Not quite caving
We went out to try and do some caving. Our guide was a cool Ozzie named Mitch who was chatty and had some good banter. Unfortunately the weather was against us and the cave was too flooded for us to get down and scrabble through. So we headed back to base and chilled in the hot tub with some beers. Not much of a day. Just chilling.

Trans-Alpine
Headed out early to catch the trans-alpine express over to Greymouth. The train wound it's way through some spectacular valleys and over some great canyons. We arrived in the sleepy town of Greymouth and chilled out for the rest of the day, finishing off with buying pizzas and chilling out.

Christchurch
We got up early and headed out to the Antartic centre which was the strangest tourist attraction I have been to in a while. It included a storm chamber where you can experience a -18 degree windchill, a hagglund ride which was most amusing and bunmpy and loads of information about survival in the Antartic. After that we cruised up to the Gondala rides that took us up and to the hills around the city to take in the spectacular views.
After that we headed back to town to watch a funny Austrailian street entertainer and take a punt down the river Avon.
Then it was a case of jumping on the tram and riding around taking in some more views of Christchurch.
A fun and active day.

Arrival in Christchurch
We arrived in Christchurch today and took a sedate walk around the park and just missed a chance to be punted along the river Avon. However we consoled ourselves by Charlie cooking us both Chili (don't worry Laurie... not as good as yours) and I made hot chocolate sauce.

BOBBY!
Charly and my room-mate, Paul, headed out to catch the whale-watching tour. I decided instead to head out on a 2 hour fishing trip where you get to keep what you catch.
I met up with the friendly boat driver, Gerrad, and he told me the sea was too rough to go fishing but there was a whale in the bay and we could go and have a look. We headed out and cruised around the bay watching the whale surface and potter around. We then headed out to pull in some crayfish traps. After we got back he let me go off with a crayfish, who I named Bobby, and some blue cod that he had caught the day before. Frankly I made out like a bandit. Once I got back Charly cooked up the blue cod, and I cooked up Bobby. He was delicious. After that we headed down to the local restaurant to buy ourselves some dessert. Very good night.

Kaikoura
The lovely coastal town of Kaikoura beckoned us and we answered it's call. Arriving there we took a walk down the track to see the seal colony. We walked for a bit and couldn't see anything... until we realised that we were only 3 metres away from a bunch of sleeping seals. On a side note: you shouldn't get closer than 10 m to a seal since these things can move and if they have pups they will attack you... so me and Charly were pretty lucky that we didn't get jumped.
After that we decided to blow the budget and headed out to a restaurant to have the nicest food I have had since the Maori Hangi in Rotorua. Also gave a quick phone call to Mum since it was her birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

Kayaks
Since walking the Abel Tasman didn't seem to do justice to the awesomeness of the scenery I decided to head out with Charlotte to do some sea kayaking along the bays. Our guide was a friendly kiwi named Ally who had some good banter. We cruised around the bays and stopped for lunch in one of them. Was a good day and pretty relaxing, despite Charlie locking her suitcase key in her case and me losing my hat on the bus.

Abel Tasman walk
Laura, Jenny and I all caught the bus up to the Abel Tasman national park. We then caught a slinky little water taxi that took us up to the top of torrent bay, around a 4-5 hour walk from the bus pick up point. I headed off from the girls to go north for a bit before turning back south to meet the bus. It was a lovely place and it's hard to describe just pretty the scenery was.

FEARLESS BBQ!
Got up this morning and my mighty body screamed at me for exercise so I jogged up to the centre of New Zealand and back down. Afterwards my mind screamed at me for some Kung-fu entertainment so I went along with a Canadian couple called Kenny and Carolyn to see the new Jet Li movie: "FEARLESS" A true Kung fu masterpiece!
After that I met up with Jenny and Tom to go buy food for a BBQ that we had talked about the previous night. I met a random English girl in the corridor and we got off to a rocky start but I invited her to join us for the BBQ anyway. Her name was Charlotte.
The BBQ was fantastic and I finished it off with my ever-popular hot chocolate sauce. A good night all round.

CENTRE. OF. THE. EARTH... sorta
Tom, Jenny, Laura and I took a walk up to the geographical centre of New Zealand... and therefore the Universe. It was an awesome view of Nelson.
We then headed out to walk down to Tahananui beach. The beach was really pretty and the banter was good on the way. Specially when we all jumped off the road to scramble along the rock pools for a while. Tom and I tried to run them on the way back and got a fairly good jog in.
Once back to the hostel we kicked back and relaxed and watched a couple of movies together.