Cold but cool in NZ

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Please forgive me, it's been about 2 weeks since my last entry. We're now in New Zealand, which has taken a bit of getting used to. First it's cold! When we landed in Christchurch a week ago the pilot told us it was only 3 degrees, about 30 less than it had been in Singapore when we left. We've also hired a campervan, so no more buses, no more hotels or hostels, no more relying on other people, but a lot of driving. In less than a week we've already done about 1800km! And it's back to civilisation. SE Asia was great but there's something comfortable about speaking English, getting a decent coffee in the morning and everything working. It is expensive by comparison of course, but less so than the UK and it's worth it. And Christchurch especially was so like home, from the weather (think Edinburgh in February), the road and place names, and the people. So what have we done in the last week? Well we had a jetlagged day in Christchurch, picked up our campervan the next day (pretty nice and comfy), and then headed south, first to Lake Tekapo and then down to Dunedin. (See http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108274988049637803328.0004502b7b2deed1e582b&ll=-44.323848,169.277344&spn=5.525596,8.360596&z=7 for all the places we've been.) After a visit to the fantastic Otago Peninsula we then hit the southern coast road, but saw little scenery for the driving snow. After a long diversion caused by a road blocked by the snow we got to Te Anau. From there we had a day walking and then one on a cruise in Doubtful Sound. Both this and today's drive to Milford Sound were absolutely amazing and a definite highlight of the trip so far. The scenery is just spectacular and nothing like I've ever seen before. I won't try and describe it but the photos might help. Today we've arrived in Queenstown and we're going skiing tomorrow!
Just to recap on Malaysia, we had a great and relaxing time on the beach there for 10 days. We did very little to be honest, apart from the dive course, so we can now dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Oz where we'll be in a few weeks. But before that we've got some sport and adventrue here before we head north into the Southern Alps. Just a shame NZ is so far from the UK!

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