Another early start meant that we arrived in Franz Joseph just in time to book a heli hike for that day, closing our eyes and handing over our credit cards we parted with $380. It was worth every penny, helicopter ride was stunning although somewhat stomach churning as we were almost vertical at one point! After a brief bambi on ice moment we strapped on our crampons and over the next 2 hours became ice walking geniuses. Check out the photos for fashion on the gl...

Given our track record, it was at this point in the journey that we decided to see how many freebies we could get, and only ten minutes down the road we had we had our first result. Buller Gorge Swingbridge. With just $2 each in our pockets (Sean had assured us that $2 was the entry fee), we rocked up at the desk. The guy was kind enough to let us off the usual $5 fee, and we posed as children for the day. We did the obligatory walk across NZs longest swing bridg...

How the mighty fall! From a 4 bedroom house with all mod cons, to a long drop toilet, wooden shed, and treading in cow sh#t! But before I go into that, a bit about our journey. We visited 2 lakes, Rotoiti and Rotorua, sadly in the rain, but managed to get some good photos, and just about managed to eat our - you guessed it - wraps minus the sandflies. The journey to our 'Bach' (wooden shed) took us through fords, cowfields and countryside dotted with poplars - c...

On arrival we braved a trip to Cloudy Bay Vineyard (still feeling slightly worse for wear). The lady there didn't appear to like us very much, however obliged in taking our photo. We filled our boots with free wine and crackers, then headed into town where I actually bought some boots!!! Nice green pumps, $20, a true fashion accessory. To kill a bit of time we made a cuppa in the main road out of the back of Johnny, before heading to our 4 bedroom home for the ni...

An exciting couple of days... Picked up Johnny the Juicy, a people carrier style camper, and our home for the next 30 days. Coming along for the ride was Sean, a stranded Kiwi we adopted and agreed to drive back to his home in Murchison, and as the next few days tales evolve, he proved to be most useful. So he sets up camp in the back, the most comfortable seat in the house (check out the photo) and becomes our talking map/guidebook/photographer - very useful, I...