Guest blog by Grug!

Hi it's Grug here writing a guest blog. We coincidentally happened to be touring New Zealand the same time as Neil and Naomi and after meeting up in Te Anau N&N asked if we could write a little of our experiences for the blog. The first incident started with our flight times being changed and our arriving at Christchurch airport at 11pm. The weather was drizzling and cold but our accommodation was good enough to arrange a late check-in for us. In the cosy kitchen a generous guest gave us some pomegranate and grape tea.

Day 2 and we picked up the rental car - a Nissan Sunny. We drove out to the Christchurch Gondola and saw spectacular views of the bay and Lyttleton Harbour from the top. A hike around the top was fun. In the afternoon we drove to a place called Willowbank which is a bit of a nature park, cultural experience and buffet dinner rolled into one. We fed their eels and saw the Kiwi's run around in the dark.

Day 3 we drove to Mt Cook YHA, stopping at a very windy Lake Tekapo on the way. Amazing scenery and mountains, but not long after Tekapo the rain came and began to obscure the view.

Day 4 rain didn't stop but lower parts of mountains were visible from our room. The mountains were really immense. YHA has a good video library for entertainment.

Day 5 still raining all the way to Dunedin. We went to the Otago museum and saw a lot of historical and cultural displays. Unfortunately after they closed we locked our keys in the car and had to wait in the rain for the AA man. Dinner at a warm Korean BBQ restaurant with bottomless tea was extremely good after that.

Day 6 saw us arriving in Te Anau where the accommodation really made us want to get out and enjoy things away from the place. Luckily the weather was now very nice and we went into town for a tandem bike ride. It wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be. During the cycling we got a call from N&N inviting us along to the jet boat ride that afternoon. It was a fantastic tour of the Waiau river and some Lord of the Rings scenery. We skimmed stones at sunset on Lake Te Anau.

Day 7 was a trip to Milford Sound. The mountains, rivers and lakes were spectacular. The Sound cruise was fantastic with a pod of bottlenose dolphins, a leopard seal, some emperor penguins and a sea lion being some of the natural hightlights. We saw the Underwater Observatory in Harrison Cove and their white looking Black Coral. Chrissie got a fantastic photo of some Kea coming to visit our car. Along the return journey we met up with N&N and did some photography and a geocache hunt.

Day 8 started with a geocache find and a farewell to N&N as they headed off to Wanaka. We went south to Manapouri, took a water taxi over the river and hiked the Circle Track up a small mountain. With weary bones we went back and enjoyed our accommodation's redeeming feature - a nice warm indoor spa.

Day 9 we came to Queenstown and went up their Gondola to the Luge. This is a really awesome billy cart track. There were loads of paragliders and also a few bungee jumpers.