'Ello 'ello 'ello from Christchurch, NZ.

It is our very last night in New Zealand tonight. We have to leave the amazingly beautiful south island! We are not able to load our photos of the south island on this computer, so you'll just have to wait a little longer for those and use your imagaination instead!

Our South Island trip began in Picton, with a wine tasting tour around Marlborough Sounds and a stay in a beautiful boutique hotel. The wine was out of this world and the hotel was luxurious according to our campervan standards!! Just what we needed.The sun was shining and continued to shine for the next week.

The first of our little adventures was a sea kayaking and walking day in the Abel Tasman National Park. The wonderful thing about New Zealand is that there are very few people here to destroy the beautiful places that are now protected against humans forever!

Our overnight stay in Charlestown was an experience, but luckily we didn't have to hang around there long!! We were making our way down the west coast, through Punakaiki past the Pancake Rocks to Franz Josef.

Here, we were staying in a beautiful campsite...sauna, bar with open fires and delicious food!! To top our stay off in this area of the South Island, we did a day's hike on Fox Glacier. This was definitely one of our favourite things we have done since we came away. We spent the day climbing in and out of cravasses, spotting waterfalls and 'live' rock fall whilst carving our way up the glacier. Like nothing else we had seen. (The guide was an environmental 'tree hugger' which cheered me up no end!)

With another perfect day complete and another soak in the hot tub, we made our way down to Wanaka.

This was the most spectacular drive we have been on. Every corner we turned we couldn't quite believe it was getting better and better!! It was a shame we only got one night in Wanaka because it was stunning. Ice capped mountains, blue-as-blue can be lakes and a sleepy NZ atmosphere. Perfect.

Queenstown next, and as I thought, Jez was a wimp and DID NOT SKYDIVE! I don't blame him mind you...."the weather was miserable"!!!!

Instead, we decided to go jet boating on the shotover canyon. The driver went far too close to huge rocks for my liking and did 360degree spins...IT WAS AWESOME!

After all the excitement of the last few days, it was time for a little relaxation (clearly we haven't relaxed for 3 and a half months!!). An overnight cruise on the Doubtful Sounds sounded like just what we needed!

Again, this was amazing and, despite the bad weather, the scenary was mind blowing. One good thing about going whilst it is raining is that the thousands of waterfalls in the area come to life!! On top of that, the bottle nose dolphins put on an impressive show for us. As did the seals and penguins!! Really cool.

After a stunning night on board the ship, we headed east towards Dunedin, originally a scottish settlement. All kilts, tartan and a Cadburys Chocolate factory, we spent the day having a guided tour of the factory (lots of freebies!) and chilling in the sunshine before heading up the coast a little to do some penguin watching...

Sure enough, 2 minutes after we arrived, we saw two yellow eyed penguins swimming to shore. They popped out of the water and waddled over the rocks to their wives who were minding the nests. We were really close to one penguin who was sitting on three tiny eggs. They should hatch any time soon! This was so cute. Its unreal to think we saw penguins just chilling in their nature homes!!

Since then, we have been to Mount Cook (north and in the middle) where we had the funniest night yet in the campervan!! Bear in mind that our camper was the most basic thing known to man as far as campervans go...We were caught in a SNOW STORM!!

I think it's fair to say we were pretty cold that night. But the fun began when jez needed the loo. He couldn't get out of the van because the doors were frozen shut!! He had to climb over the front to get out that way. When he reached the toilets, a sign saying "Closed for Winter" was hanging on the door. I think that was the coldest outdoor wee he'd ever done!

When he got back in the van, he tried to put the heating on to warm the van up, and the van wouldn't start!!! It was such an old van and it clearly didn't like the cold much. Brilliant. We'll never forget it.

Luckily for us, the sun was shining brilliantly the next day and thoroughly thawed us out. We went for a walk in the mountains. There is no words that quite describe the scenary. The drive back to the coast was spectacular too. Might have even topped the hitlist of "Amazing New Zealand Drives"!

From there, we headed pretty much for Christchurch. Despite being warned about the city and the earthquake damage, nothing quite prepared us. It's quite sad to see.

We went to watch fireworks on the pier and have been wandering round the shopping mall today and getting ourselves prepared (mentally and physically!) for flying to Asia tomorrow...Can't wait.

As for New Zealand, The country has grown on us more and more each day we have spent here. It is a truely beautiful and fascinating country. Maybe we can come back one day...

Six weeks to go now so we're making the most of it in Asia. Bring it on!!!

Miss you all so much now, and love you more xxx