Hi everyone. I am just in our hostel in Auckland having just filled up on the leftovers of an enormous pasta bake we made last night and returning from the pub where England have just drawn with the Kiwis - probably as exciting as cricket will ever get?! Anyway, we arrived in Rotorua last Saturday afternoon with the plan of renting a car so that we could head east to Gisbourne and meet up with a few relatives that until now I had never met. However, every car ren...

Just a quick one! The wedding didn't happen. Our transport was pronounced dead before we even left Wellington so there was no way of getting up to the Bay of Plenty. Instead we went and watched England get stuffed by the Kiwis at the cricket. A good day out and not bad for your first cricket match but England were hopeless and still are! After a couple of days in Wellington sponging on some free accommodation from my cousin we headed north to Taupo where we ha...

Don't worry folks, I'm still alive...just. What a stupid thing to do, chuck yourself off a perfectly good platform into a massive canyon. Good fun though! Anyway, Queenstown, if you have a massive wallet and infinite funds you might last a week? With every activity under the sun, all completely stupid and highly dangerous with loads of waiver forms saying what happens if they kill you etc... Queenstown is the place in the South Island where everything happens. We...

Sorry not written for a while, I am just sitting in a hostel in Queenstown and it's been an absolute mission to sit down for more than 10 mins and write something down. We landed in Christchurch at about midnight on last Wednesday and stayed in the centre of Christchurch for two nights. Christchurch is the closest you could get to an English town, I say town because its not very big at all. We decided to wonder around and see what there is to do - turns out not m...