I had a fairly laid back day today after a vaguely nerve racking start. Due to overbooking at Kiwi Ex I didn't manage to get on the bus so went to the backup plan - hitch hike. A quick trip with an Israeli guy after half an hour left me waiting at Fox Glacier for 2 hours listening to music, dancing at the side of the road and getting a potato topped pie until Mark the Ugandan finance man picked me up in his camper van and brought me all the way down to Wanaka! Th...

Grand day hiking up a big hill with none of this airy fairy flat gravel path nonsense. I put my cheap walking shoes through their paces today as I climbed up Alex k*** listening to David Tennant narrate Christopher Brookmyre's first novel. A day in paradise with the 'lolly cake' I got for $2 in my reduced to clear rampage yesterday at 4Square. At the top I enjoyed firstly a false horizon... A the real top I saw mountains, glaciers, lakes, the ocean, flu vial pla...

Franz Josef is brilliant, the most mountains I have been surrounded by so far, and I will be climbing one tomorrow, it has a marvellous name: Alex Knob. It should take me all day and I will be going in a chopper the day after to walk on the actual glacier and not just looking from afar (weather dependent). I have taken to and am really enjoying not staying in Kiwi Ex reccomended hostels where possible, I like meeting the new people and they seem to have a colpet...

It's 3rd April. It's Sabina's birthday. We (the coach) just sang in totally Hockin/Clapham style tonelessness to her which she loved, I assume. Happy birthday Bina! Well if I was feeling any kind of homesick it has been well and truly washed away (wait for the pun) because a truckload of rain is hitting the coach as we drive down the west coast like a true Cornish summer holiday. The driver is also pleased cos he doesn't have to wash the bus now! I have now got ...

I was with the girls of the south who just did Abel Tamsin this morning and got on the bus moments before me. As an April fools trick someone had covered over the hundreds of thousands of years ca split apple rock with a sign saying "Under Construction". I was in fits as Charlie was so angry and the kiwis so funny to do it! We came into town which was a working town where there was not much to do. We tried to find a pub, we found an empty one. And ended up at th...