Too many activities to fit into a sensible title!

Hello again everyone - we can't believe how busy we've been since we last posted on the blog, which does unfortunately mean there will (as usual) be several reams for you to all plough through, we hope you're not getting too bored hearing about all of our antics! Well, we suppose there's nothing for it, except diving straight into telling you what has stopped us from posting sooner, so here goes!

FRIDAY 13th July

Right-e-o, we started off today by getting packed up and jumping back on the KiwiExperience bus, which took us over to Christchurch again. It was quite strange going back and knowing our way around the town etc, almost like going home in an odd way! It was a pretty long journey and despite the fact that we only had a short breakfast and a couple of loo breaks, we still didn't arrive in Christchurch until late in the afternoon. When we arrived Steve hopped off of the bus at 'Base' (the hostel where everyone else was staying) and bought us a couple of tickets to go to the Tri-Nations rugby match between the New Zealand All Blacks and South African Springboks tomorrow night! We were both pretty excited about it to say the least! We then got dropped off at our hostel and set about making ourselves hot drinks and trying to get a bit warm, as it was freezing cold!

SATURDAY 14th July

We had a fairly easy day today and spent most of it pottering around the town. We started off at Christchurch Cathedral. It was a beautiful Norman-style building and although it wasn't as imposing and grand, it was certainly very reminiscent of Durham Cathedral. We then headed over to the Christchurch Arts Centre, where there were loads of shops and galleries with local goods and crafts on display and for sale. It was nice wandering around, but also disappointing, as there were so many things we wanted to buy, but they were also just so expensive! We then went to the Art Gallery, it didn't take too long to get around as it was pretty small, but they did have some really good exhibits. We both especially enjoyed the photography exhibit. We then wandered over to the Museum across the street, which was incredibly eclectic. It had about the Neolithic, the development of Maori culture, 1960s Adelphi (?) Penguin study in Antarctica, history of transport, history of clothes, dinosaurs, a bird gallery, East Asian artifacts and even an Ancient Egyptian Mummy! Just shed loads of stuff, it was really good. With another short stop at the Arts Centre, we headed back into the main part of town, where we did a little bit of shopping to find a wool jumper - I've been wanting a real New Zealand wool jumper for ages and so we finally managed to get me one today, yay!
So after all of our wanderings we found something for dinner and then waited for the KiwiExperience bus to arrive to take us to the Jade Stadium. We finally got to the stadium and found our seats and then it all began to happen! I have to admit that the atmosphere wasn't as electric as I'd thought it would be and people didn't cheer and get that excited etc during the match, but it was still enjoyable. At least the first half of the match was really uneventful and so a little dull, but the last quarter was just amazing and so much fun to watch, it was just incredible and we had so much fun!

SUNDAY 15th July

Today we were taken to Kaikoura again. We arrived just before lunchtime and so in the afternoon we ended up Dolphin watching, which was surprisingly good! Steve and I were almost the only people not going diving with the dolphins, which we ended up being very glad about! The diver's (well, they were actually snorkeling) kept having to get in and out of the water, literally every 5 minutes, as the pod of around 300 dolphins just kept moving so quickly away from them! Whereas Steve and I got to stay warm and dry and also enjoy seeing a lot more of the dolphins, as we had a better vantage point! We saw them doing amazing things like somersaulting, back-flips, tail-flapping, swimming at incredible speed and loads more as well! It was so much fun to watch and we've hopefully got some great photos of them, although it's really hard to time it right! After that we didn't do anything apart from potter around at the hostel for the evening!

MONDAY 16th July

Today we went for a really nice coastal walk. We walked around the peninsula and the walked along the beach. On the way we went past bird breeding colonies and also came within an incredibly close proximity to some very huge fur seals! We also looked in lots of rock pools, with Steve educating me about the marine life. Eventually we could go no further along the beach and so had to climb up onto the cliff top, which then took us back towards the peninsula. The views from the cliff top were amazing, you could even see the point in the ocean where the continental shelf suddenly stops and the sea floor plummets down - the ocean abruptly changing from a beautiful turquoise to deepest blue! It was generally a beautifully sunny day, albeit a little chilly too! On our way back around the peninsula, we stopped at a little road-side place to have some very tasty mussels and scallops, before making our way back towards the town and the hostel.

TUESDAY 17th July

Today saw us arriving in the capital. Initially we made our way to Picton. Once here we had to wait for the departure of the boat and so had just over an hour to spend at the ferry terminal. We waited at the cafe and treated ourselves to a coffee whilst we waited. I was a bit nervous about the ferry crossing, as it can be very rough, due to the incredible strong winds the area is prone to, but luckily for us, the water was like that of a mill-pond today and the crossing was smooth and uneventful. Once in Wellington, we got checked into the YHA and then popped to the supermarket for a few supplies, but ended up treating ourselves to a takeaway curry, as it was on offer if you bought it through the hostel!

WEDNESDAY 18th July

Today was spent exploring what the capital has to offer. We started off at the Te Papa (or National) Museum. This was a really great place to spend several hours and they had 2 sections which were particularly brilliant - one about Awesome Forces (the forces of the Earth) and From Mountains to the Seas (which had a particularly good section about marine life). So we had a nice time there and even stopped to do a survey at the end, which then entitled us to a free hot drink from the Museum Cafe! We were then going to go to the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, but it was closed, so instead we found ourselves at the Shed 11 photograph gallery instead. We then began to wander through the town and made our way eventually to St. Paul's Cathedral and then Old St. Paul's. Old St. Paul's was really beautiful, it looked like an old country church from the outside, but inside it was carved from wood and was just incredible. we also made our way up the old tram to get to the top of Mount Victoria to be able to walk around the botanic gardens for a while. Finally, we decided to make our way back to the hostel, as we were getting sore feet from walking around so much! So we grabbed some bits for dinner and didn't do a lot else!

THURSDAY 19th July

We were on the move again today and went to Taupo. Stupidly Steve and I had signed up to each do a skydive on the way. So before getting dropped off at our hostels we stopped at the skydiving centre to get booked in for a specific time etc. Thankfully, we found out that we couldn't jump that day, due to the poor weather, but got booked in for the next day at 10.00. We were then all dropped off at our hostels and left to our own devices. Time was getting on and Steve and I popped to the supermarket for some bits and there wasn't a lot of time to do anything else that evening.

FRIDAY 20th July

To my relief, today dawned with rather miserable weather and so we were re-booked for 12.00 and then 2.00, before they cancelled it altogether and booked us in for 12.00 the following day! So we didn't do anything in the morning, as we were just sat around waiting to see if we go the go ahead. Once it got cancelled, we decided to go for a walk to Hukka Falls, past all of the natural hot springs. It was a really nice walk, even though it got a bit drizzly at times. The views over the lake were lovely and the water, as ever, was an amazing turquoise-blue and so clear! We met a family on the way, who couldn't find the falls and it turned out that they had walked over it, without even realising! The Hukka Falls, are more like a rapids system than a huge vertical waterfall, so we think they got a bit confused about what they were seeing (they seemed pretty miffed about it all though)! So we got to the falls and took a few photos, before making our way back to the hostel again. On the way back we passed the Taupo bungy site and Steve suggested that if we couldn't skydive, then maybe we could do a tandem bungy instead!

SATURDAY 21st July

An incredibly exciting and also disappointing day today! First of all we headed into town to see if we got acquire a copy of the new Harry Potter book! We ended up finding out that we couldn't purchase it until 11.01 (due to it going on sale at 00.01 GMT we presumed). So we had to potter around the town for a while to amuse ourselves before we could actually buy one! It was all very exciting when I finally managed to get my hands on my very own copy (finally)! I was already to start reading but we had to make our way to the hostel to see if we had the go ahead for skydiving. Scarily enough when we called we got the all clear and so had to wait for someone to picky us up and take us to the centre. When we arrived we were shown footage of other people skydiving and were talked through what would happen. As they'd been on hold for some of the morning, we had to wait around before we could get kitted up, but finally they started to call us over and we climbed into bright orange jump suits, tandem harnesses, found hats to fit and clipped on life jackets. We then had to wait around some more for our jumpmasters to get ready etc, but in the end they decided they had to put us on hold again and we got re-booked in for a 15.00 skydive! So we took of all the gear and got dropped off at the hostel to wait and see if we would get the go ahead later on, but in the end, they cancelled jumps for the rest of the day! Having got so close and psyched up for the jump, we were both rather despondent about the whole thing! Luckily I had my new Harry Potter to get stuck into to take my mind off of it and ended up being over half way through before we went to bed!

SUNDAY 22nd July

On the move again this morning and it was a really short journey, of no more than a couple of hours to Rotorua. We had a couple of sightseeing stops on the way, to see things like bubbling mud and to pay for a Maori cultural evening (which Steve and I are going to later on this evening). We then got to the hostel and before doing anything else I finished devouring Harry Potter (I think that's quite impressive finishing it in 2 days - at least now, no-one can spoil the ending for me)! Once I'd finally manage to put my book down we headed into Rotorua. We made out way to the Lake and went for a bit of a Lakeside walk, seeing a traditional Maori boat, carved by hand in 1989. We made our way to the Rotorua Museum (which used to be a bath house for people to take the cure). The museum was OK and we spent a while there, but it seemed to lack something and wasn't that inspiring or that extensive, so we weren't there before long. We headed back towards the hostel, having to stop to buy toothpaste on the way (as Steve managed to lose ours and so we weren't able to brush our teeth last night or this morning - yuck)! At the hostel we looked into doing a skydive here, but it's much more expensive, so we're going to wait and see if we can do one somewhere else before we leave (I'm not sure if I'm crazy considering it still)! Since then we've been employed by posting to you all (it's taken quite some time already)! We're looking forward to the Maori Cultural evening and are hoping it'll be as good as our driver made it out to be!

Well, we think that's about it for now. We have a couple of days in Rotorua, on one of those days we'll be doing a day trip to Waitomo to go black water rafting. We're feeling a bit down about the KiwiExperience bus again, but are trying to keep our chins up, we're certainly looking forward to not being on it anymore in about a week's time, although we will be sad to leave New Zealand, especially as so much of it will be left unexplored for us! We're still missing you all like crazy and are getting excited at the prospect of getting to see you all again (pretty soon now)! We're also getting nervous about our photos and stuff, Steve's dreading going back to work and I'm feeling apprehensive about starting my teacher training, but it should all be hunky dory! We'll certainly have a lot to keep us occupied - planning a wedding and planning our first home together!

Mum - Glad you enjoyed our chat (I'll call you in the morning, well it will be Sunday night for you) and have another chat with you all - it's always so nice speaking to you! I'm looking forward to seeing my photographic attempts too, although I bet they'll just be blurred or something! Yup, Steve's afraid of bugs, he maintains it's because he didn't notice them at first and so they made him jump, but I think he's just a scardey cat! Does Paul Harpin remember me then?! What did he say? Has Liz told Miss Haper, or anyone at school do you know? Anyway, really can't wait to speak to you and also hope you and dad have started saving!

Claggy - It was so nice to get your comment, I'm glad you're still reading the blog and haven't given up yet! People probably did think you were a bit mad - but then everyone must have thought Steve and I were insane when we were wandering around with the hugest grins on our faces for no apparent reason! Do you know how Lib and Luce are, as I've not heard from them? If you're in touch with them, tell them I said "hi"!

James - We're sorry we haven't replied to your comments sooner, we hadn't realised you sent us one at first as it was on an older post! We're very glad to hear that you're enjoying married life so much and are very happy for you that you now own your own home, we'll have to pop round at some point! Thanks for the congratulations, it is pretty exciting stuff! I love calling Steve my fiance, but Steve keeps referring to me as his girlfriend still, so I have to keep telling him off and reminding him that I'm not his girlfriend anymore, but his fiance!