Arrived in the south island!

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hey everyone,
we had a lovely time with the Rattee family in wellington, jane and craig showed us around wellington at the weekend and we went on the famous cable car, we were going to go to the observator but it was shut for redevelopment. we went to lyn's house on the saturday night for dinner which was really lovely, we met her partner david who is a radio collector, we saw hundreds! sunday we chilled out at jane's and then went to see a marine education centre just outside of wellington which was really cool as you could touch the fish and the coral. jane, lyn and craig are all members of the local fish club and like all the tropical and marine fish. we learnt a lot. they also all like pets and i fell in love with jane's white rabbit and two cats! will miss them lots!
we left wellington very early on monday morning and watched the dawn from our ferry. i felt really sea sick at the beginning but it subsided. the ferry ride was really pretty, we sailed through the queen charlotte sounds and saw lovely scenery. we arrived around lunchtime, and drove from Picton to Nelson, we looked round there and visited a few arts shops, saw the real 'lord of the rings' gold ring (james' idea not mine!) and a fudge shop! We were going to stay there for the night but james was in a driving mood so we thought we would save time and keep going as we only have a few days to do as much of the south island as we can. We drove to Westport but we didn't like the area, it seemed like the roughest place is NZ we've seen so far, so we just ate fish and chips there, which was only $4.20 (just under two pounds!) We drove the Greymouth where we stayed last night.
We left there this morning, which was a nice town, and drove to Hokitika where we stopped briefly and then continued to Franz Josef. We were going to do a tour of the glaciers but 1, they were expensive, 2, they left at weird times and 3, most of them involved a min of 2 hours hiking. so we drove as close as you can get to the glacier and then walked for around half an hour. James decided to continue walking closer, whereas i chose to stay and wait for him and there were severe warnings about walking on the area without a guide and no hiking experience. anyway i waited and waited and the people that went after him came back, and still no james, i got talking to this lady who was with her kids and her husband got stuck in a cave once and she had to wait for 11 hours before they could rescue him, so she said she would wait with me incase anything happened to james. the walk should have taken 25 mins and it had been about an hour. anyway james finally came running up to me from another way and had taken a short cut after walking behind a tour group and thought i'd be at the camervan and was worried about me! So all this worrying, and everyone was fine!!!
We are staying in Franz Joseph tonight, about to go out for dinner as a treat. Tomorrow we are on the road again, probably going back on ourselves to greymouth and then across lewis pass to hammer springs. If we have time we are thinking of going skiing, but we'll see how times goes.
Hope everyone is well. Whats the latest gossip?! Still raining and cold in England?
Missing everyone and home!
Love h&j xx

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Comments

[didier]

hi!
longtime i didnot reply,i see you have a good trip and fun around the world .i hope you will continue that way.NZ seems to be a lovely place to crash for a while.am in and out to france at the moment .love u didier