We left Nara and went off to our final destination in Japan, which would be Osaka – the second largest city in Japan. Once we arrived in Osaka we must’ve looked quite lost whilst checking the map on our phone, as an elderly man asked if we need any help. He was so friendly he walked to the ticket office to ask for the direction, and then took us to the platform for our train! He said that he is still learning English so loves the opportunity to speak to people. Finally after a few subway trains we arrived at Hostel Jim. After going to the Hard Rock Cafe for our beloved nachos, we spent the rest of the daytime walking around the city. We saw many bizarre sites, such as a women playing the piano and singing in a shop window, and a women dancing on the balcony of a convenience store to advertise. That evening we learnt how far we were willing to go to try good food. We must’ve travelled the good part of an hour to get to Ramen Jinsei JET. It was a tiny family owned ramen restaurant , and it was so delicious it was well worth the travel!

The next day was a day we had both been looking forward to for a long time, the day we were going to Universal Studios!! I was slightly anxious as normally I’m not great on rides as I get sick, but whilst we were waiting to go in I felt like a little kid with all the excitement. Once the doors opened we raced straight to the Harry Potter section. We went on the two rides there, and then we went into the Olivanders wand shop where there was a fun live performance. Despite me not normally being great on rides, we went on pretty much all of them! The best one was at the Jurassic Park, where your in the air flying like a teradyctl. Although the weather was pretty bad, we had loads of fun on the rides, a butter beer, some nice food, and most importantly I wasn’t sick.

The next day we checked into our penultimate hostel. We didn’t do too much this day, we walked down Denden town, where they have many electronics and anime stores. We went in a retro games store and Laura had to end up dragging me out because I was loving it so much! It was so cool to see the things on sale, many retro consoles and some like new. They also had some games out for your to play. I really had to resist the temptation to buy something.. We then ended up finding a retro games arcade, so we played a few games there.

The day after, we spent the day walking round the shopping mall again, and went for another ramen, where I had one with a rack of ribs in (delicious)! However, ramen wasn’t going to be the highlight of today, as we were going to a sumo tournament!! We made our way to the arena and saw loads of people waiting near the entrance, for what I presume was to wait for a glimpse of some of the famous sumo fighters. The day consisted of different tiered fighters, and we arrived to see the start of the intermediate fighters. Our seats were relatively far back, but we were facing sideways onto the “rikishi’s” (fighters), and because of the design of the arena we still had a pretty good view. We watched a few videos before we went to try and understand what was going on, and I’m fairly sure we followed it. We had a great time watching, and seeing how much the crowd get into it, at times it was electrifying! We had some snacks and beers to enjoy the atmosphere, and we were sitting next to a Japanese lady who encouraged us to shout the names of her favourite ones. If you are in Japan and have the opportunity, I would 100% recommend you go! That evening we had our final Ichiran Ramen, and then moved our luggage to a hostel we booked near the airport.

Japan was absolutely amazing. I’m so glad we added it into our trip, as I would guess that it is not the most common of place for travellers to visit. We had so many experiences that il take back with me, and some of the tastiest food I’ve ever had! In just over two weeks we saw a lot of what Japan has to offer, but there is so much more I want to go see. I just hope it isn’t too long until I can go again!

After Kyoto we took a train to Nara. We noticed on the train that we were only ever the ones with a coffee in our hands on the train, even on early mornings. We weren’t sure if it was bad etiquette or not but we continued to bring them on anyway. Once arrived we then checked into Haruya Hostel, the same chain as the one we stayed in Kyoto. Just as before, it had a nice authentic feel to it, it was quiet and tranquil, the ceilings were small (not the best for me!), and we slept on futons on the floor.

After some lunch we then made our way to Nara Park, the main attraction to Nara. Nara Park hosts hundreds of wild deer, all roaming around freely. You can even buy food for the deer at street vendors, and after learning not to frantically give them the food quickly, they will actually bow to you for the food. They can be quite friendly, but you have to show them you don’t have any food left afterwards otherwise they can go for your jeans! We spent the rest of the daytime walking around Nara Park chuckling at people being chased by the deers, and then spent some time chilling in our hostel.

For the nighttime, I had researched online that we would be there during Omizutori, which is an event lasting two weeks in March, every evening at 7pm. We were unsure of how busy it would be, but we wandered back to Nara Park and to Nigatsudo Hall , where we were amongst thousands of people waiting. It almost felt like we were at a British bonfire evening, or the town Christmas lights about to be turned on. Once it hit 7pm a gong started to be hit, then not long a man carrying a huge torch with burning would walk down the side of the crowd and up to the top of the hall, to the balcony. He would then continue to hold it out above the front of the crowd, and wave this torch so the embers trickled down. It is said that if you are touched with these embers that you will be given luck for the rest of your year, although we were at the back due to the amount of people. This is done until the torch goes out, then the process repeats with another torch. Depending on what day you go within the two weeks, the number of torch’s and true sizes differ. We watched for about twenty minutes until it finished. I was glad we were able to see this, as it seemed like a unique event to witness.

We were leaving Tokyo with mixed emotions. Don’t get me wrong, we were obviously excited for the rest of our Japan trip, but could it get any better than Tokyo? Would it even be nearly as good (especially the food)? We arrived at Tokyo station about to board the infamous bullet train to Kyoto. The bullet train was a great experience, once it arrived at Tokyo a load of workers, probably 4 people per carriage, all rushed to have it immaculate and the chairs all spun to face the other direction. The journey felt quite luxurious actually, there was plenty of leg room (great for me), the chairs reclined, a food cart went round frequently, and the train was going so fast you barely felt a single bump.

If you haven’t heard of Kyoto, it is quite frequently said to be people’s favourite place in Japan; but when people ask us what there is there we had quite little knowledge other than there is a tonne of temples.

It was a bitter sweet moment to leave Fiji, I had some amazing times there but the humidity and amount of bugs was becoming irritable and the next country on our trip was Japan, so I was very excited for that. Unfortunately to get there meant we would end up travelling for around 30 hours, starting with a 5am wake up. First we had a flight to Hong Kong, and as it was the morning I didn’t feel like sleeping much so we just watched some shows on the plane for the majority of it. We then had a 12 hour stopover in Hong Kong, so we left our baggage at the airport and had a brief trip into the city, where we had some food and saw a light show. Then the flight to Tokyo at local time 2am, landing at 7am (local time).

We then hauled our bags onto the subway and made our way to the hotel we were staying at – Bespoke Hotel. We were quite early to check in, but we were able to leave our bags at the hotel. We were staying in Shinjuku, which I’ve found to be the busiest part of Tokyo. We spent most of the day walking around the area to get our bearings, whilst fuelling up on coffee frequently. For lunch we had our first taste of authentic sushi, which tasted amazing, and then for dinner was our first Ramen. This would be the start of our daily routine – sushi for lunch, ramen for dinner.

The next day we went up the Government Building, which gave some amazing 360 views of Tokyo, and all for free! Then we went to Yoyogi Park and saw the Meiji Jingu shrine which was nice but it was very cold. Afterwards we had sushi at a concert or belt restaurant, where they come round on a belt with different coloured plates indicating the prices off each. Next we went over to the famous Shibuya Crossing, where several pedestrian crossings in multiple directions all go to green at once; then suddenly a swarm of people cross at once. It was definitely a cool experience to see the mixture of scrambling business men, tourists, and local Japanese people searching for the perfect Instagram photo. There is also a Starbucks which overlooks the crossing, great for people watching. Or if that isn’t enough you can even go on top to the roof of shopping centre, where there is a lookout point all for free. We then decided to make the short walk down to Takeshita street. I would kind of relate this to Japan’s version of Camden market, there are tonnes of places selling clothes, souvenirs, and lots of sweet treats. After sharing a crepe with surely more whipped cream than anyone would want, we headed back to our hostel to pick up our bags, and then had to get on the subway to Ueno.

We were staying at Hostel Oriental, and I have to say it was great value for money; it was clean, you had a nice private bed with a curtain, and there was even a public sauna for males. That evening we met what would turn out to be our Japanese love, the ramen chain known as Ichiran. It is an experience in itself, as you simply just pay and get a ticket, and then sit down in an individual booth, where you then circle different options such as how hard you would like your noodles, and how spicy you would like it. It seemed like the whole thing is suppose to be done with as little interaction as possible, and the ramen was so good we ended up going quite a few more times later in the trip. The next morning we went to a shopping mall to see the Pokemon mega store, it was huge and it was funny to see how much Japanese people love Pokemon. Afterwards, we decided to visit one of the main temples in Tokyo, called Senso-ji It was particularly busy with a market right next to it, selling all different types of food. Once we had seen most of the market we headed back to our hostel to get ready to do the Maricar we booked. This is widely known as Mario Kart, where you dress up and drive modified go karts on the roads of Tokyo right next to the cars. You used to be able to dress up as Super Mario characters but unfortunately they had some trouble with Nintendo so this isn’t possible anymore. However, we dressed up as Donald and Daisy Duck and it was great fun. We reached up to speeds of around 70 kilometres per hour, and got to see loads of landmarks along the way such as the Tokyo Sky Tree. As we did it at nighttime, it was a great way to see a lot of landmarks quickly and had the added bonus of seeing them all lit up. At almost every traffic light we stopped at Japanese people would be laughing and taking pictures, making us feel like celebrities! We even saw our first cherry blossom when we stopped at the Skytree,, which really was the “cherry on top” of the experience (ha).

The next day rained a lot, however we decided to spend the day looking around Ginza. Ginza is the home to many high end shops and cafes, so obviously we didn’t buy much but we did visit the “NISSAN CROSSING”, where we saw futuristic cars, did a virtual reality experience and got a coffee with our faces printed on.

For our final morning in Tokyo we woke up early to visit a food market selling various types of fresh food, we went for a whole crab which they cut into pieces for us. I usually like crab, but it was quite an unpleasant experience, I think it was because the Japanese women was telling us that the insides and the eggs are particularly delicious (they weren’t). Afterwards we went back to Shibuya and walked around the shops a bit more before getting some lunch at a sushi place. This particular one was a cool experience because you ordered the sushi on a mini iPad, and it would eventually whiz round on a conveyor belt and stop at your seat. Later that day we went back to Shinjuku to see all the buildings lit up at night. We then went for a walk and went to the Golden Gai. Golden Gai is a set of streets with bars and eatery’s that are all a few metres wide and would only fit about 15 people inside. It was a nice experience but the drinks are a bit pricey and if there is someone smoking inside that quickly fills the room up. I think if you had a small group of you it would be really fun to stay for a while. That was the end of our time in Tokyo, I really enjoyed the hectic atmosphere and the mixture of things to do. There are many tranquil places to visit such as parks and shrines, many tourist excursions you could do and not to mention some of the best food I’ve ever ate. It really feels like we only scratched the surface of Tokyo and I can’t wait to come back.

Our Fiji Airways flight was very comfortable, and we were surprised that a meal was included for a short flight. Once we arrived at passport control, we were welcomed by 3 men playing a guitar/ukulele; this really set the tone of what our whole experience of Fiji would be like. Immediately after leaving the airport we felt the humidity, the temperature was hot and the sky was very cloudy. We stayed at Tropic of Capricorn hostel and had dinner there, we were anxious of how successful our trip would be as it rained heavily all night.

In the morning we took the shuttle to the port, checking in to our cruise and receiving our voucher pack on the way. Once we were there we gave our baggage and eventually boarded the boat. With the different types of island packages available, it seemed as if you could either take the long cruise up to the north islands and make your way back down, or do what we chose to do and start with one of the closest islands to the dock. We had paid to do 4 islands, staying 2 nights in each. Leaving the port and about 45 minutes on the boat took us to South Sea island, probably the smallest island available. Once you reach the island your staying in, you board a water taxi along with your bags to the island. We were welcomed onto the island by a few people singing and playing instruments, ending with “bula!” (A phrase used to say hello/welcome). When I say this island was small, you could literally walk around the whole thing in less than 5 minutes. There was a few free activities to do as the island hosted a lot of people on day trips, one including a glass bottom boat which we saw a small shark and sting ray. The next day we booked to do a sailing cruise which took us to the island they filmed “Castaway”, and then we stopped at a local village and tried Kava for the first time. Kava is a drink made from water and soaking ground-up roots, a ceremony is taken place before drinking it. We had a great day on the sailing about, and I even fought off the sea sickness despite the immensely choppy waves and free drinks onboard. Our time at South Sea was better than expected, the rain did put a bit of a downer on the days, but this was made up by the activities we did and the friends we made playing Dobble; who we would later spend a lot of time with on other islands.

The next island/location on the trip was Wayalailai Eco Haven Resort. On the way to the island from the water taxi, once I took a look at where we were heading I couldn’t help but say “THIS is Fiji”. The island had a large mountain, with a white sandy beach nesting at the bottom, and tropical trees joining the two. From the moment we touched the beach we were welcomed as part of their family. The first evening was Rosie’s birthday, and the Fijians kindly made her a delicious birthday cake which I think was a mix of chocolate and ginger. We then spent the night playing hilariously stupid games “Ah, the beach!” and “Yes Harry”. In the morning we had booked to do some snorkelling with reef sharks. It was cool to see the sharks swimming near you but unfortunately for me I felt very sea sick, so I spent some of the time sitting in the boat. Later that day I played volley ball, it was funny that the game only started with 2 either side then one by one out of nowhere someone would emerge from their hut and join in, until we had 6 either side. It’s crazy how good Fijians are at volleyball! That night we learnt the “Bula dance”, which was essentially the Fijians version of the makareina. Wayalailai was hands down my favourite island out of all of them. The people there 100% made it, two young guys that lived there (Matthew & Kimi) were always singing and joking around with us, and I met many other people staying including a Michelin Star chef. The food was amazing and there was plenty to do, or you could kick back and relax on the beach.

Sadly, we said goodbye to Wayalailai and the boat took us to Korovou. Our time at Korovou was a funny one looking back… At the time we were not really enjoying it, there wasn’t much to do and the tide went out so far that you couldn’t go in the sea, the amount of fly’s was annoying, the rooms were so hot in the night and the food was quite average. However, we did have quite a few positive moments. We spent relaxed on hammocks, played a lot of volleyball, had a glimpse at some fire dancing, and the snorkelling trip we did was actually really spectacular. It took us to the Manta Ray Island (unfortunately the wrong time of year to see manta rays), our guide took us around and we saw beautiful coral and tropical fishes, and even a giant clam. So our time on Korovou wasn’t all bad, and we even met someone who lived in the next town from us!

We left for our last and final island, at the Nabua Lodge resort. Again, the tide went out pretty far so you couldn’t swim in the sea much, but the resort itself looked quite cool with all the little huts. Each day at 3pm we would walk down the beach to the little tea house, which sold homemade cakes. They only sold one type of cake each day but they were delicious both days, this was then followed up with more volleyball. The second day we were there we booked to do a cave trip. It was all quite vague, we weren’t sure if we would have a guide and we were told that I could get some goggles when I was there as mine had broke, but I never did. About a 30 minute speed boat and we were at the cave, fortunately there was groups from other islands and about 3 guides. The first cave was open-topped and the water was cold as we swam around it. We then had a choice whether we wanted to go to the second cave, which would be pitch black, and to get to it you had to dive down and swim under for about 4 seconds, where a guide would be waving a flashlight. Goggles would have really helped, but I managed (even though the guide had to pull me out the second time coming back). It was a fun experience and luckily we didn’t see any eels. That evening we had some entertainment after dinner, where I was the musical statues champion. On our last morning, just before we left, we squeezed in another snorkelling trip, this time to the blue lagoon. We were unsure whether we could be bothered to do it, and even though it wasn’t as impressive as the Manta Ray Island, it was still a good experience. On the way back our driver Ben stopped at a different island, where we bought this strange homemade popsicle, it was fluorescent pink but it was delicious. Unfortunately soon after we arrived back, we was carrying our luggage onto the ferry to embark on the 5 hour journey back to the mainland. We spent the majority of the journey on the top decks, it was a beautiful day so we were taking in every last bit of sun and watching the islands go by; before we arrived back to mainland and checked into the Smugglers Cove hostel.

Fiji was a great experience, it was a good mix of activities and relaxation all under “Fiji Time – no hurry, no worry”. The weather was much better than anticipated and we met some great people. Without a doubt I would love to visit again, preferably in their summer, although I would probably go for the higher priced packages the next time round. Amongst the flashy brochure, picturesque views, and the holiday vibe you do get a taste for how the islanders live their lives. When you explore beyond the resorts made for the tourists, it was quite a culture shock to see the village conditions. However despite the obvious lack of of resources, technology and having much to choose from, a lot of the time the Fijians gave the impression they are the happiest people on earth; as Matthew on Wayalailai would say “Happiness is Island life”! Their kindness to make you feel welcome, and the joyful attitude they bring, really did give me a reality check as to what should make you happy in life.

Once we left Queenstown the next landmark we wanted to see was Mount Cook. A few weeks beforehand we had a frantic evening of booking hostels as a lot of them were fully booked, so we ended up staying in a hostel on a sheep station farm about an hour away. The hostel itself wasn’t too unbearable but there was an annoying amount of moths/mosquito around. When we drove to Mount Cook we drove past Lake Pukaki and stopped to take pictures, it was the most unrealistic shade of blue I have ever seen. There are quite a few different hikes to choose from at Mount Cook, we started with the Hooker Valley walk. Going over suspended bridges down some rocks, the walk was fairly easy and very scenic, although we were nearly being blown away by the wind. Once we returned back to the start we did another short walk to see the Tasman Glacier.

After another nights stay at the sheep station, we moved on and drove to Lake Tekapo. On the way we saw a sign for free salmon feeding, so we stopped at this salmon farm and fed the fish and took some funny photos. We weren’t actually too sure what we were going to be doing at Lake Tekapo, as in whether it would be a long hike or something like that. We arrived and Lake Tekapo has a small town with some cafes, and obviously the notable lake. We first had lunch by the lake, and then we drove up the nearby observatory to the “Astro Cafe” and had a coffee looking over the lake. We were toying with the idea of doing a stargazing tour that night, but the sky was full of clouds so we thought it would probably be a waste. Like I said earlier, when we was booking our accommodation we were finding very limited results, around this area too, so we ended up going for an Air Bnb. We arrived and to our surprise, the house was on ANOTHER farm…But luckily, the house was actually really modern, with lots of art work and the women who owned it was really friendly. We had a pleasant night stay there, and they had the cutest dog called Tuwee.

The next day it was time for our final stop of the South Island – Christchurch, but we couldn’t possibly leave without staying in yet another unorthodox hostel. This one was “Jail house accommodation”, which was a real prison used up until 1999 and then converted into a hostel. They have tried to keep it looking as close to what it used to, and each of the rooms are still in their own cells. Once we checked in we walked around Christchurch, we got a bit lost and thought there was nothing to find, but eventually after asking someone we found some shops and bars. That evening we went to this noodle festival we saw advertised in our hostel, which was in one of the parks. We didn’t know what it was going to be but it was actually really good, I’m not sure why it was called a noodle festival because there was loads of Asian food to pick from. We had some really tasty food and listened to the live music for a while before heading off. In the morning after checking out of Jail, we walked to a barber so I could get my hair cut. The barbers was very funky, it had a barista inside, a small arcade, and a basketball court. The barber told me that the place is one of the most popular barbers in south New Zealand, and apparently all of the All Blacks get their hair cut there. As if on queue, a guy walked in who apparently plays for them (I have very limited rugby knowledge so I’m not actually too sure, but he’s on the players list on their website), either way we got a picture with him. Before we left Christchurch there was one more thing we wanted to do and that was to visit the earthquake museum. It was really interesting to read and see about the earthquakes that hit New Zealand, and obviously very sad to hear the stories of people affected. Finally, we dropped off our car and took a flight back to Auckland, where we stayed one night in an airport hotel.

I’m going to start this post by saying that Queenstown is absolutely amazing, there was so much that we done in our time there so this is going to be a long read.

The first couple of days were mostly spent going round the shops and walking by the lake. We watched the Super Bowl in a bar, even though the match was slightly boring it was fun to see some Americans getting into it. I also went for a run one morning which was a good way to explore parts we hadn’t seen. Laura had a Skype interview that day up so she mostly needed to prepare for that. That evening as she was having the interview I walked round the lake and park and took some pictures at sunset.

On Tuesday 5th we had our bungy in the morning, it was about a 30 minute drive to Kawarau Bridge. We chose to do a tandem bungy, we were attached by the feet and we had to hold onto each others harness side by side. I was pretty nervous, but I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was going to be once we was actually on the bridge. Before we had booked to do one, i was fairly certain I would enjoy it, and I did, so much so that as soon as we finished it we was toying with the idea of doing another one. After sharing a huge plate of nachos we went back to Queenstown and checked into our next hostel. We hadn’t originally planned to stay at Adventure Hostel, but so many people recommended it to us so we did some re-organising of dates and made it work so we could stay for 3 nights. After we had the tour we were immediately glad we did, all the rooms were so nice with free amenities, really friendly staff and there were tonnes of other free things you could rent such as sports equipment, hairdryer/straighteners etc. We were later told by someone that apparently it is in the list of top 5 hostels in the world, but I haven’t fact checked that yet. That evening we had our first experience of “Fergburger”, a well known burger takeout where people happily queue for an hour to try. It was nice but I wasn’t entirely happy with my choice. After that, we met up with Lous and Noud for some drinks. We met them back in Rotorua and they only had a couple days before they went home. We had some drinks in World Bar, which served cocktails via teapot.

On Wednesday 6th it was “Waitangi Day”. I’m still not entirely sure what it is, but I believe it is the day a treaty was signed, nevertheless it is a national holiday for New Zealand so Queenstown was very busy. Coincidentally it is also the same day as Bob Marley’s birthday, so there was a celebration of both of these with some reggae music in the park. We didn’t really know what to expect but it was absolutely packed with people who it’s picnics on the grass and people drinking. We stayed for a few hours and had some beers listening to the music, although we were having a good time soaking in the sun we were on a bit of a schedule so couldn’t stay too long. After a quick dinner me, Laura, and our roommate Romane decided to join a free pub crawl we saw advertised by a bookings agent. We had some drinks with people from all nationalities, and even though I didn’t win the limbo competition the pub crawl was still a good laugh. When it was starting to get a bit late me and Laura shot off, as we had already bought tickets for a music event at a club. The club was quite small but luckily it wasn’t too cramped. After a couple of hours enjoying the music we stopped at a bakery on the way back to the hostel and had the best chicken pie I’ve ever had.

On Thursday 7th February we attempted to find “Little Thailand”; before we left home Jennie had suggested that we go. It is supposed to be a great place to jump off some rocks into Lake Wakatipu. We climbed through trees, up and down the cliff side but we couldn’t find it at all. Reluctantly we headed back, and went to go meet Romane by the small beach in Queenstown. After sitting and chatting for a bit, we got up to leave and I heard someone shout my name. I look over, and it’s Jake and Isabelle from the hostel in Te Anau. It turns out that there is two branches of the same hostel in Queenstown, and we were in different ones. We decided to meet back at the lake later for some drinks, so me and Laura went off for dinner at Devil Burger. We then met up again later where Jake and Isabelle bought their friends Phil and Dani who they met in Australia (who now live in Queenstown), and they brought their friend Kyle.

On Friday 8th February, we had decided to do a second bungy. We chose to do “The Ledge” bungy, as it could coincide with some plans for later on that day. First, we had to take the gondola up to the top of Queenstown. Once we got to the top we spent some time walking round to admire the view from the top, you could see the whole of Queenstown as well as how huge Lake Wakatipu is. We then checked in for our bungy and made our way to the start point. This bungy is a “freestyle” bungy, meaning that you are tied in a body harness and can jump off any way you like – there is a jump menu and even a die to help you decide if you are unsure. We both opted to do a handstand off the ledge. I was not as nervous as the first bungy, but it definitely an unique experience free-falling headfirst, so much so that I let out the strangest noise as if I was going to be violently sick. After the bungy we stayed up the hill as we had planned to do the Luge with Jake, Isabelle, Kyle, and they brought along their friend Brit. The Luge is essentially go-karting but without any motor/electrics, it is all just lifting up the brake and going downhill. It looks and sounds a bit childish, but it was actually such good fun and you go pretty fast. Of course, I was getting too competitive, and was going too fast round a corner and flew out and grazed up my leg. It didn’t take me long to recover from my traumatic Luge accident, as we all went for Fergburger round 2 later that evening. After some drinks by the lake, Jake and Isabelle left and we went for a couple of drinks at a couple bars and joined a street party listening to a busker.

On Saturday 9th February, we wanted to stay in Queenstown for a while before we moved on, but we didn’t really have any plans. We wandered down to the lake and saw that there was a crafts market on. We spent a couple hours looking around the stalls of different things people were selling, such as paintings, bracelets, soap, and rings made out of New Zealand coins.

We had a great time in Queenstown. It has everything on offer, you can go for scenic walks/hikes, there’s lots of restaurants, bars and shops, but yet still holds a lot of culture. If there was anywhere that I would live in New Zealand it would be here.

Next on our itinerary was to visit Milford Sound. Milford Sound is a —- We found that there is only one hostel there and many people go as a day trip from Te Anau, so we decided to stay there instead.

We had read online that there are many spots to stop at on the way to Milford Sound so we decided to leave fairly early and make a day off it. First we stopped on the side of the road and took a few picture of Ellington Valley. Next we stopped at the famous “Mirror Lakes”, which was another thing to tick off the check list; but I have to say, that we had seen much more impressive lakes in New Zealand. Then thirdly we stopped to look at the Chasm, which was a pretty cool stream of fishing water going through some large boulders.

Once we reached Milford Sound, we saw that there was literally one cafe, and a car park. This didn’t really matter because we had booked to do a boat cruise through the Milford Sound, on the website “book me”, which is essentially New Zealand’s version of Groupon. We boarded the boat and brought our rain jackets, as apparently it is the part of New Zealand that rains the most. Despite that, we were lucky enough to have a bright sunny day, although there was really strong winds. The cruise lasted around 2 hours, which took us past a shape mountain shaped like an elephants head, and up to the Tasman sea. When we turned around to head back, the driver told us that there was a few dolphins at the front of the boat. Everyone ran to the front, and there was probably about 10 dolphins all at the front of the boat playing following the boat, sticking their heads up and even jumping and flipping in front of us, it was so amazing to see! After that, the driver said that we would be driving into a waterfall and if you wanted to get wet to go to the front of the boat, as we were already at the front we thought surely we wouldn’t get THAT wet but we still put on our rain jackets. Next thing I know this boat is nearly fully engulfed by this waterfall. There’s wind gushing and water pouring and we couldn’t see anything at all. Once the boat came out we were absolutely drenched, it was still fun though! The cruise turned out to be so good, and for the cheap price we paid it was even better.

That evening we got talking with a couple, named Jake and Isabelle, who were our new roommates. They told us loads about places we are planning to go to, as they were pretty well travelled. The conversation led to where we were heading next, and it turned out that we were both going to be in Queenstown at the same time, and apparently in the same hostel too (Adventure Hostel). That evening we said bye to them, and said that we would see each other in a few days at the hostel.

In the morning we shot off for yet another long drive, heading to Wanaka. After 4 hours we arrived to our YHA hostel, which actually looked really nice and had a huge kitchen. That evening we chose to go watch the sunset next to “That Wanaka Tree”, if you haven’t heard of it, it is basically an old willow tree that has survived in the lake, a picturesque spot made famous on social media. Unfortunately because of that reason, we were two out of probably a hundred people there taking pictures, but it was still something ticked off the check list of things I wanted to see in New Zealand.

The next day we wanted to do one of the many hikes around Wanaka, we decided we would do either Roy’s Peak, Isthamus or Rocky Mountain. The first two are really popular due to how high you get to, both being around 6-7 hours long, and Rocky Mountain being about 3 hours and only a third as high. I really wanted to do one of the longer ones, but that day was especially hot and said to break into mid 30s; so we thought it would be too forced to do a long climb and we would end up not enjoying it. Therefore we decided the smarter option would be to do Rocky Mountain, and to be fair it was hard enough. We had lunch at the top and admired the view over Lake Wanaka before heading back. After being all hot from the climb we thought it would be nice to swim in the lake back at Wanaka, it was refreshing and not as cold as I thought it was going to be. Once we got back to our hostel we were greeted by our new roommate – Ma, a middle aged Spanish women. We intended to go out quite quickly to grab some dinner but we ended up speaking with her for ages, as she was telling us all about her profession. She explained that she offers certain type of spiritual therapy, which is essentially acupuncture with lights. It was the most bizarre thing I had ever heard, but I was really intrigued by her story so kept asking more. Finally my hunger got the better of me, and we left to find dinner. We went to this Mexican restaurant, where we shared some nachos and I had a mixed grill which was delicious. All in all, I really enjoyed Wanaka. It wasn’t too big nor was there loads of shops/bars, but it was a gorgeous town and had a nice vibe to it.

Next we had two one night stays in different places as we made our way West. First we stopped at Arthur’s Pass which is some tiny village in the mountains. After we unpacked we did the short hike to “The Devil’s Punchbowl”, which is a really tall waterfall. On the way I asked someone coming the opposite way how much further it was, and she told us that once we get to the viewing platform you can actually hop over the fence and there’s another pathway, and highly recommended we did. So of course once we got there we hopped over, and it led us right to the bottom of the waterfall which gave us some awesome pictures; even though we did get sprayed quite a lot.

That was pretty much the only thing we did in Arthur’s Pass, so the next morning we drove to Franz Josef. Franz Josef is notorious for its glacier, so we had planned to do the hike to go see it the day we got there. Unfortunately it was very anti-climatic: the glacier has receded so much due to global warming and is continuing to melt every day at a fast pace. This meant that the end of the hike is actually quite far from the glacier, we might as well bought binoculars. Although apparently the helicopter tours that take you on top of the glacier are supposed to be amazing, it wasn’t in our budget. Our view of the glacier was poor but it was interesting reading the facts along the way and seeing the points the glacier was at in certain years, though it’s quite sad to see the effects of global warming. After the hike our only option to salvage the evening was to have some beers and cocktails.