 hours there, so slept most of it. We hopped out a couple of times to get some shots of the landscape, once a Mirror Lake and then again just before the Homer Tunnel (1km long). The scenery was again stunning, and there was lots of mist ...

Had a good night out last night. Everyone on our bus went for pizza first, we paid $10 for all you can eat pizza, so I was in heaven!! (though nowhere near mamma mia/pizza express standard!) There was a bar tab for us at one of the bars we went too, so got a few free drinks out of that, but the tab ran out in about 4 minutes! There was also a Jager train, which was pretty cool (video on Arthur's facebook) where they lined up all the jager bombs, but balanced the ...

Arthur's birthday today. Left Wanaka this morning and went to Puzzling World. There were loads of optical illusions, holographic pictures, pictures creating pictures, a slanting room which made me feel really sick. Everything in it was horizontal but the floor was sloping down and so you kept tripping, as your brain thought you were tipping, but you obviously weren't. There was also an Ames Room, which makes people on one side look huge and people on the other ti...

Had another pretty amazing day today, even more spectacular views of stunning lakes and mountains! I'm really glad we've come at the time of year that we have, because some (not all) of the mountains have snow on them, and just at the peaks, how you imagine a mountain to be so am getting amazing photos! We stopped off at Lake Matheson (pretty early 8am) and it was beautiful, a 20 minute walk through the forest to get to the viewing points and when you get there i...

Wow what an incredible day! We climbed the Franz Josef Glacier - Ka Roimata O Hinehukatere (Maori) - which was possibly one of the best things I've done, it was so beautiful, a totally new and different experience. The ice was so smooth and blue it was amazing. It was a 13km return hike. We got a discounted price as we are travelling with kiwi experience, and all the gear - boots, socks, crampons, hats, gloves, waterproofs etc were all included, so didn't have to...