So next I popped over to the South island of New Zealand, after flying in to Christchurch from Melbourne.

Christchurch was quite familiar and similar to an English town, which was nice for a change. The weather was also like England however, which was not particularly great. The picture below is of the Chapel there:

I was only there for a day before I left on the Kiwi Experience bus, which is where things quickly became interesting. In a 'I can't believe ANYONE could be so stupid' kind of way.

About 10 of us got onto a mini-bus that was intended to take us to a meeting point, where a larger one would be waiting with backpackers, (who'd left a different destination that same morning). We'd meet at about 1:30pm we were informed.

This was all fine and dandy with us. We went on our way picking up some breakfast and then stopped at about 11am or so for a walk (they stop for walks a lot on these backpacker buses).

We were told the walk was about 20 minutes long and while some went to do it, others including myself quickly stopped for the toilet. Two girls who were chatting away went to the toilet after me and I strolled off to do the walk. I came up to two signs. One said 20 min walk, the other said 1.5 hour walk. Off I went catching up with a guy in front. When we got back to the mini-bus after what was really a 10 minute walk round a large Tesco carpark for comparison, we soon realised the girls were taking their time. It quickly dawned on us, that they might have been a little distracted by talk of hair straightners and had gone down the 1.5 hour walk. (Disclaimer: they were talking about hair straighteners when I left them!)

This was a pain and I kindly offered to run after them (Please, no 'Hero' comments, anyone would have done the same). The bus driver said not to bother as they were probably about half way so we'd wait for them to finish the loop and end up at the car park like the rest of us. The unfortunate thing was, an hour later the driver noticed that it wasn't actually a loop they were doing as the instructions on a sign noted. In fact, it was only a 1.5 hour walk if you turned around when you got to a bridge (after about 45 minutes), then headed back. If you carried on you were actually on a 3.5 Day trek.

Unfortunately for us, these girls were not the sharpest tools in the shed. They were confident that they had done the 1.5 hour loop (but 'very slowly') and would any moment find themselves back with the rest of us. They thought this for 2.5 hours - 2.5 hours into a 20 minute walk I might add. At which point they realised it was best to turn around. Back at the car park, we'd called the police who took an hour to drive to our location and meet us. We handed over information of their names and what they were wearing - if they had water etc. The policeman had just uttered the words, 'I'll get the helicopter out now' when they appeard at 5:30pm. 6 HOURS after we left for our 20 minute walk that only took 10.

They said they got to the bottom of the mountain that was in the distance which turned out to be 7.5 miles away. One of them hadn't even eaten any breakfast and had therefore done a 6 hour, 15 mile walk without food.

I hope this story translates well, because the rest of us were baffled at how you could keep walking and walking like Lemmings. One of the girls had just left her friend that morning who she'd traveled with for the previous 3 months, so she could prove to herself she could, 'do it on her own'. What, a 15 mile walk? Jeez....

There wasn't much of interest on the tour of the south Island for the first few days, until we reached a place called Franz Joseph. This is pretty special, as it's one of 3 places on Earth (one in South America and the other also in New Zealand), that has a glacier meeting a rainforest.

I did a 6 hour walk (this one was SUPPOSED to be 6 hours) up the glacier in the freezing cold and rain. It cleared up later on however, which improved my mood no end. The views were excellent and the picture below gives you an idea of what parts were like:

We then stayed at a place called Wanaka, where there's an adult sized puzzle maze place which is crazy. The picture below is of Allen to the right and myself to the left. The room is built in a way to trick your mind and make you believe one of us is far larger than the other. Clever stuff.

The next place of interest was Queenstown, which is the activity capital of the world. This is where Bungy Jumps as we know them started and there are a number of other adrenaline sports to keep you occupied. I didn't want to do everything here, as I don't have the money to begin with, but also due to spreading activities over my trip around the country being a good idea. You can do skydiving cheaper in the north island for example. I did however do what's known as The Canyon Swing, which was ridiculously scary. I did it twice as the 2nd jump was only a little extra, (a quarter of the price of the 1st) and I have my 2nd jump on DVD to show you all on another day, which will be better than me explaining in detail. I basically jumped of a cliff >: /

I was in Queenstown for nearly a week as it's a great place to chill out.

The picture below is of Queenstown..

From Queenstown I was able to do a day trip to a place called Milford Sound which is a stunning Fjord as the picture below indicates:




The pictures below are of scenery we saw on the way to Milford Sound which were quite impressive:






After Queenstown, it was back up to Christchurch completing a full circle, then on up to a place called Kaikoura. This was a nice little town and was significant for being in close proximity to an underwater canyon along the coast. This canyon is full of things that Whales an Dolphins eat on the way to wherever they go, which means hundreds of them swimming about in the wild.

I had to get up at 4:30am in order to walk down to a dolphin centre, where a group of us were taken a mile or so out to sea, to find a few hundred dolphins. We then jumped into the water and swam amongst them! I doubt I can get across how incredible this experience was. This isn't some Florida type scenario, where you get into a large pool with a trained dolphin that hits beach balls. These dolphins are 100% wild and if they don't want to show an interest in you, they won't; this happened to a few people who did the swim the day before.



I was extremely lucky however, as the dolphins were extremely playful with my group; I would get a dolphin swim right up to me and circle me, while I followed them in the circle. They'd speed up, then dive down assuming you'd follow and continue playing. This is never going to happen however, as the wet suits were extremely buoyant for a start. The dolphins were so close I still can't believe one didn't touch me and although I could easily have touched one myself, being wild you're asked not to.

This was pretty much the end of the south island in terms of anything worth mentioning. Stay tuned for the north island....

So I'm now on the second stage of my trip, where I do it on my own and in countries that are quite a bit more established  >: )

So far it's been a pleasure to be left alone to walk along the street and enjoy the Opera house without someone trying to sell me something!

I spent the first 3 days at Manly, where I stayed nearly 5 years ago during my gap year in 2002. It's scary to think nearly 5 years have passed since then, but that's life. The pic below is of Manly beach, which taking into account that it's a couple of miles from Sydney's CBD, is quite impressive. It beats swimming in the Thames, that's for sure.

I pretty much decided to put Australia into my itinery specifically for New Year's Eve; I love the country, but felt I should spend more time elsewhere. As a result, I'm here for 2 and a half weeks; a week in Sydney and a week in Melbourne, with travel time between the two in the middle. This is enough to see a city however and it really is one of the best I've ever been too. The setting is of the largest harbour in the world and as the picture from the tallest tower in Sydney shows below, it really is impressive.

After Manly, I made my way to central Sydney and met a mate (Malick), who was over for the Ashes series. We didn't do a great deal to be honest, although we did have a meal or two at Darling Harbour however, which is pretty special at night as the picture below indicates:





New Years Eve was spectacular and the video footage I have of it, gives you an idea if you ever see it. I was near the Habour Bridge in the middle of a huge street party, where small lorries had whopping sound systems blasting the crowds with trance music. Everyone was in shorts and T-Shirts pretty much, although it wasn't anywhere near as hot as last year (42 degrees), as we were often told. The pic below shows the crowds at midnight and the bridge just starting a fireworks blast in the background.

It's also quite nice to get some excellent shots of the Opera House and Habour Bridge while I was in the area, which really are impressive landmarks for the city as shown below >: )

The next part of my trip in Aussie was catching a bus down to Melbourne. It can be done in about 8 hours at a push, but the bus I took was more of a tour and took 4 days. It takes a more scenic route through the countryside along the way and even gave us the pleasure of visiting Canberra, Australia's capital. It is quite possibly the most boring place (Capital city at least) in the world. I have NOTHING else to say about it.

We did a few walks through rainforest and up to the highest point in Australia as shown below (We were too lazy to go right to the top but we were there or there abouts  >: )

That isn't just low clouds you can see, but mostly smoke from the bush fires everywhere:

We got up early everyday, but this time it was for a nice reason; to see some Kagaroos in their natural habitat. When European settlers arrived, they asked the Aboriginees what they (the bouncing animals) were. The Aboriginees replied "Kangaroo", but Kangaroo meant, "I don't understand" which wasn't realised until years later.




When we arrived at Melbourne, we were pleased to feel as though we could quite easily live there. It seemed to have more depth to it compared to Sydney and the people were particularly friendly and helpful. We stayed in a place called St Kilda, which is by the beach and popular with backpackers, but the city centre itself is also excellent. The pic below gives you an idea of how nice it is:




With a couple of mates I met on the bus from Sydney (Chris and Paul), we managed to get tickets to the one day International Cricket. The stadium (MCG) could hold 100,000 people and had an excellent atmosphere on the day. A lot more happens in the one day Cricket matches so we saw a fair few wickets fall (but then don't you always when watching England play?).




You can't visit Mebourne and not visit Ramsey Street, a.k.a the home of Neighbours. The pic below is of me standing outside the house of Karl and Susan Kennedy >: )


It's actually a real street that people live in and isn't called Ramsey street.




You may also remember the children's TV program 'Round The Twist'? The pic of the lighthouse below is from that:




We saw that lighthouse while doing 'The Great Ocean Road', which is probably self explanitory. There is a fair amount of scenery that's worth a pic or two, but the one below has the best story.

The little island used to be connected to the mainland by way of a bridge, until an eventful day in January 1990. A number of visitors were enjoying their day walking across the bridge and enjoying the view, when a bloke noticed bits breaking off and falling into the water. He was a bit of a hero, shouting to everyone to get back across the bridge, as it was likely to colapse any second. The bridge colapsed and although no one died, two people were left stuck on the remaining island. The coastguards were alerted, but decided that they wouldn't rush with their helicopter, due to other matters taking priority, (the two people weren't going to die so it was no emergency).

This casual attitude meant the media and their own helicopters arrived before the rescue team, to catch it all on live TV. Strangely, the two people left stranded covered their faces when the helicopters got close, with a clear effort to discuse their identity. It turned out that although the man and women in question were married, it wasn't actually to each other, which made the media's interest a little inconvenient for their affair. Karma, I think they call it >: )






So that's the end of this particularly long post. Sorry it's been quite dull, but I haven't injured myself lately or caught food poisoning. I'll make sure the posting for New Zealand has a few funny tales  >: )