Mar 2007

Hey

So, i have now left Wellington, and am in the South Island of NZ. My visa for Vietnam came through in 24 hours so we decided to get on the bus with our friends to the south.

What did we do in Wellington? Well, we had some great nights out (that i am not going to describe - you'll just have to wait for the photos!) and on our second full day in W. me and Claire went to the museam, which was amazing, and then just chilled out in the hostel and grabbed an early night.

The next morning at 6am we were up to catch our ferry to Picton. We had a new driver for this leg of the journey and he was nowhere near as good as Dave, our driver thoughout north island - c'est la vie! Anyway, me, Claire, Jonno, Chris, Nick, Ewan and Ashley were the only one left of our group, and we spent the 3 hour ferry ride playing cards and catching up on some well needed sleep! On arrival, we started our drive to NElson, which is the sunniest place in NZ apparantly. En route, we stopped at a winery and tried out some wine and olive oils - was lovely and they tried to make us buy cases of 12 bottles...do they not know that we are backpackers!?!?

Next we stopped off at a wateringhole fopr a swim and some lunch before arriving in Nelson around 4pm. We were reunited with teh rest of our group and had one last big night out together. That half of the group left this morning after rudely wakening us up at 6am to say goodbye - thanks!

Today, me and claire and the rest of the guys are just going to chill out and get ourselves ready for the next 2 days - we are going into the Abel Tasman National Park for a 2 day walking and kayaking trip, which should be amazing!

i'll update soon

xxx