Hi guys,

Sorry for being rubbish, we have just been so busy having far too much fun to update you all!!!Not sure where Jez left the last blog, i think it was black water rafting? Gosh that was a very long time ago. There is so much to catch you up on i'll try and give a quick run down.

Taupo..... i really enjoyed it here, huge Lake, it could fit Singapore inside it, leaving enough room for a boat to travel round it! It wasn't a massive place, so things to do there were walks and aventurous activities!! Jez did a bungy here, 47m high, which is nothing compared to the Nevis in Queenstown at 134m!!! It still looked scary though! It was water touch bungy so Jez had every intention of being dipped in the water at the bottom, however, it took him so long to work up the courage to jump off that when he eventually did he could't dive forward like you're supposed to he just stepped off the edge, so didn't end up making it as far as thye water but he still loved it!!

After Taupo we moved onto River Valley, which was beautiful i have never seen scenary like it! Somehow i managed to get Jez to go horse riding with me up along the top of the valley and it was literally breath taking! The sun was shining accross the whole of the valley as we enjoyed/endured our 2 hour horse trek!!! It was an early night for us though as the next morning we had white water rafting to look forward to!!! I was not looking forward to it one bit, water and I aren't exactly the best of friends! Anyway, 10 mins into the rafting, i was loving it, and was asking Jez if we could take it up as a hobbie when we got home!! Jez loved it to, but mainly because our rafting guide said Jez was a machine!! ha ha. The river we rafted was grade 5, which i believe is the highest grade you're allowed to raft on commercially, its the most challenging river in Nz to raft!!!

Next up..... Wellington. I did not like wellington one bit, we found it uninviting, dirty and quite boring to be honest, thats all i can write we didnt do anything, except sunbathed on a little beach and went to the cinema!!

We then got the ferry accross to the south island and drove an hour or so to Nelson. we stayed in Nelson 2 nights and i think it may be one of our favourite places, the nightlife was reasonable, the hostel was really nice and it was here we met most of our new friends!! We spent a whole day on the beach and tried to work on getting a tan (which has noe gone) and we also walked up to the centre of New Zealand. It took us about 25 mins to walk up to the top and the views were amazing, i didnt get the feeling i was standing directly in the centre of New Zealand, but it was really cool.

The next day we set off to westport, which i can only describe as a ghost town, it was simply somewhere to sleep for the night rather than somewhere we wanted to go. There was nothing there, we went for an evening stroll down the main street in westport where there was a couple of pubs and restaurants and we saw 2 people!!!

After Westport we travelled to Lake Mahinapua which was really nice, our hostel was in the middle of nowehere with a lake on one side and the beach on the other side, very pretty. Our bus decided to have a fancy dress party and we were given the theme 'P' so we stopped en route to Westport to get our outfits. Jez and I decided to go as pirates and we thought we looked very cool, but unfortunatly we didnt win any prices!

Next up Franz Josef, which was simply amazing! Very little in the way of a town, but we have grown to like these kinds of places much more than the big cities! We spent the afternoon in a 20ft spa pool in our hostel which was nice to chill out for a bit, then an early night as we were up early the next day to do our Glacier hike! an 8 hour trek up the Glacier, again the scenary was amazing and we thoroughly enjoyed it, except for a very annoying Canadian guy going really slowly holding our group up, lets just say i wanted to push him off the Glacier by the end of it. It was a tiring day, not challenging just a long day so we spent the early evening in the Glacier hot pools which was lovely after a day of walking. Franz Josef is probably one of my favourite places, and Lynne if you're reading i've heard its amazing to do the sky dive there!!!

After Franz josef we moved on to Wannaka, which again was amazing, we wished we had given ourselves more time here, we only had one night and that wasnt enough! There was a lovely lake and because its a ski resort in winter there was lots of cool mountains and lots of nice walks, which we didn't have time to do. I would definately go back to Wannaka!!

After Wannaka we moved on to Queenstown, the party place of New zealand but also the home of Bungy!!!! We ended up staying 4 nights and i think we went out 2 of those nights to a place called the World bar, where they serve you drinks in a teapot, such a novelty but not very practical trying to drink out of a spout whilst a little pickled!!! We spent a couple of lazy days by the lake and did some much needed shopping! Our highlight was doing the Nevis Arc swing, which is a swing suspended 120m over the canyon, you freefall for 60m then there is a 300m swing, i was petrified and did not think i could do it, but once up there i got quite excited and it the most amazing thing i have ever done. Jez was being really brave trying to help me but when he looked down over the edge he did lose his cool a little! We have a very funny video of us doing it, which we will have to show you all when we get back!! We also went to an ice bar in queenstown which was fun, half an hour in a room that it -8.5 degrees, it was so cold! The drinks they gave us were delicious and perhaps went down a bit too quickly for 6pm! We then went for a curry (we splashed out today as it was our anniversary! ha!) and i ordered chicken tikka massala but what i ate certainly was not chiken, our thoughts are that it may have been dog...........uh oh!!!

After Queenstown we moved on to Christchurch but it was a quick stopover and we just went to the cinema, we are going back to Christchurch tomorrow for a couple of nights so i can explore it then.

We are in Kaikoura at the moment, which is really nice, lovely beach, waves are crazy!! It was our last night with another couple we've met s last night we bought some boxes of wine and had a far few drinks! We have to be up by the boat at 7.45 this morning to go whale watching. Drinking before this is not a good idea. We spent 2 1/2 hours out at sea, the swell was 2.5m so it made the whole move up and down. side to side...i think i spent the whole trip being sick!! (sea sick of course, not hungover!) We saw one whale and it was amazing, just on top of the surface for about 10 mins just chiling out, getting all the oxygen it needed before it dived back down. It was wicked to look at especially when it dived down and we caught a photo of the huge tail fin!! On the way back we stopped with dolphins and there must have been about 100 just swimming with our boat jumping out the water being silly, that was awesome!! there we so close and just all splashing around!

Thats it! On to Christchurch tomorrow, then we leave on sunday to head to fiji!!

I will try and update more regularly so you don't get a huge post like this to read again!

We're both having a whale of a time (ha ha ha im so funny) and enjoying every minute of it! We miss you all a little bit!

Lots of Love

H and Jez xxxx