Greetings from New Zealand!

Was up birght and early to get to the airport for 6:30am. Funny thing is how the shuttle services in Sydney are cheaper than the train and they pick you up from the hostel! Now that's what I call service and pure laziness:)

After all the confusion of the times my flight was leaving, I finally got there to check in and they had to see if I had a visa for NZ! She had to go and phone like three different places before the confirmation came through! Sweated just a wee bit there! Pfew! I'm allowed to enter NZ I thought! I have no idea what would have happened if there had been some glitch but luckily there wasn't! Nice thing about Sydney airport are the free interent stands you find everywhere! So there I was just typing away before I realised to my shock that my flight was going in 40min and I still had to go through security and immigration! While waiting in the queue, all I could think was "do you not want to go to NZ? What's wrong with you????" LOL!

The flight took a good 3 hours and I slept most of the way! Totally lost to the world until the captain so rudely awoke me with the weather report and the local time! Turns out I'm now 12 hrs ahead of Holland and like 13hrs ahead of England (or is that 12hrs behind?). I'll be getting a sim card soon so I can send some texts soon. Since I'm here for 4 months I thought it may not be such a bad idea. I'm glad the pilot woke me though, I mean the view from the window was magnificent! It's cool to see the sea, then the coast, then the mountains with glaciers and then the coast again! Apparently if you sit on the beach here in NZ and you look inland, you'll be able to see the mountains with snow on them! Strange huh? definately something I must try! Lol!

Christchurch is a beautiful English little town. It's lovely weather today: 27 degrees. It's amazing how quite this place is! I mean this is the capital of the South Island and it feels like a little village! Especially after Sydney! Lol! They have this little touristy tram driving through the town, but I'd rather walk then pay! I've become stingy that way!

Tomorrow I'm off to Kaikoura (about 150kms up the east coast) for a day and then off to Picton where I'll stay for 2 nights and go with the ferry to Wellington. Decided on taking the ferry because you get to see more. Apparently you can fly and it takes like 10 min, whereas the ferry takes 3 hours! And flying isn't even that much more expensive! Maybe next time? The rest I haven't really planned as I'm hoping to find a farm where I can settle and work before Hannah (friend from university in England) comes and meets me here. Definately need to concentrate on the South Island! It's beautiful!

Good news! I may be able to download some pictures! Will try and do that later today! Keep an eye out for them...

Will keep you posted!