Puzzles and Planes
Jenny, Laura and I were picked up at 9 am to go and jump out of a plane while Charly headed off to do some skiing. Once the girls and I reached the airfield disaster struck: There was too much cloud! We were forced to abandon until the afternoon.
To further console ourselves we headed to Puzzle world to take in some fun. We headed to the corridor of holograms which included very sophisticated holograms; including a holographic microscope which you could actually look down the eyepiece. Next was the tilting room which messed with your heads balance and made you feel like you were always standing on a slope at the wrong angle. Through clever use of mirrors and tilting floors sometimes it would seem like water was running uphill.
The Ames room was next which was based on the technology used in Lord Of The Rings to make actors look bigger or smaller according to their in film height. It was a single room that utilised false perspective to make a person on one side seem huge and the person on the other side seem tiny.
We then headed to puzzleworld's main attraction: The Maze.
Letting Laura lead us at first she turned out to be the mistress of mazes, queen of conundrums, duchess of disillusionment and princess of puzzles... for a while anyway. Then it was up to me to use my patented "left-hand" technique to successfully guide us through the maze.
Once we exited puzzleworld we got the good news... THE JUMP WAS ON! We headed to town and got a pick up. Heading to the jump field we were all on edge, our adrenaline mixing with out gut-wrenching terror as we prepared to get thrown out of a plane.
I could go on and on about the feelings and emotions you experience when you jump out of a plane... but I won't because nothing can quite compare to it!
Afterwards we headed back to the hostel with a bottle of tequila to have a very drunken night.

Franz to Wanaka
We headed off from Franz Josef down to the ever beautiful town of Wanaka. On the way we tried to book ourselves into a skydive in the afternoon but upon arrival we were told that it was far too windy to do a jump... more than gutted. We consoled ourselves with watching Snatch and generally messing around.

The Glacier
Today was a rather sedate of 6 hours of climbing a glacier. My god it was knackering!
Early on in the day I got the nickname, Flash: King of the impossible, Saviour of the Universe etc due to my fantastic T-shirt... or my disposition to doing the impossible and saving the Universe, I'm not sure which.
After fastening on our rather fetching ICE TALONZ to our boots we began to hike our way up and across the Franz Josef Glacier (named after the beard of Franz Josef). It was pretty hard going with some tough squeezes and hard going paths but was worth it for the views.
After that the girls and I hooked up with a new friend from the Glaciers, Mhadri (or something... unable to remember her name I simply refered to her as Miss Ireland 2006) for some pizza. Afterwards I made hot chocolate sauce and everyone passed out in bed.

Actually Caving
Using the intense powers of luck and sheer fluke, Charly and I managed to catch a caving trip before our bus was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon. The cave was cool with a lot of scrambling and sliding. There were even some small tunnels for us to squeeze our bodies through and wriggle to freedom.
After that it was onto Franz Josef Glacier to meet up with Laura and Jenny. Was good seeing them again and we arranged to go on a glacier walk the next morning.

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!