Im sorry it has taken so long to get this first entry up, ever since I arrived in New Zealand it has been non stop, nearly every day has been taken up with travelling somewhere or doing something.
I have now got a few days recovery in Auckland after finishing the Kiwi Experience before I head back to the land down under to spend a crazy Christmas and New Year in Sydney!
Anyway I thought I would take this opportunity to actually write on the damn thing seeing as you guys have been good enough to leave me some comments, so here goes.
After arriving in Christchurch at stupido'clock in the morning on the 25th I had a day to explore before leaving with the Kiwi experience the following day, I wondered around for a bit but to be honest, although it is a beautiful city, I was quite keen to start my tour so I didnt really give it much of a chance.
My first stop after leaving Christchurch was Kaikoura, where I came face to face with some seals and went swimming with dolphins. Swimming with dolphins was probably the highlight of my trip. It meant I had to get up at 4:30 to get to the boat 
but you sort of forget about how tired you are when you jump into freezing cold water in the middle of hundreds of dusky dolphins. I was amazed how playful and interested the dolphins were circling me at arms, swimming between my legs and over my head.
Kaikoura was an idillic setting, it is small town nestled between snow capped mountains and the pacific ocean. That evening I went for a run out onto a peninsular, to a lookout with 360 degree views of the ocean, mountains and rolling hills, I intended to arrive at a lookout just in time to watch the sun set behind the mountains but unfortunately I was still working on Australian days when the sun goes down at 6:30pm not 9:30pm when it actually set. Though I am not complaining, in a setting like that it was quite easy to spend a couple of hours lying on the grass contemplating life and coming to terms with the fact that I had 5 more months of this.
The following morning it was back on the Kiwi Bus to continue up the east coast to Picton where we joined another bus with people that had come down from the North Island on the ferry. This was where the fun party began, there were so many of us that they has to get two buses going at the same time. this meant there were about 80 of us travelling down the west coast together, crazy!
On the way down the west coast we made a few overnight stops and went on a few walks but the weather meant that we were limited to what we could do. One of the overnight stops was at a place affectionately known as the Poo Pub, at Mahinapua Lake. It is here that all the Kiwi buses stop for a dress up party. This was a great night, although i dont think that dress really suits me!
After dragging ourselves back on the bus after a big night we headed down to Franz Joseph where I went kayaking on a glacial lake. It was pretty bad weather to start with but the clouds soon cleared to reaveal a stunning landscape of glacial valleys and rainforest, very unusual to see the two together.
I spent the folling day being guided around the Franz Joseph Glacier with 6 others, we were the group that chose to try our hand at ice climbing too, so after we had explored the glacier a bit and got used to these huge spikes on our feet, we took an ice axe in each hand had a go at climbing these huge walls of ice, what an experience.
That night, after defrosting in the 16 person spa, we had a few drinks and headed to bed ready for an early rise to head on to Wanaka. Wanaka sits on the edge of a lake with the southern alps as its backdrop, a quiet place but we managed to find a bar no trouble.
Next on the itinerary was Queenstown. Before getting to Queestown we made a stop just outside at the origional bungy site to watch a few people throwing themselves off a bridge. After seeing this I got this crazy idea in my head that I wanted to do the same so of course I decided to have a go at the Nevis, the highest bungy jump in New Zealand and second highest in the world at 134 metres.
So after spending a day in Queenstown contemplating what I was about to do the folliwing morning, I got up bright and early, jumped on a bus with about 15 other nervous souls and headed out to the bungy site.
5..4..3..2..1..Jump.
Its hard to describe the feeling you get as you are hurtling towards the ground at great speeds. Im surprised I didnt find it as hard as I thought i would to get myself off of that tiny little platform at the top, and it was well worth it.
The worst part of the whole thing was when the winch kicked in to pull me back up, I thought at that point that any chance of me ever producing kids had been squeezed out of me by the bloody harness around my crotch. When I reached the top I was still in a bit of a daze as they were trying to say something to me, soon enough I figured out what they were saying, they video camera wasnt working properly on my jump so they couldnt film it all, if i was intending to buy the DVD then I could have a another jump!!!!! So sure enough minutes after I got up from my first jump, I once again had a piece of elastic strapped to my ankles whilst I was hurtling towards the ground! (this time I had the good sense to sort out my family jewels before I took the plunge!) SWEET AS BRO!!!!!!!
That night, we all headed out for a touch of Karaeoke where about 40 of us ended up on stage screaming the words to " Time of my life" in drunken confusion!
Somehow, the next morning I got up to get the bus down to Milford Sound, I would have loved to have done a walk around this area but unfortunately I didnt have the time, plus the weather was against us a bit. We took a cruise down the sound between these cliffs and waterfalls that drop right into the water, it was a pretty spectacular sight, even with the cloud cover.
On the way back our bus broke down in the middle of nowhere about an hours drive from anywhere, no phone reception or anything! So there was only one thing for it, the whole bus would have to hitch hike back to Queenstown. Now there were some of us that were keen for this and others that were a bit slower off the mark, 15 of us stood on the side of the road sticking our thumbs up and trying to wave down tour coaches that came every 15 minutes or so, and after a few went past obviously playing dumb by waving and sticking their thumbs back up at us one finally stopped to pick us up. We couldnt belive our luck, it was a Japanese tour bus. So I spent the next 3 hours trying my damndest to communicate with a lovely Japanese who knew hardly a word of english, and I wont lie, im not fluent in Japanese. Anyway, by the end of the trip, I managed pick up a bit. The lady I was speaking to went by the name of Toyoko Natsuomi and she lived in Hiroshima, she taught me how to say "the mountains are beautiful", "sheep", "hello", "thankyou", "goodbye" (both formal and informal), she also taught me how to write my name in script....and when i find my notepad where I wrote them all down I will let you know! Oh and Ive got somewhere to stay if I ever go to Japan.
I felt uncomfortably tall on that bus trip, although it was nice to have 360degree views out of all of the windows.
That night after eating Thai, playing a few drinking games and having to sing im a little teapot in my underware in the coutyard of a hotel with 3 other guys (we lost at charrades), I figured that if I wanted to do everything I wanted to do in the North Island I would have to head off in the morning from Queenstown back to Christchurch. So at 3am I decided to pack ready to jump on a bus at 7am.
I travelled from Queenstown back to Christchurch and then onto Kaikoura for the second time with a Canadian girl called Carrie (who had the pleaure of seeing me sing im a little teapot the night before). When we got back into Kaikoura I decided to go back out to see the dolphins,
whilst Carrie went swimming with them. We also went to see the seals again and after some keen spotting we went to check out a blob in the horizon, everyone else gave up looking but as we got to this blob it turned out that it was a seal and not just one, there were loads right infront of us. Pretty amazing.
From there we headed up to picton where I got off to get the ferry to the North Island along with some other guys I had met on my travels. The ferry trip was a chance to catch up on a bit of sleep before arriving into Wellington. I only spent one night in Wellington before Heading up to Taupo where I was to do Tongariro Crossing and Northern Circuit.
I headed off to the crossing with about 10 others on my bus, i befriended very small little american guy with whom I did the crossing with and scaled the summit of Mt Nguahoe (Mt Doom), although it was more of a scramble as the whole way up was just scree, coupled with intense wind made it near impossible to get to
the top. I now know how those hobbits felt! the views from the top were spectacular though and well worth the climb.
6 hours and 19km after we started we reached the end of the crossing and I left my american friend to carry on with the Northern
Circuit which I was expecting to take me another couple of days. I was Intending to stop at the first hut I came to but when I reached it 2 hours later I found I still had a bit of daylight to play with so I pushed on for the next hut 3 hours further on.
What a stupid idea.
At 6:00pm, 3 hours later, I reached the hut. Every muscle, bone and nerve ending in my body was aching, I had just walked a total of 26km up volcanoes through craters and down scree slopes, I was shattered. I stumbled through the door of the hut where I was greeted by some very friendly Israeli backpackers, and some other hikers. There were two Israeli guys who saw how shattered I was and took pity on me, they offered to cook me dinner which I gratefully accepted. So that night I had a great meal of pasta followed by chocolate cake and a couple of swigs of whisky. I slept well.
The next day we waited for the rain to stop and the clouds to clear before I headed off with the two Israeli guys and a swedish guy to do the rest of the track, this was about 17km but was much easier than the previous day as we were following a river for most of the way. I cannot belive how lucky we were with the weather, most people I have spoken to couldnt do the track because of bad weather but we caught it just at the right time.
After doing the 4 day track in 2 days I decided to head on to Rotorua (otherwise know as Rotten Rua) earlier than planned. Rotarua sits ontop of thermal springs. It stinks there.
I loved the place, this is where we went Zorbing, caving and blackwater river rafting through caves, watching the gloworms as we went. At one point we got to do a flying fox in pitch black surrounded by glowworms.
I am now in Auckland and having a few days rest before heading over to Sydney.
I am sure I have missed out alot of stuff but I think I got main bits! I look forward to hearing from you all soon and apologies for it taking so long to post something.
Hopefully I will be able to be a bit better now I am staying in places more than one or two days!
Nick
![IMG_8130[1]](http://aws.fuzzytravel.com/nick/pictures/6106_s.jpg)