Hi Again,

We Spent XChristmas in Queenstown, it was heading to be just the two of us with a few drinks and a cards tournament in the van, but we amanged toi get to know some other brits in the van opposite, so what weas going to a bit of duyll affiar turned in to a drinking fest. We did manfge some sobriety to get down to a very nice restuarant on the quayside for some civil food and drink.

We spentr a few more day in the town doing some Canyoning, for those not in the know its iwhen you get dropped of at a top of a gorge/canyon and have to make your way back down trhough the river and waterfalls. Its agreat laugh except when the water is only 5 degrees and Rob turned into Roberta.

We left Queenstown and headed back towards Christchurch via Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. Dunedin is ok not a huge amount to report there,but the Otago pen is very picturesque. After a night there we headed to Chriustchurch to meet up with a friend that we met in Africa. It was great to see him and have few drinks. Christchurch is a nice little city in the same mold at Cambridge. After meeting up with our Christmas buddies ( we swear they are stalking us!) and a few more drinks we headed over the Franz Josef Glacier via Arthurs Pass ( very scenic and mountain route to the west coast of the south island).

We stayed here for New Years eve which turned out to be very exciting!..we stayed in our van playing cards and drinking ( Rob won the cards,hands down) this was mainly due to the rain outside rather than the lack of bars to go to.

The next day the weather had cleared up and we did trek on the Glacier. mmm it was very cold and icey! but we enjoyed it.

We left the next day and headed north to the Abel Tasman park. We spent 3 days here doing some treking and boating. The whole area is very very beautiful with some the of the best beaches in NZ.

From Abel tasman we were going to head to kaikora, but the dolphin tours were completely booked up for a week, so we decided to head to the marlborough region for some wine tasting and green shell mussell eating instead ( very nice i would recommend it). We still intend to do the dolphin tours just that now we'll have to do it in the north island. We met up with our x-mas friends again in Blenhiem and did a cycle tour of the local wine region. After approx 60 wines we manged to make it to our van and ..continue drinking.

The next day we headed north to get our ferry to the North island. After a very picturesque 3 hour trip we arrived in Wellington. Its a nice city with some good bars ands resturants...we even manged to vists a museum, yeah i know very cultural of us! We only spent a day in the city before we went north again to a town called Naper on the east coast of the north Island.

Napier was destroyed on the 30s due to an earthquake, is was rebuilt in the art deco style and very nice it is too. From here we left our x-mas friends and headed up the east coast on the "pacific highway". Not really sure why it is called this as we only saw the sea a handful of times, but it was a nice drive. The east coast is very wild and rough and you could almost imagine you were on a remote scottish island aprt from the hordes of Maori Marae that are present here. Lots of intricatley wood craved meeting houses, very nice.

From the East Coast we headed here, Rotorua. We haven't been here long and it smells...we'll update you on our next blog.

We hope everyone had a good newyear and we will speak to you all soon

Love Rob and Steph x