Chrissy and Ashley's Trip

Heyyy,

We're now back in Auckland and are leaving for Fiji this evening. We're really excited to go! :-)

We had a really good few days in New Plymouth. We managed to do a lot there too, even though we were only there a couple of days.

On wednesday we walked up a hill where we got great views of New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki. Then we were taken around the coast where we went to a couple of black sand beaches and had coffee overlooking the beach. We also went to see an old lighthouse and in the afternoon we went to visit Egmont National park. It was really lovely as it was all covered in snow.

We were really happy to just relax as well, as our trip was so packed with activities. The people we stayed with had 3 dogs, two of them being 3 month old white retrievers. So we spent some time fussing over them - they were adorable, and we took them for a walk which was a bit hectic. They're very energetic!

On thursday we went on a boat ride in the morning at like 8am. It was so nice as the sun was still really low and it was a lovely day. We went with an ex boxer called Chaddy who took us on his old English lifeboat, complete with his dog Tupence who was trying to catch fish... very surreal! He was really nice and we went to see the seals that were lying on the rocks. Then in the afternoon we had a surfing lession! We were planning on doing that in LA as it's quite chilly over here! But we did it anyway and it was really cool. We both managed to stand up a couple of times, but spent a lot of time falling off and spitting out sea water! It wasn't even that cold once we got going, so we were in there for about an hour and a half. Getting our wetsuits off afterwards wasn't very fun though!

Anyway, hope all is well back home. We'll be in touch again soon.

Lots of love, Chrissy and Ashleyxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After our sky dive we drove to Makarora where we overnighted before heading to the adventure capital of the world - Queenstown. Queenstown is a beautiful place, by far our favourite place in New Zealand. As we were driving there we stopped off at the Kawarau Bridge, the world's first ever bungy jump. Someone in our group fancied doing one, so we went to have a look. Me and Ashley both going "nahh I'm not that bothered, we'll just watch." When we got there Ashley ended up being the only one deciding to jump and then I decided to do it literally just as our driver went "right we're leaving". It was terrifying! I've never seen Ashley look like that, it was so funny... and I looked like I was going to cry! Way more nerve wrecking than sky diving but just as brilliant.

Then we had two full days in Queenstown which was great. We went luging again which was awesome and then went out in the evening and tried out some of the bars. On our last day in Queenstown we managed to go skiing. The season literally just started so we were really lucky to get it in. We did a full day, I did skiing and Ashley did snowboarding. We managed to hire stuff out for really cheap as well (good after all the expensive activites!) and got really lucky again with the weather.

After Queenstown we went on a day cruize at Milford Sound, which was nice, although it was the only day we had where the weather wasn't that great. But we still had good day and managed to still see some dolphins.

From there we went to Central Otago. There we went mountain biking for a few hours. We went along the Otago Gold Rail Trail which was a 32K (approx 18 mile) ride. It was a gorgeous day and the views were stunning. It was freezing cold when we started though so it was quite hard work going along gravel and sand. But it was really good.

After Otago we went back to Christchurch where our tour ended, and then travelled back on the ferry to Wellington before heading to Auckland again. On the way to Auckland we stopped off at a waterfall where loads of cute baby seals were swimming and playing which was really cool. It was sad to see everyone go in our group as we all got on well, but a few of them will be in Fiji when we are so that'll be cool. We're in New Plymouth now until Friday, and then we're leaving for Fiji on Saturday which we can't wait for!

Lots of love to everyone, Chrissy and Ashleyxxxxxxxx

Hiya, sorry we haven't been in touch for so long.

We've finished our two week tour of the South Island and are now staying in New Plymouth with a family friend of mine (Chrissy) for a few days.

From Wellington we got the ferry to Picton which took about 3 hours and was very choppy... From there we went to Abel Tasman where we stayed for two nights. It's a really nice place and the weather was lovely, but it was really cold at night! We went walking along the costal track of the Abel Tasman National Park, which was lovely - we walked for a few hours and had lunch on the beach. In the afternoon me and a few others went horseriding which was cool, along the beach and into the water while the sun was setting... and everyone else just chilled before we had a BBQ round the bonfire.

From there we moved on to Hanmer Springs and went to the Hot Pools there. That was really nice, they had loads of pools of different temperatures, the hotest being something like 42 degrees. It was absolutely freezing when we got out though! We didn't spend a lot of time there as we were moving on to Christchurch the next day. On the way to Christchurch, which was our overnight stop, we went through Kaikoura where I went dolphin watching which was cool and Ashley went on a walk and got really close to a load of seals.

From Christchurch we went to Franz Joseph, where we spent two nights. It was there, over Fox Glacier that we did our sky dive. The whole of our group wanted to do it and we got ourselves all excited and reallly nervous. We planned to do it on the friday morning, but when we phoned to confirm they told us it was cancelled because of the weather. We weren't very happy because we only had the next day free to do it, but it went ahead on the saturday and it was the perfect day to do it. Me and Ashley had to get up at 6.30am to do it but the weather was gorgeous so we got absolutely amazing views. We went up together in the smallest plane ever and it was really scary! We were actually okay until they opened the door (someone later told us they couldn't do the Franz Joseph sky dive - second best in the world after Everest which costs $35000! because the door to the plane had fallen off... not good) and we realised the only way out was down...! We both loved it though and got great photos and DVDs with it...

Hey guys,

Hope everyone's okay...

We got to Wellington this afternoon after 4 very busy days on our tour. We've already done so much! In Auckland before our trip we pretty much just took it easy and caught up on sleep! We went up the Sky Tower, New Zealand's tallest man made structure, just before it got dark and got a great view of the city all lit up.

We got picked up on tuesday for our tour. There are only 7 of us in our group all together and everyone's really nice. After we got picked up it was non-stop... as we were driving out of Auckland we drove up to Mount Eden, one of Auckland's 40 something volcanoes, where we got another great view of the city. Then we went to a place called Hahei. When we got there we went to the Hot Water beach, where you can dig your own hot pools, but by the time we arrived the tide was coming in so we just stole someone else's! We spent a night in Hahei and set off for Rotorua the next day. There we went to a Maori village which had the longest name I'm not even going to try and spell! We watched a Maori cultural performance and then had a look round the village which had loads of hot water and mud pools. That was so strange, the ground was boiling hot... In the evening we went to a hot and cold water river in the middle of a forest which was sooooo nice! We sat in there for ages until it got dark.

On thursday morning we did something called Luging in Rotorua, which is a bit like go-carting. It was so fun! There were three different tracks and they were all really cool. We could take our cameras down with us as well so we got some awesome pictures. After that we set off for Waitomo, where we went on a walk through a forest. Then we had to get a pretty early night as we had to get up at 4.30 the next morning to set off for National Park. That was so painful! We did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is apparantly one of the best one day walks in the world. So we had to set off early and get all our kit - crampons and ice picks and everything! We got going at about 9. We walked for over 7 hours so we were all shattered yesterday evening but it was so worth it! It was amazing. We trekked near Lord of the Ring's Mount Doom which was cool. The walk was so varied as well, it was really rocky and then all of a sudden it was really deep snow. We sat down and slid down a hill as well which was fun :-)

So now we're in Wellington which is our stop before we head to the South Island tomorrow. We've got so much more great stuff to look forward to there, so we can't wait!

We'll update again soon :-D

Love Chrissy and Ashleyxxxxxxxxxx

Hellooo.

We landed in Auckland this morning after 3 and a half fantastic days in Hong Kong.

Our overnight train wasn't too bad, we got more sleep than on the last one! But each compartment had 6 bunk beds in it. So you couldn't sit up... Our aircon wasn't working properly as well in the beginning so it was verrrry hot and sticky!

We arrived at our hotel in Hong Kong at around 1pm so we had loads of time to look around. We did a bit of window shopping as everything's pretty expensive. It's about 3 times the price of things in mainland China. In the evening on saturday we went to see the light show that happens every night on Hong Kong Island. It was really cool and we got some great pictures.

Our trip finished that night and it was sad to say bye to our group... Although most of them had a few extra days booked like us so that was pretty cool. On sunday a few of us got the ferry to Hong Kong Island to go up Victoria Peak, the highest view point in Hong Kong. The views were amaazing!

The rest of the time we were there we did some shopping and wandered round. We had some lovely sushi on our last day :-) Then we caught our flight to Auckland yesterday. We didn't get much sleep on the plane, and when we landed at 8.30 this morning, it was 4.30 Hong Kong time... We got to our hostel and couldnt check in until 1, but then we slept for like 7 hours when we checked in!! From what we've seen of Auckland so far it looks cool. It's cold and rainy though!! We've got 5 more days here in Auckland before our 20 day trip around both Island starts.

Our hostel has really easy internet access so we'll be in touch :-)

Lots of love, miss everybody... Chrissy and Ashleyxxxxxxxxxxxx