Hello again everyone!

Sorry these blogs are few and far between, we have been too busy having fun! So after the Kiwi Experience industry party we went to up north in Whitianga we came back down again and rather than jumping back on the bus, our friend offered if we would like to stay on his parents farm for a couple of days which sounded like fun! We went out on their quad bike, chilled out, had a wander round the farm playing with the animals and then next day we went off to the woolshed to help the guys out who were shearing sheep. We were in charge in the wool press which involved shoving all the wool that had been collected in the machine, then jumping around on top of it to compress it as much as possible...really hard work! Also chased sheep round the pen to get them into the right pen to be sheared. Dan's family were really impressed with us as we got really stuck in...apparently we're naturals and we may well start up our own farm when we get back!

Got back on the bus and made our way to Wellington, didn't really get to see any of it as we got there late and left early the next morning to get the ferry over to the south island. Our next stop was Nelson where we spent 2 days in Abel Tasman National Park. Our first day was a 4ish hour walk to our campsite where we got set up for the night...we are now pro's at putting up tents! Sat round the campfire the night eating marshmellows we were given by some other campers! We set in the morning in our kayaks for the marathon 16k kayak back down to where we had started the dat before....knackering! We saw seals on our way, stopped off at a beach for lunch and a swim (against our will, we got thrown in) and after that we got all the kayaks in a line and held up a big sail between us and sailed part of the way back which was pretty cool. We would never have made it back without sailing, we were generally at the back of the group singing loudly to motivate ourselves to go faster!!

Westport was our next stop where we went on a jetboat ride which was good fun and did 360o spins and crazy stuff like that. Its a pretty quiet town but it was St Paddys that night so our bus load headed down to one of a select few pubs on offer there. Left the next morning for Lake Mahinapua, stopping along the way for a few short walks and then to buy our fancy dress outfits for the night. The theme was 'bad taste' so we thought we would go as Nazi's, which was quite funny as we were sharing a room that night with 2 German girls and the guy sat across the aisle from us was a Jew! It was a great night and there were 2 buses heading down the coast together so twice the usual amount of people and everyone made a really great effort with their outfits.

Our next destination was Franz Josef where we did a full day glacier walk which took about 6/7 hours. It was incredible and we walked through some really narrow crevasses, up steep ice staircases our guides had carved out of the ice for us and also clambered through an ice cave. It wasn't as cold as we expected and was a great day. After 2 nights there we headed to Wanaka for one night where we didn't really do anything! Felt a bit ropey after the night before so chilled out and got some much needed sleep.

Then we headed to Queenstown- the adventure capital of New Zealand. The day after our arrival we did Mad Dog River Boarding. Considering we are both scared of white water rafting I'm not quite sure why we thought it would be a good idea to tackle the water without a raft, just with a body board!! We were both pretty terrified on our way there which didn't ease up too much once we were in the water! Its such hard work trying to fight against the river, Kell got taken under a couple of times- not happy times- Char managed to stay on hers which is pretty unlikely but she was very glad! After the end of the scary rapids we got to be dragged round on the back of a jetski which was fun and there was a rope swing and a metal slide which you went down on our your board and then scooted along the river....we were screaming our arses off!

Our next adventure was a day trip to Milford Sound- apparently to No.1 thing to do if your in NZ. When eventually got there we had a 2 hour ferry ride round the Sound with a big buffet lunch on board. The scenery was beautiful and made you feel so small and insignificant. Also went to an under water observatory but didn't really see anything that interesting. The next day Kell went off luging and Char went to do the canyon swing which was awesome!! She chose to jump off backwards which is supposedly one of the scarier ways to do it, it was brilliant!! We went out most nights there so it was nice that we were able to have a few lie in's and a few nights to relax and do nothing. Char also did Nevis, the 134m bungy which is the biggest one in New Zealand. Not quite sure how it happened as she had never wanted to do one in her life but seemed to have got talked into it! It was fantastic though and she actually wasn't scared....we have decided there must be something wrong with her as she doesn't seem to be scared of anything!

After 9 nights in Queenstown we went to Christchurch for one night and had a nice dinner out with the remains of our 20 stong crew and left for Kaikoura the next morning. We went fishing that afternoon and surprised ourselves with our fishing abilities! After about 20 secs of the line being down we had already caught a Perch! We caught about 10-12 in total, one of which was a Blue Cod which was brilliant as only one other person caught one (but ours was bigger so we won!) Had our fish BBQ'd for dinner that night....what a proud moment! And the cod was lovely...we made sure anyone who tasted any knew we had caught it. Also got to eat some crayfish although we couldn't claim to have caught that. Today we have been dolphin swimming (again.) The pods in Kaikoura can be anything up to 1000 so we really wanted to give it another go. It was amazing, they were everywhere!!! You can really have a play with them too, if you catch their eye and start swimming around them they will follow you round, awesome! Got in with them about 5 times and had lots of dolphin action, then jumped back on board for a nice hot chocolate. Tomorrow we head back to Christchurch for the night as we fly over to Sydney the next day.

Love to everyone!!!

Char & Kell xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx