By contrast to Christchurch, Auckland is much nicer - much more a happening place and nice and warm. We spent our day in the city by going up the Sky Tower (330m tall Matthew informs me). At the top a very unnerving glass floor, where you can look down on the road and cars below. Matthew and I crept across them very gingerly but off course Amelia and Luca fearlessly jumped up and down on - very unnerving for their poor mother. We also watched base jumpers fa...

Had a decidedly low key day in Christchurch before flying back up to Auckland. Christchurch - definitely not a city worth writing home about. Nuff said.

We spent most of the day on Tuesday (6th March) driving down to the most southerly point on our tour tothe Adventure capital of New Zealand ...Queestown. Andrew decided to cut some 60 miles or so off the recmended route by taking a "short cut" over the mountain pass via Cardona from Lake Wanaka...this led the Pegs family through an adventure ride on its own in the tank via the steep mountain pass, narrow road and hari pin bends with sheer drops. Neverm...

As noted in the last entry Luca was without shoes (having lost both his slip ons and now his trainers). We tried to buy him some today but were told the nearest place to buy shoes was Queenstown some 4 hours away...! Nevermind, the little mite managed to walk up the mountain path to the Galcier viewing spot and was excited to find loads of quartz on the way. The next morning, Andrew and Matthew set off for the one and half hour walk to the Glacier face which was...

On our way over to the West Coast we stopped inland in Hanmer Springs - really nice town in the southern alps, resembling a small Coloradan town with lots of huge pine trees - smelt v nice.As the town is famous for its springs we had to sample them - so spent the afternoon in an amazing resort with about ten different natural pools, all of different temperatures and mineral contents depending on what you wanted. Endured the sulphur 41 degree C pool for about ten ...