Hello all how are we??

we last left you on thurs nite and it is now sunday (easter for you b*****s who get to have chocolate eggs). Thurs night we went out for dinner at the lone star which was really nice, there were a fair few jokes about the unfortunate looking waiter but it was all in good spirits!! after we ate we went to an irish bar (which was famous for the largest pint- it was HUGE) but it was surprisingly dead so we moved on to a karaoke bar. and heres where the fun REALLY begins wiv char and laura starting a rendition of freak like me (stone cold sober they were) and for some reason jess jumped in half way through, not that she added much to the performance! after a few hours (and drinks) here we moved on to a bar we cant remember the name of and danced till we dropped (about half 1..... not as hardcore out here as we are back home!) but it was loads of fun!

next day the sun was shining so we went for a walk to hagley park (3rd largest inner city park in the world) and and after stuffing our faces and watching everyone else do it we decided to go kayaking (or really we just lay in a boat and floated about for a bit) in the park river. all very relaxing and nice until laura got in a tangle with some americans in a two person kayak and in an attempt to save her jess crashed into the bank!

to calm oursleves after we walked around christchurch, worked up a bit of a thirst and went for a drink. then jess had the glorious job of finding somewhere to stay on sat nite as our hostel was fully booked for then. after phoning many places and asking for anything we could get we were offered a dorm at cockers bp. thank the lord.

the last nite we cooked hash browns and baked beans mmmmmmmmmmm, and tried to avoid the bald bloke in the hostel who wore blue running shorts and a crop top and basically spent his time grunting at everyone, though as laura did comment, he had remarkable muscle tone for his age. dont worry folks you'll hear more about him later!

we woke up the next day to much less sun. rain in fact (our first glimpse in 2 weeks- we were startin to forget what it was like). this meant that our romantic idea of breakfast in the park was lobbed out of the window, so we ate in hostel, checked out and wandered over the road to the arts centre which, im not gonna lie, was basically a bit crap, not quite the tate modern! after killing enough time to go and check into our next hostel we trekked (with our backpacks), past all the VW campers and beetles about for a convention! and slowly made our way (after a few breathers) to cockers backpackers which was actually a really nice hostel, not as good location as the other one though. after some investigation (basically looking at the tag on the bag) we discovered our room mate was called david and he was from england, now all we had to do was see whether we had been graced with a psycho or not. we made a trip to pak and save (most mental supermarket ever- basically a food jungle) we went back to eat and who bloody showed up?? baldy running man from the first hostel, char and laura became convinced we had our very own stalker and were rather freaked by this, so we crept up to our room where jess met david, (char and laura had met him in passing earlier and had convinced jess he was a long haired freak) but we were all pleased to have him in our room coz he was a lil chatterbox and gave us some good travel stories.

our last night in christchurch was spent eating at a diner (god only knows why we did that after a week of it previously) and havin a couple of drinks in the hostel bar. we then went upstairs for an early night as the bus was picking us up at half 7 to go to kaikoura. but that idea was lost when david came back and we all stayed up chatting for a fair while. next thing we know the alarm is going and we stumble on to the kiwi coach bleary eyed but v excited!!

after a lil while on a coach we arrive in kaikoura (v small but cute town) and check into the lazy shag hostel (shag is a bird out here for you lot with a dirty mind). our next plan of action was whale watching, and OH MY GOD it was amazing. the sea was a bit rough and bumpy and poor laura got the end of that and was a bit overcome with sea sickness, lets just say that a fair few of the sick bags were used. it was a bit of a waiting game but we managed to see 'little nicky' the sperm whale surface and dive twice. so cool. but the best part was that on the way back we sailed through a group of about 200 dolphins all doing tricks and splashing about, that was so funny, some were right next to the boat!! hopefully we can get pics up soon.

so we all managed to survive to boat trip (even laura) and made it back to the lazy shag. where i (jess) came to update you. so your up to date, theres nothing else i can do for you except to say we will talk to you soon. hope you're all well. xxxx