Hey guys!!

Well we have been in New Zealand for over a week now and only 3 weeks to go of the trip so time is seriously racing past.

We are once again travelling in an orange bus but have joiend up with a tour called Stray who are taking us round both of the islands so we are actually meeting people - crazy i know!

Started in Christchurch where we enjoyed sky movies and caught up on sleep for about 13 hours. We then boarded the bus and headed up the east coast to Kaikoura where we went to a seal nursery with hundreds of seals playing in waterfall etc and some good old coastal walks.

Carried on the circuit up to Abel Tasman National Park in the North of the South Isaldn (if that makes sense) where me and Em foolishly decided we were walking people and went with 2 of the guys on a 16 mile round hike. We casually walked back into our room at the end, closed the door and collapsed in a fairly pathetic way and I think I may still be paying for it any time that I bend!

We then headed down the west coast which is just absolutely stunning,. The whole island is just how you would miagine and we have not been anywhere that isn't beautiful even if we are just driving down the motorway!

Not deterred from our big hike we then arrived in Franz Joseph and took the plunge on the ice glacier hike. It was pretty stunning, slightly hair raising at time when trying to avoid falling into the icy pits of water or just down the side of a mountain or slide through these ridiculously tight ice tunnels but was well worth it for the comedy picture of us axking away a glacier!!

Last night was spent in the valley somwehere completely covered in snow and sleeping in tipi kind of buildings. It was also karaoke night and I managed to acheive my ambition of doing me some karaoke out here - 4 times!! Including an decidely dodgy duet of you're the one that I want!

For the first time in my life I also experienced an earthqauke of 7.8 on the richter scale whilst we were all singing along which apparently happens once a year so we picked really well! Watching the whole bar shake was prety incredible actually - but I think watching the californian dive under the table was the funniest part of the night. To be fair he probably knew what he was doing better than us but I felt we played it cool :)

We are now in Queenstown and settled infor a few days before we head further south. I am hand glidign tomorrow over the ski mountains (sorry dad if you read this before I go) so pretty excited about that - might not be saying that in the morning and then we are hopefully throwing ourslves down the mountain on rubber tyres!!

Sorry have brushed over it all but feels like we have donw so much don't want to go on for hours. Will get the NZ photos up over the next few days I promise!

Love to everyone

Em xx