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....