New Zealand

Woops! Havent written on this for a while as it takes so long to compose a message but here goes! We are now in New Zealand, its AMAZING! Came into Christchurch after a horrific night in Sydney airport (airport seats are not built for sleeping!), and got the shuttle to the centre to find a hostel. Its absolutely bizarre after India, for a city this place feels like a ghost town, NO BEEPING, and people stay withing the lines when they drive! For most of u this might seem weird, but honestly the driving is atrocious in India although weirdly they drive much slower. We have also had to monitor our road crossing habits, where in India there are no traffic lights or pedestrian crossings, so we had perfected the art of merely stepping out into the road with a hand out to stop the oncoming car, here we actually have to wait for a green man....weird! Christchurch was like a return to luxury, going to Starbucks, nice showers and the loos! The best thing is definitely the loos, u dont appreciate a good loo until uv been to India!!!!! LOads of stuff to do in this peaceful city, went rowing on the River Avon (damn Ben and Ellie, continuously rocking the boat!!!), ended up in several accidental crashes into the riverbank. Also had to rescue this family in a pedalo who had lost their rudder so were consequently drifting up the river! Towed them back to safety....ah what heroes we are (i might add that we received no reward for this heroic deed.....). Also went up Christchurch Gondola which no is not a boat thing like they have in Venice but in fact is a cable car, which took us to the most amazing and beautiful scenery i have ever seen. We have also hired a car so we are currently driving around the south island in a white hatchback (cant remember the make sorry dad!) where the steering shudders a bit in low gears but otherwise is fine.....have driven to Lake Tekapo, which was a huge stunning lake carved out but a glacier. We stayed there for two nights, swam in the lake which was even colder than swimming in the unheated pool grandad! Really pretty if a little cold...., anyway then we drove to Mt Cook the highest mountain in NZ and did a 3 hr walk to the Hooker Glacier which is still retreating, and has carved out this amazing valley to walk along, with huge roaring rivers which we got to cross by enormous swing bridges....again the boys being very immature attempting to rock us over the edge, dont worry mum it was perfectly safe....The views of the mountain were stunning once the cloud unveiled it, and the walk ended at this big lake which is where the glacier starts and is currently melting so there were hjuge blocks of ice in it....(one weird man was sitting on one in the middle of the lake, must have been verrrry cold!). We are currently in Dunedin, a coastal city right in the South, and this morning we went to the Cadburys factory and got loads of free chocoloate...WOOOH! The smell was amazing! HAve also been to a beach which was full of surfers cos there were pretty much tidal waves there! Ellie and I decided to go swimming so we waded in, and this 5ft wave comes roaring toward us so we rapidly ran out, leaving it to the surfers!!!!! Amazing to watch, but very scary to face! Tomorrow we move on to Te Anau....