It was Sunday 12th September and we were on the Magic Bus on our way to Queenstown, the adventure capital of New Zealand. It is also the South Island's major ski resort town and renowned for clearing your wallet of cash faster than you can say "adrenalin rush". En-route our bus stopped at the Kawarau bridge where the bungy jumping pioneers, AJ Hackett and Henry van Ashe, first commercialised bungy jumps in 1988. This is now the smallest of the Queensto...

We left on the Magic Bus at 07:45 heading for Wanaka (argh...another early start). We stopped off at Lake Mathieson and did a circuit through the trees which should have taken 1hr 30 mins but we sped round in breakneck speed and did it in 1hr due to only having a 1 hour break before jumping back on the bus to Wanaka! We were so hot after the circuit of the lake that by the time we got back to the coach we hardy had any clothes on having peeled off layer after lay...

It's Tuesday at 8am and we left Greymouth by Magic Bus to Franz Josef. We were excited knowing that it wouldn't be long until we were climbing the famous Franz Josef glacier. During our journey we stopped off at a town called Ross known as gold town (www.Ross.org.nz). Unusually all forms of gold are found here - alluvial deposits, quartz and also beach sand gold. The main claim to fame for this town is that New Zealand's largest nugget called the "Honourabl...

After spending 2 nights in Nelson we were off again. This time to Greymouth, the land of hair mullets and inbreeds!!! Had it not been for the country's Monteith's brewery being located here we suspect the Kiwis would have drilled around the town and pushed it into the sea (towards Australia) as it's own little island with it's odd inhabitants firmly detached from the mainland. We left 6 Sept on the 8:15am Magic Bus taking us across the picturesque Buller Gorge o...

It was Saturday 4 September and we were off on a shuttle bus to get the 10:25am ferry to Picton (South Island). During the ride, we watched the news on the Christchurch earthquake and they confirmed that a state of emergency had been imposed. The last 20 minutes of the boat journey was stunning as we entered a waterway known as Queen Charlotte Sound. When we arrived at Picton It was again confirmed to us that the scenic train was not running to Christchurch but ...