We left Franz Josef and continued down the West coast of the South Island, making a morning stop at Lake Matheson. This is a spot famous for being able to see Mount Cook and Mount Tasman reflected in the water. Apparently you can't see the peaks because of clouds for more than 200 days of the year, so we were very lucky to have clear skies. It was still early, so there was a layer of mist hanging just above the perfectly still water, making for an incredible view...

We crossed over from the North to the South Island on Monday the 9th of March. The crossing takes about 3 hours as the ferry crawls along. Our first sight of this half of the country was the beautiful Marlborough Sounds, which is only a small introduction to the stunning scenery of the South Island. We spent most of this crossing trying (and failing) to catch up on sleep, an activity that has quickly become the norm for us. Once on the other side we were met with...

Taupo is quickly becoming known as the adventure capital of the North, so as soon as we arrived many of our group disappeared to go throw themselves out of planes at several thousand feet. Because the kiwi buses stop here for two nights, we got to catch up with people who had left Paihia a day before us. Even though we had only seen them a week before it felt like a lot longer. We later walked to some hot springs that flowed into an ice cold river, to prepare fo...

It's hard to believe how much happened in the space of about four days. From the moment we left Auckland we were thrown straight into activities. Our first stop was the Coromandel Peninsula, where we stayed near hot water beach. We spent the afternoon walking out to Cathedral Cove with its iconic arch and white sand beaches. In the evening we went down to hot water beach to dig our own pool during low tide. It proved more difficult than expected as the water was ...

So this post is slightly late as it turns out people aren't lying when they say Internet access in New Zealand is bad. Sofia literally had more Internet in a tiny village in Laos. We arrived in Auckland on Saturday night and spent the next three nights there recovering from our jet lag and exploring the city. Despite being New Zealand's biggest city, it's made up of numerous small suburbs, each with a characteristic of their own. On our first day we visited Devo...