Hi y'all!

Saturday the 8th we left Sydney and flew into Christchurch. We got on a shuttle bus to Maui, where we picked up our campervan. After filling in a couple of forms and waiting for a bit, we drove to our first campground.

Our first full day in New Zealand, we had to wake up at 6am, because our shuttle to Mt Hutt would pick us up at 7.20am. Once we arrived at Mt Hutt, we got our ski passes, some clothes and ski equipment and walked to our first skiing class. I'd never skied before, so obviously I had to learn the basics first before getting on the slopes. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be and I think I did pretty well for a first time.

On Monday we started driving towards the west coast. We had a lunch break at Castle Hill, which looked like a setting in The Hobbit movies. After that we drove through Arthur's Pass to get to our campground in Hokitika.

Tuesday we decided to drive to Fox Glacier, we had to walk on a dry riverbed to get to the viewing point. It was really pretty and just imagining how big it used to be was pretty cool. On our way back to the camper, it started to rain, so we decided not to go the the Frans Jozef Glacier, but to go straight back to our campground. From where we walked to the other side of the road, to go see the Glow Worm Dell. That was really cool, it looked like a fairytale.

The next day we drove to Westport. On our way there we had a stop at the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. It was really cool, especially the blowholes. After we'd arrived at the campground, we drove to a seal colony about 15 minutes away. At first we could barely see any of them, but after looking at the rocks for a while, we started to spot more and more.

Thursday we had a long drive to the Golden Bay, where we would stay in Collingwood for a couple of nights. The next day we stayed at the campground to do some laundry and relax for a day, 'cause we'd been doing lots and lots of stuff during the past week.

Saturday we drove to Farewell Spit, where we did a walk along Golden Bay and the ocean on the west coast.

On Sunday we drove to Marahau, near the Abel Tasman Park. After we got a spot at the campground, we walked to the Abel Tasman Coast Track. We didn't do the entire track, 'cause that one takes three days to complete, but we did walk for a good two hours before starting to walk back to the campground.

Yesterday we drove to Picton, so we wouldn't have to wake up extremely early for our ferry the next day.

This morning we got on our ferry to Wellington and as I'm writing this, I can see the Northern Island.

I'll try to upload the pics as soon as possible. Just one more island to explore before heading back home...

Cheers!