so yesterday was pretty much a write off and we spent most of it wandering in and out of shops due a vast amount of rain and a fairly small amount of inspiration. i just wish that i hadnt given hugh all that time to think about what to do today. and it is with that thought i found my self being "strapped to a beautiful stranger" with the knowledge that i would soon throw myself out of a perfectly good plane. i was terrified the whole way up and most of ...

We were woken up early this morning by a bunch of noisy autralians. we then had a huge brekkie in the glorious sunshine at the foot of mount cook. after this we went to the sir endmund hillary centre to join our glacial lake tour trip. we got on a coach that took us futher up the mountain, and then we had a lovely 1.5km walk in the sun to get to our boats. once we got on the boats we had our photos snapped and then a wizz around all the icebergs that had snapped ...

Today Hugh and i started by visiting prattley. Graeme showed us around, and we saw all the different bits and met some of the guys that work there. it was interesting to see the difference to rappa. after we left here we began to head towards Mt Cook. as we headed out we took in the fantastic scenery, (pics to follow when we can) Hugh maintains that he doesnt mind all the driving that he is having to do because it is so beautiful here. we got as far as lake Teka...

So it's day one adventure. We headed off at nine this morning for our little day trip. For those of u who don't know new Zealand, where we are staying now is on the cantabury plains, which is a place so flat that you can almost see the curvature of the earth. The only interesting thing that you can see is mount Hutt in the distance. So all the roads are also very straight too. As we headed off we went past the salmon centre which has a statue of a 15ft salmon ou...

So a 26 hour flight later and we are on new zealand soil! No real drama along the way. Hugh slept for pretty much the entire journey, whilst i was left to fill my time with the films on offer and eat the food that was brought round what seemed like every half an hour. Today we went into ashburton for a little potter mostly to try and stay awake!! Hugh had his first adventure driving, which despite him trying to change gear in an automatic went very well. We disc...