Sorry it's been so long since we've updated. We haven't even been that busy.

Since my last post, Trev survived 3 incredible bungy jumps. He jumped 43m from the Bridge, the very first bungy spot in the world. Then he jumped 134m off the "Nevis", one of the highest jumps in the world. He said it was the scariest thing he has ever done. Then he jumed the "Ledge", 47m. It was his last jump and he was feeling more comfortable so he ran and jumped and tried to do a couple of flips, tried being the operative word here.

While Trev was off bungy jumping, I got to do a Canyon swing. I had to jump off a ledge and freefall, but not heaad first, into a canyon and then I swung out across the canyon. It was amazing. The drop to the bottom was 109m! After that I went parasailing. I was pulled behind a boat and swept up by a huge yellow balloon with a red smiley face on it. One of the most amazing experiences ever. I felt like I was flying. A bird even flew under me.

After Queens Town we stayed in Te Anau. It was a tiny town, but a nice hostel. We took a day trip to Doubtful Sound with a couple of American guys that we met. It was gorgeous. It had been raining, so the waterfulls were everywhere.

On our way to Invercargill, we stopped at a farm to see some sheep shearing. So fun, got to see some real New Zealand.

We took an extra tour over to Stewart Island. The third Island making up New Zealand. It's tiny, and not shown on many maps. We wanted to see some kiwi birds, but found out when we got there that it would be a 2-3 day walk to the other side of the Island to see them. We decided against it. We took a tour to another tiny island instead and saw some other native birds.

Stewart Island was so small there were only 20km of roads on the whole island!

When we got back to Invercargill, we went for a walk and found a beautiful park. There was a rose garden and huge trees and a playground and there was a petting zoo too, but we didn't make it that far.

We spent Waitangi Day, there National Holiday, driving to the small town of Dunedin. We stayed there for 3 nights. We did a tour of the Cadbury factory and got lots of chocolate, mmmmm. Then we did a tour of the Speights brewery - Trev's choice. The most popular beer in New Zealand. It was actually a really good tour, and we (Trev) got lots of samples at the end. Trev also got some thong sandals, they are range and blue and look really funny on him - just imagine!

We had only planned to stay in Dunedin 2 nights, but the bus was too full and couldn't take us. The hostel felt bad and gave us our own room with a tv and fridge and en suite bathroom - ahh the luxury.

On our way out of Dunedin the next day, our driver took us to Balwin Street. It is the steepest street in the world - cars aren't aloud to drive on it. We tried to run up, but I only made it half way, Trev made it a bit farther.

We stopped at the Moeraki Boulders on our way to Christchurch. They are a phenomenon (sp) no one knows for sure how they were formed or how they got there.

Our tour with the tour bus ended in Christchurch. So we took a shuttle to the next town of Kaikoura. I had wanted to go swimming with dolphins there, but they were fully booked. We went swiming with seals instead, but the seals wouldn't come in a play with us. We did get to do some snorkeling though, and we saw some cool fish.

We went to Akaroa to do the swimming with dolhins instead. It was soooo cool. The water was feezing, but the dolphins were swimming all around us. The guides had given us some rocks to clap together, which attracted the dolphins so they were coming so close. They swam right under me and another one swam right between Trev and I, we weren't even a meter apart! It was the best.

We were in Christchurch for Valentine's day. It was a beautiful morning. We went for a walk in the botanical gardens. There were tons of trees and paths going along the river and another rose garden and a bonzai tree area. We ate lunch at one of the cafes in the gardens. There was a mini remote control sailboat race going on in one of the lakes. Trev thought it was soo cool. He has decided that he will take that up as a hobby when we get back to Canada.

It started raining, so we walked to the mall. We picked up a few things, including some V-day chocolates.

For dinner Trev took me to a sports bar - how typical. But really it was a pretty cool place. It was four stories (plus a roof-top patio) with a two story tv screen that could be seen from any of the four floors. Plus there were other large tv screens spread around the place. The food was pretty good, Trev tried the lamb. We had a few drinks, Trev was a 3 Litre bottle of beer!!! He got to keep the bottle, but we ended up leaving it somewhere, it was too big to travel with.

We flew from Christchurch up to Auk on the 15th. We were supposed to fly to Sydney after that, but we had decided that we weren't done in NZ yet. We took a shuttle to the Coromandel region instead where we stayed for a week in a hostel right on the ocean. It was a nice little hostel. It was divided into little areas each with its own bathroom, kitchen and tv area. There were ten beds in our area, but 6 of us were there for the whole week.

The other 4 people were super nice. Chris and Gill are from Manchester and are engaged. They sold everything they owned and are traveling until they find somewhere to settle down. The other two, Dan and Victoria are just friends travelling together for a bit. It was really fun getting to know them. We played cards with them most nights. Chris and Gill took us with them one day on a nice drive and the next day we went to Coromandel town where we got to ride this little train. The track was built by the guy who owned the property. He is a potter, and there was some good clay on his land, but he needed a way of transporting it, so he built himself a track. It is now a tourist attraction, but it is still used for clay as well.

Our first few days in the Coromandel we took a walk to what they call Shakespeare cliff and to Lonely bay. It was a beautiful secluded beach that could only be reached by walking throught the bush for a bit or by water.

The next day we rented some bikes and took a 2 hour ride to Hahei beach, then an hour walk to Cathedral Cove. It was another beautiful beach, but lots more people. On our way back to our bikes, we stopped at Gemstone bay to do some snorkeling. The water was ice cold, and we didn't have wet suits this time. We swam around and it was like the fish were following us, it was so neat. On our way out of the water, we saw 2 Sting Rays!! The first one was huge, but it didn't move. The other one was much smaller, but it was swimming around and had it's stinger pointing up. We got right out of the water after that.

While in the Coromandel, we decided that we still hadn't had enough of NZ. So, we went back up to Auk and rented a car for 3 weeks. We drove to the Northern part of the North Island. We stayed a place called Kahoe farms for 4 nights. On my birthday, the 24th, we slept in and then went for a leisurley drive. We stopped and 3 different beaches and went body boarding at Cooper's beach. For dinner we has a gourmet pizza from the hostel and some cake and ice cream which we had purchased. Trev even put a candle in the cake for me. And everyone at the hostel sand Happy Birthday to me, it was fun.

The next day we took a walk around the hostel farm. The guy who owns the hostel, Stefano, named the places around the farm after the Lord of the Rings. We walked for most of the day and and stayed at the rock pools for a couple of hours. The rocks pools were large pools of water formed into rocks over a bunch of years that were good for swimming.

The next day we went drove up to Cape Reinga. Almost the most Northern tip of NZ. We went sandborading at Te Paki stream. That was so fun. We rented a boogey board and rode it down these massive sand dunes like a tobogan. How cool is that! Toboganning in shorts and a t-shirt! Trev wasn't very good at it though. He kept wiping out and he was just full of sand - so funny!

On our way back to the hostel, Trev wanted to stop at Houhora pub for a beer, since it was the most northern pub in NZ. We were just finishing up, when this local came over to talk to us. He bought us a few drinks and invited us backt o his place for the night. We stayed there and then he took us to 90-Mile beach in the morning. It's actually only 64miles or something, but it's a drivable beach. The guy, Ron, is a fisherman and showed Trev how to do some surfcasting. He caught a shark! right off the beach! It was like 30 pounds! Good thing it was crap weather and we didn't go swimming. Ron killed the shark and we got to pick it up and take pictures.

We headed back to the hostel to get our stuff and then took off to the other side of the island. We had planned to do all sorts of stuff on the west coast, but the weather was crappy. It has been raining for the past 3 days. We are back in Auckland and are making our way more south, hoping the weather will clear up.

Hope you are all doing well. Sorry about the huge post. We will try to update more often to avoid this. Please keep in touch by email.