Fox Glacier is Mint

I'm so glad you all appreciated Zoe's chair bungy as much as I did. It was definitely a highlight. Who knows how we're going to top that.

Anyway, it's been far too long, and as usual I've got far too many photos to get through, so you might want to go and get a cup of tea... :) Or just get one anyway, and read someting more interesting, because tea is great

OK. So I have a question for Emma Russo if you're out there. How did you manage to do your skydive in a skimpy top and no helmet, when I had to wear this?? More on that later.

You left us on St Patrick's Day, making lots of new friends, none of whom we can understand. For a bit of respite we headed off to Milford Sound which is a famous, er, sound (water feature). It's one of those places that people gush about, being all magical and lovely etc. We decided to see it by kayak. And this is what it looks like. That's probably all you need to know about that, apart from that it was our first proper acquaintance with big mountains. The village we stayed in has this comedy sign. (There is a prize for anyone that can send me a picture of a "White Way").

And so, yes, lovely mountains etc, but it was now time to go back to crazy Queenstown and fill up on more adventures. The first thing we did was hop on the cable car to the top of the mountain. Where you get a beautiful view of Queenstown, and with my mega zoom on, our van in the campsite! *waves at van*. From the top of the mountain you get a chairlift even furhter up, and ride down on the exciting, and slightly dangerous, concerete luge. And here's our photo finish.
We also, and this was very exciting, went to the bird park and saw a kiwi. They are nocturnal though, so prepare youself for the first instalment of my night-time photography (there's more to come); Yup, this is a kiwi. We also had an incident where Zoe turned into her bird form. Examine the expression and tell me it's not her. On the way out of Queenstown we drove past the world's original, and possibly most famous, bungy site, the Kawarau bridge (At 43 metres high it's 66 metres shorter than the one we did, I would like to point out). Kawarau is also apparently where the "Pillars of the Kings" scene from LOTR was filmed. I have painstakingly recreated the CGI so you can recognise it, here.

Just before you think things couldn't get any more exciting, prepare youself for Puzzle World in Wanaka. It, simply put, is the greatest tourist attraction two nerds could come across. Apart form the altered perspective room where slides go uphill, there is a giant maze, a trompe d'oeil toilet, a room full of spooky faces that follow you round the room (because they're inside out), and a puzzling cafe and I even had a video (from my phone) where we're stood in a room, one of us looks massive and the other small, then we swap ends, but I'm afraid it hasn't worked so you'll have to make do with a still.

It was, basically, photo opportunity galore. And Wanaka itself is beautiful, we camped by the lake with a great view of the land of the long white cloud.

A perfect place, you'd think, for doing a 15,000 foot skydive. Oh yes. This has to be the BEST thing I ever done. 15,000 feet is a looooong way up in the sky. About twice as high as the nearest high mountain. And here is a picture of the nearest high mountain, Mount Aspiring, from the plane. So here I am looking cheerful, if somewhat bald, in the plane ( I was, surprisingly, not scared at all). Here I am getting out of the plane (WHAT were they thinking with those hats), here's me falling - at 200kph (apparently). And the less said about this photo the better. I was sticking my tongue out on purpose. I loved it. I know I look a little taken aback by the inital drop, but I was enjoying myself really, and the rest of it was pretty relaxing, nice view (if a bit windy) etc...

So having exhausted that bit of NZ (and ourselves) we zoomed over to the West Side, via some really incredible scenery, and more mountains. The west coast is quite barren but presents plenty of opportunities for doing art with sticks on the beach. It is also home to the world famous Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. Never being ones to skimp on style, we went up the FJ glacier in a helicopter. Then walked around on it. I could bore you forever with these photos, I love them. Here's our helicopter leaving us behind. And check out the boots they gave me, I loved them. Zoe in a tunnel, Rick in a tunnel, Zoe in a crevasse, Rick and a feature. This was our little team, and here's my picture of the main ice wall. Oh, and not forgetting, me surfing an ice wave. Aren't they great. This was one of my favourite places ever. The helicopter obviously helped.

We met some top people around there too. On this photo you can see Aidhin, (the Irish Claudine), and Mark, who I can say what I like about becuase he can't use a computer and doesn't have an email address. Mark was a lovely horse-man from the swiss army, who (and I thought this was hilarious), had a swiss army knife. I'm not sure who the blonde on the end is, but *waves* hello everyone. Oh and hi sally as well, hope you're enjoying your last few days here! x

The rest of the west coast was pretty remote, rainy, sandfly infested, but we saw the famous pancake rocks (they are made out of piles of pancakes) and, prepare yourself for more top notch wildlife photography, we camped next to this and saw these.

You may be wondering what goes on in between all this frenzy of sightseeing and throwing ourselves off things. Well, we laugh at things in the supermarket: Alison, I've had a flash forward to your future career. We make up lists of the top ten famous people in whichever country we're in ;We only have 4 for NZ so far, and it would be 3 had we not read in a New Idea yesterday that Keith Urban was born here. (And thus revealing another one: reading rubbish local magazines). We also like to endlessly discuss what films and soaps x has been in with y, or who sang with what band when, And, my current most favourite activity at the moment, go bargain hunting in The Warehouse. On my last trip I got a new washbag, 3 CDs and a citronella candle for $40.

We're now heading across the North coast of the South Island, looking forward to our last 2 weeks in NZ, and EEK planning South America.

Love you all, :)

xxx