Finishing off Kiwi Land

We fly to The Cook Islands today to top up our tans (where have they gone?) so we better update our blog regarding New Zealand...

Fat Freddy's Drop in Auckland was well worth the effort. Spent 2 days driving there and back but it was great to see them in their home country. We then rushed back down to the South to pick our trail back up and explore the South Island before visiting a Welsh pub in Wellington run by a nice guy from Cwmbwla in Swansea! One of of our first days in the south was spent riding around Renwick in the sun on hired bikes sampling fine local wines with a typsy friendly Irish couple. It was such a good day. One of our best in NZ and we stocked up on some local goodness of course. We fancy oursleves as wannabe wino conerseurs now.

After that we toured around in the car checking out as much of the beautiful NZ landscape as we could. Every 30 miles the scenery seemed to change and some of it was breathtaking. Alongside the friendly people of NZ, we can see why this country is so appealing. (the population is only 4 million but 2 million tourists visit every year) We then bumped into Rachel Brown and Lauren and spent a day walking over the Franz Joseph glacier which was cool. Then in cold Queenstown we went on a day tour to spectacular Milford Sound stopping off on the way for a snow fight. Throwing snow at girls is great. The boat we toured on rode under a waterfall and i was on the front so i got drenched when i was already freezing. The captain had said we'd only feel a 'little spray.' My pants were damp for the 5 hour journey home but it was all worth it.

We then said goodbye to the girls and freezing cold Queenstown (we paid to stay in heated shed for two nights) and went in search of penguins and seals up the East coast of the South Island. We found some. Check the photos hopefully uploaded soonish. It was great seeing animals in the wild and the penguins were a real treat. We then tucked into some tasty fish in Kaikoura and some huge green mussels in Havelock.

We have done our fair share of driving here in NZ but its the best way to travel around as there is so much to see. We are currently unsure about our plans for California and are going to use our time in the Cook Islands to plan the US. We are probably going to avoid LA as we don't fancy it and we don't fancy getting murdered as our mum's would kill us.

We are thinking lots about our return at the moment as we enter the last part our travels. It's dominating a lot of our thoughts thinking about catching up with family, friends and getting jobs and moving into a new house. It has been a real privilege to travel like this and we are very grateful for the opportunity.

jared and rachel

p.s. We go back in time tonight as we fly over the dateline to the Cook Islands. We feel like Doctor Who and Marty McFly! It's going to be along day. Rachel is definately Doctor Who.