Kia Ora.

Its Craig writing this one for a change so here goes.

Where to start?! We know its been a VERY long time since we updated this but that is not because we do not want to but because we have been having the most amazing time over the last week or so.
Since we last wrote we have been kayaking on Lake Mapourika overlooking the Franz Josef glacier. It is a kettle lake which means it was created by the Glacier melting. (bit of useless info there for you).
From there we headed to Wanaka which is a ski village but as it is summer here we were not going to be doing any of that anytime soon. Wanaka is famous for 'Puzzle World' which is like a playpark....but for adults. It has a two story maze (the only one of its kind) which gets very confusing unless you use a bit of kirsty/craig intelligence haha. It also has loads of puzzle rooms such as one where up is down and down is up. Can make you very nauseous (mam you would have no chance).
After leaving Wanaka it was time for the big one. Party town of New Zealand. Adrenaline city...QUEENSTOWN. Before we had even got into Queenstown we had both signed up for the Kawarau bridge bungy jump, the first ever commercial bungy jump in the world started in 1989. A 43m jump off a bridge over the Kawarau river with the option of a slight dunk in the water on the way down (it had to be done). Now after both doing a 15000ft skydive we thought this would be a doddle. Think Again!!! It might not be as high but when you are stood on the edge with just a piece of elastic tied around your ankles and the jumpmaster says 3..2..1. its pretty terrifying to be honest. But we both did and it was AMAZING! Totally different experience to skydiving because you are on your own and it is down to you to jump whereas in the skydive the man you are attached to jumps and you kind of don't have a choice. We have some pics which will be on here but we also have the videos. Before doing this jump I had already paid for another jump as well and being that the jumps are non-refundable it meant in a couple of hours i was jumping again. This time however the jump would be the 134m Nevis highwire suspended between two cliffs, the highest bungy in New Zealand and the 3rd highest in the world. The photos and video will tell all but i was terrifyed to say the least when it was my turn and i was standiong on the edge. it is 8.5 seconds of freefall before a twang on the cord reminds you that you are not going to die just yet. But despite needing a change of underwear and looking like a scared little girl in most of the photos it is probably the best thing i have ever done. As soon as you jump and feel yourself falling the feeling is actually something else. Already planning our next one. After this we still managed to muster the energy for a night out in Queenstown with rest of our bus which was a pretty good laugh.
Leaving Queenstown we were both knackered but pretty excited as we were heading to Christchurch where we knew we were going to catch up with an old friend from uni. Carla is out here on her own living and working here for a whole year. So we decided to be proper tourist for the day. Christchurch is said to be a very English town. Statues of Queen Victoria are in the centre of the city and all the streets are named after english places. On this note we were a bit sceptical at first, after all we had not flown half way around the world to experience England. But contrary to all that we actually had a wicked day. Riding on old fashioned trams all day and a gondola ride up a mountain to get 360 views of Christchurch was a lot of fun and the views were spectacular. After all this we wandered around the many amazing gardens and along the Avon river. It is compared to England but it surpasses it in everyway.
Well that just about brings us up to date. Today we left Christchurch for Kaikoura a proper sea side town with proper fish n chips and a beach that looks remarkably like an english one (rubbish). Tomorrow we leave for North Island for the last leg of our trip in NZ. But before all that weather permitting, we are getting up at 5am to go and swim with wild dolphins in the sea. It is supposed to be amazing, the dusky dolphins as they are called live in pods of 200+ and we basically swim in the middle of them, dolphins everywhere.

So fingers crossed we get to do that and until our next blog entry which hopefuly will not take us as long to do its bye from us. We hope you are all well and are enjoying yourselves....just not as much as us haha.

Love to you all
Bye for now xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx