Day 167 - Wednesday 5 March We watched Arsenal beat AC Milan in the champions league before making our way over to Picton. From here were going to take the ferry over to Wellington, New Zealands capital. The road signs we passed on the drive there were absolutely rubbish (usually they're great) and directed us a really long way to get there. It took so long we only just made it to the ferry in time and almost ran out of petrol. Just over 3 hours later the ferry pulled into Wellington harbour which is right in the centre of the [View Full Entry]

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Day 165 - Monday 3 March Unfortunately this morning I received some bad news from home however theres not that much I can do so for the time being my trip continues. Its only a short drive over to Nelson and we were there by 11am. As usual one of the first things to do was familiarise ourselves with the local area, but its only a small town and I wasn't that impressed. Its also really cold. I cant imagine the temperatures reached above 14 or 15 degrees all day and im actually shivering. After a short rest we headed back [View Full Entry]

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Day 164 - Sunday 2 March Once again i've survived a night in the wilderness. As we did so much driving yesterday we only had a three hour drive left to reach todays destination. The rain has also finally stopped and its quite a nice day, so rather than wait until tomorrow were going to have a walk around the Abel Tasman national park and hope the weather holds. Four hours of walking later and i'm knackered, although it was quite enjoyable. I wont say too much about it as its similar to the Blue mountains or jungle trek walks i've [View Full Entry]

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Day 163 - Saturday 1 March After waking up and having breakfast we set off on the 4 hour drive to the glaciers. Theres 2 glaciers the fox glacier and the Franz Josef glacier and there about half an hours drive apart. Unfortunately its raining really heavily today so the scenic drive was spoiled by the low clouds and the rain. Having never been on a glacier before I was looking forward to going for a walk on one but unfortunately due to the heavy rains the pathways to both of them were closed. The cloud also meant that you couldn't [View Full Entry]

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Day 162 - Friday 29 February It was bloody cold last night. The hostel were staying in doesn't provide you with a duvet and i'd woken up in the middle of the night freezing to death. In the end I slept with two layers of clothes on but it was still cold. As this particular hostel is already booked up tonight, and were going to stay another night in town we moved into the hostel next door which thankfully provides warm bedding. With lots of stuff still to organise over the next few days we then headed off to the internet [View Full Entry]

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Day 160 - Wednesday 27 February I was woken up by the most annoying bloke i've ever met travelling. His names Frank and hes from Holland and I was unfortunate to have been sharing a dorm with him. If anybody reading my blog happens to share a dorm in New Zealand with a bloke called Frank from Holland can you please beat him up for me. Last night in the bar i'd been talking to probably the fittest bird in the place who happened to be from Warrington and regulary wernt out in Preston, when he strolled over interupting our conversation [View Full Entry]

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Day 157 - Sunday 24 February After checking out of the hostel we said goodbye to christchurch and started our 9 hour drive to Queenstown. I took first shift on the driving and I've got to say we passed by some fantastic scenery. The roads are great to drive on, they may only be single lane but with no other cars on the winding roads there a pleasure to drive. On the way we stopped off at Lake Tekapo which is kind if similar to Lake Windamere back home, and we also took a detour to Mount Cook which was also [View Full Entry]

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Day 156 - Saturday 23 February I was up early again as were watching the cricket this afternoon and we've only got half a day left to explore the city, something we haven't done yet even though this is our second visit here. On our last visit here I couldn't see why people compare it to an english city, but today I could. The city centre is just like any English town centre. After picking up a waterproof coat ( I think i'll need one here) and taking some photos of the cathedral we were just about to go back to [View Full Entry]

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Day 152 - Tuesday 19 February After getting up and checking out we picked up our cricket tickets before taking the 2 1/2 hour drive up to Kaikoura. The road was deserted and although the scenary on the drive was good its only similar to driving across the pennines or the lake district. Arriving early afternoon we checked into our hostel. Again its really nice and clean even though its the cheapest I could find. We then went to explore the town. With a population of just 4000 its not the biggest of places and the town centre is just a [View Full Entry]

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Day 151 - Monday 18 February I hadn't got much sleep last night so when the alarm went off at ten past six I didn't want to get up. However i've a plane to catch so we dragged ourselves out of bed and by half six we were on our way to the airport. Ji-Won had accompanied me, so after checking in I sat with her counting down the minutes until I had to go through departures and probably never see her again. It was difficult particularly after I gave her the necklace i'd bought but its time for me to [View Full Entry]

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