Hi All,

Our last night in Wellington was spent hoping we would not be killed in our sleep by the laughing weirdo! He opened the window by our beds and then put the light out without asking whilst we were reading and then laughed to himself and started snoring fakely, we think!! Then a school group down the hall started being really loud so we went and complained and then went to sleep.

Next day we were up early and to the ferry port to head over the Cook Strait to the south island. It was nice and just took 3.5 hours so it wasn't too bad. We arrived in Picton and the shuttle driver dropped us atthee hotel as we were of the Magic bus for a couple of days as we booked a cheaper ferry. The hostel was lovely and empty so we had a room to ourselves. Then we took a walk into town to find the long awaited Scottish pub that Laura and Rich told us about in Fiji. We found The Flying Haggis and it was run by a guy from Aberdeen so it was nice to hear a Scottish accent, even though he had been away from hoe or 35 years. We had haggis, neeps and tatties and it was amazing!! Oh and he had a dog there! We watched films lying on the sofa with our sleeping bags eating sweets all afternoon which was great! The hostel gave you free hot chocolate cake with ice cream at night as well which was yummy!

The next day we got up and headed back to the port to meet our next Magic bus to Nelson. The guy is not Dusty lets put it that way, he speaks in monotone as well which is quite annoying but he is very informative. The landscapes are so pretty here and there is so many of the things I learnt in geography on display rather than a book so its quite good to see, there is lots of rivers and glaciations Rhona would be proud I have come a long way from my glaciation diagram on the whiteboard lol!! We got to Nelson and went oout to find me shoes as our skiing is almost upon us and I don't have any closed shoes as I had to chuck my trainers in the USA after our trek. So I got 2 pairs of shoes and we posted some stuff home and headed to the hostel and read all night. Not entirely sure why the gu9ide said we would nee 2 days here as we have done it all in one night lol. It is the geographical centre of NZ here so we saw that as well.He kept pointing out all these small wooden houses and being Scottish that was not much of a novelty lol, it really is pretty similar to home here.

From Nelson we drove down the coast which was amazing, the scenery is amazing, huge white waves crashing off the rocks, really pretty. We stopped to have a look at a seal colony which was really nice, they were so cute, we were up high though so couldn't really see them too well maybe that was a good thing though as it stunk lol! We took the us further down to the Truman Trek where we did a little trek down to the beach which was really pretty. Then we drove to see the Pancake rocks that pretty much rocks that have been eroded and deposited to form rocks that look like layers of pancakes and they have big blow holes as well that spurt water at you if the tide is in, more fun for the geography geek lol. It was really pretty and quite an interesting place to visit too. We got to our hostel in Greymouth at tea time and stocked up on food and then headed out to Monteith's Brewery. We did a tour of the brewery with some of the guys from our bus which was good and quite interesting, I would have thought loads of people would work there but it was just 6 guys, one of which invented machinery for them. After we tasted a few beers and got to pull your own, not such a novelty if you have worked in a bar lol. Everyone was heading out to the pub and we headed there to get our free barbeque which was in with our ticket price and then throughout the night decided that we could either stay out or do the Glacier trek so we opted to stay out. The people from our bus are nice, there is an Irish lass and her mum Mary and her friend, an American guy, an English guy, an Italian lass and some more Irish, cant remember all their names lol. It was a good laugh, we sat with a bunch of kiwi guys who taught us a drinking came where you basically clap and drum the table and then imitate your instrument and then someone else's instrument to pass it round and if you mess it up you drink, it was god fun, we will be bringing that back to teach lol.

Today it was up early with fuzzy heads and really not wanting to lug a 100 litre bag and two other bags about but never mind. We got the bus and stopped off in Ross, a little town where the biggest gold nugget was found and we were shown how to pan for gold. It is totally chucking it down with rain so we are glad we are not doing the trek now, it would have been good to go on the glacier but I am not a huge trekking fan and we are fans of pubs so we did that instead and we would probably have hypothermia if we had gone. There was a little miners prison and a house which was ice to see too. Then we drove down and arrived in Franz Joseph this afternoon and only 3 people went on the trek so we are all holed up with people from our bus trying to stay warm indoors which is proving impossible as we have just realised there is a hole in our wall!! It is freezing, when we were in Fiji people who didn't even know us were saying we were black but as this rate I'll be all pasty before I get to Oz!

Tomorrow we are heading to Queenstown - adventure capital of the southern hemisphere so that should be fun!!

Hope everyone is well at home. Happy Birthday Granma and Congrats to The Macgregors on the addition of Jamie and Angie's baby Sophie to the family, she looks so sweet!!

Lots of Love

Eva and Craig xxx