On the road again!

Greetings All and Happy New Year to you! We hope you had a great one and look forward to hearing all about it!

Our time in New Zealand is drawing to a close rapidly and so we are again faced with the daunting prospect of squeezing all our stuff into a few bags again. It has been bliss having a car and houses. Back to proper backpacking :oO We fly to Sydney on the 1^st Feb and then onto Perth the 5^th , for a trip up the West Coast (extremely hot at this time of year – we have been warned!) Then we should be heading to Indonesia around the 1^st March - tba!

So on our thoughts of New Zealand we would say it is the land of magnificent mountain vistas and emotional sunsets! We didn't realise the sky could go so many different colours in such a short time. We have certainly seen some great scenery - huge sand dunes, forests, long sandy beaches and crazy wildlife. One of the native birds, the Tui, sounds like a computer with the all the strange noises he makes. He also dive bombs a bit like a fluttering leaf. We are amazed he doesn't crash!

It has certainly been a wildlife bonanza though – with lots of dolphins, sea-lions and penguins being sighted, and many birds (pictured above the Fiordland Crested Penguin). The only little critter that has failed us is the kiwi! Despite doing a 16 hour walk through the forests of Stewart Island, one of their last natural refuges. They are certainly shyer than the human kiwi! ;o)

The North Island is the land of beaches and volcanos so is quite different from the South Island (full of mountain ranges!) And the last few months it has certainly been warm.

The saddest thing about the country is that so many of the native wildlife (birds) are hanging on by a thread because they are not evolved to cope with predation. Most of them are flightless as until 400 years ago there were only birds on the island. Then us humans brought over rats, cats, stoats, deer, possums, other birds etc. as well as alien plants. Now many of the birds only survive on offshore protected islands and many of the birds have gone extinct in the last 100 years! (quite a few due to humans desire to collect feathers and stuffed birds!) Loss of their food sources due to deforestation is an issue too. The colourful parrot to the right is called a Kaka and is a right character. Unfortunately the only wild place we saw these parrots was Stewart Island, the smaller '3rd' island of New Zealand, south of the South Island! Certainly a shame . .

Anyways rewinding a few months the camping trip was great fun and we have in fact had 3 of them now. It started off extremely cold in the South Island back in November which was a 'challenge' but meant we did some fantastic snowy walks, the best being at Mt Cook where half the path up the mountain was so covered in snow that we had to use crampons. It was a tad scary in truthfulness, especially as we tended to sink thigh deep into the snow every now and then. However the views were magical and well worth the effort.

This last couple of months however have been the exact opposite however and have been very hot, so shade has been a saviour. As well as being able to swim in the sea. Christmas day was definitely different with the traditional kiwi christmas of shrimps on the bar-b and then a swim as proved below! It did decide to rain though (note the grey sky!), just to ensure we couldn't totally forget the UK!!

We have been really lucky to meet lots of lovely people whilst we've been over here whom we hope very much to stay in touch with. And of course a big thank you goes to Joe and Tash for letting us stay at their house for the last few weeks. Much appreciated you guys!

So until next time take care and have fun!