New Zealand

We arrived on the South Island to glorious sunshine and headed straight to Christchurch where we'd be spending our first Christmas away from home. The 23rd was spent stocking up on cheap booze at the local equivalent of Netto and buying tat for each other just so we'd have something to open on Christmas Day, aww!

Christmas Eve passed as usual - a 'few' birthday drinks followed by possibly the worst Christmas Day hangover I've ever had. The hostel had laid on a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings ... I managed to peel myself out of bed and ate one piece of chicken and three spuds before excusing myself from the table and lying face down on the grass in the shade for the rest of the day.

Santa made it to Christchurch, he must've been hot in that suit ...

A couple of days later we picked up our home and transport for the next two weeks, 'Sick Van' as it became known due to it's distinct whiff of puke - luckily that faded soon after!

Sick Van

We headed straight up the coast to Picton and Marlborough Sounds via a couple of really good vineyards ... by the second day, Sick Van was carrying a crate of beer, a bottle of vodka and four bottles of local wine. I miss that van!

Marlborough Sounds

View from Sick Van, one of the free campsites we stayed at

Our choice of New Year venue was either 'big town or small town' - we opted for small so we could hunt down where the locals head to. We managed to track down some live music and a crowd with hardly another backpacker in sight which made a nice change. We drank until the money ran out (again!) and enjoyed one of the better New Year's nights we've had for a while.

West Coast, Pancake Rocks, New Year's Day

Carried on down the West Coast until we decided to rev the stove up get a cup of tea and beans on toast on the go. Rich had a fantastic idea and drove Sick Van onto the world's most desolate beach - don't think he heard me say 'if we get stuck, I'll kill you' ... we got very stuck! A mix of desperation ( the nearest town was 21kms away) and male pride got us out eventually, took us 2 hours and lots of sandfly bites before we were heading back to the nearest campsite to have a shower and down some vodka.

S**T!!

The next day we treated ourselves to a helicopter flight onto Fox Glacier taking us about a third of the way up, 4 km, before we had the chance to jump out and explore. The view from the air was amazing taking in the glacier and Mount Cook, NZ's highest mountain. The helicopter ride there and back wasn't bad either!

Mount Cook

We'd been talking about doing a skydive since we landed in NZ and as the weather was brilliant in the South Island we couldn't really back out of it. We rocked up to Lake Wanaka about 11am, went straight to tourist info JUST to get some costs and managed to get booked onto the 2pm slot later that day - Rich also convinced me to do the highest jump 15,000ft so we'd have 60 seconds of freefall. I thought I'd be much more nervous than I actually was, which surprised me a bit!

Once you're wedged into this there's only one way out!

Heading to the plane

I honestly can't wait to do the next one! Probably one of the best things we've done so far, skydiving at Wanaka was a great choice too as there were some great views of Mt Cook and Mt Aspiring National Park on the way down. Unfortunately there was a camera 'malfunction' which means I didn't get an exit photo from the plane ... oh well, least the 'chute worked!

Onwards and southwards to Queenstown where Rich had more extreme sports planned, I was drawing the line at bungy jumping! He decided to do the big three in one day, the scariest one (even as a spectator!) was the Nevis - a 134m drop. As a 'bungy mate' I was harnessed up and allowed to go over with the jumpers to the platform, they also weighed me to give me the option of jumping once i was over there - not a chance!

Nevis bungy platform

View over Queenstown

Next stop was Milford Sound for a boat cruise, beautiful place

Mirror Lakes near Milford Sound

Speight's Brewery Tour, Dunedin - we drank as much beer as we could pull in 15 minutes ...

Lake Tekapo, I wasn't brave enough to face the cooooold water!

Last day in Sick Van and NZ was spent in Akaroa so we could swim with Hector's dolphins, apparently the smallest and rarest in the world. Took us a while to track down a pod of the little sod's but was well worth it once they appeared - once you manage to make eye contact they'll swim around you again and again.

We had such a great time in NZ we were quite gutted to be leaving, but like most of the places we've visited we've already made plans to go back! We decided to cut down the travel in Australia a few months ago so we can go back on hols and enjoy the cities when we're not on such a tight budget, we did keep the Outback bit in the plans though - next stop Alice Springs and Uluru!

Waved a sad goodbye to South America after nearly 5 fantastic months, could have easily spent the same amount of time there again squeezing in the bits we didn't get to see. Will definitely be back though!

We hadn't had any beach time since Brazil, a whopping two months, so decided we deserved a rest and headed to the Cook Islands before New Zealand. Absolutely stunning place, it did rain for almost the entire 10 days we were there though, paradise my arse! Towards the end we had a couple of days of sun which was great, so managed to get a lot of snorkelling done around the island, having a scooter really helped as could zip around Rarotonga quite easily.

Muri beach, Rarotonga

Left Rarotonga and headed to nearby Aitutaki for a few days, we did our usual thing of not booking accomodation - luckily we met the owner of a couple of beach huts on our short flight over and we ended up staying there for three days. It rained pretty much on and off while we were there so no lagoon tour for us ... good job we had enough books to read!

Beach hut, can't complain about the location ...

After 10 leisurely days in the Cooks, we had to pick up the pace for New Zealand to try and do as much as possible in 4 weeks. We took the Magic Bus around the North Island, got herded around a bit but the not having to think / make any decisions bit made a nice change from SA!

The bad weather followed us which meant we couldn't skydive on the North Island but we could do a lot of water based activities! Black Water Rafting in Waitomo was excellent, never thought I'd ever be able to do any form of caving but it turned out to be excellent fun climbing and tubing in caves under the glow-worms.

Next up was White Water Rafting in Rotorua, again, had a great time and really good fun - I nearly cried going over the 7 metre waterfall (apparently the highest commercially rafted in the world) as it looked terrifying and the guides really make you s**t yourself ... we didn't tip over though which was a relief but the amount of water that went up my nose and in my ears it wouldn't have made much difference anyway!

Wai O Tapu Geothermal pools, Rotorua

A break in the rain meant we took advantage of some other quality NZ activites ...
Mini golf - check out the putting action

They shear Angora rabbits here too - look at it's little face!

The sun did come out though the closer we got to Christmas

Had excellent 2 weeks on the North Island, did some great activities including cultural nights and after-dark kiwi hunts ... loved the Magic Bus but now down to the South Island for Christmas and New Year ready to pick up the camper van, good stuff!