On the trip from Fox to Wanaka I drew on a random girl's face (the bus driver told me to). The weather was poor on the west coast but after the Haast Pass it got a lot better. The YHA I'm staying at has some of the best views over Lake Wanaka and I'm staying here for four nights. Sweet. I also left my travel towel in Franz Josef so I'm drying myself with my bedsheets. Mmmm, nice. So during my stay I met Jonas and Jan, two Germans who I climbed Roy's Peak with. T...

Lake Matheson is so nice I'm going to see it twice. Today started out averagely but the clouds rolled away as we got to Fox, home of the Fox Glacier, to reveal the beautiful backdrop of Mounts Tasman and Cook. This was enhanced by the glassy lake showing the same backdrop upside down. About a hundred photos later I was a happy man and I set off later in the morning to the Fox Glacier lookout. As the two glaciers go, Franz Josef looks the more spectacular, but Fox...

I've learnt some things in Franz Josef. One is about glaciers and how cold they can be, i.e. freezing. The other is that if you sleep on a bottom bunk, you run the risk of someone pissing on your bed while you sleep. More on that later. My morning started off when I was still drunk, waiting for a hangover to come along. I think it finally did when we got to the weirdest "attraction" in New Zealand, the Bushman Centre. Dedicated to ridding the country of possums ...

If someone had told me that on my travels I would end up in a pub dressed as a paedophile (yes that is the correct spelling, Mr iPod) catholic priest, I would have laughed it off. Then, as I stand in the Poo Pub in Lake Mahinapua wearing "love machine" boxer shorts, a dog collar and a baby doll chained by the neck to my waist, I would stand very much corrected. How did this happen? Well... The start of the day was spent with us clearing up the mess from the impr...

Ah the day where everyone threw themselves in a lake to mimic the Kiwi Experience brochure. And what a beautiful day it was. We went to the lakes via Pack'n'save and everyone jumped in while others (mostly me) took photos. This is the day I became known as the photographer of our Kiwi Experience group. I even got some nice photos of me, sort of. We arrived in Westport and I was put in Unit 7, which sounded like a maximum security prison wing, but was actually a ...