Goodbye OZ...hello NZ!

Well what can we say, what a beautiful country! Having arrived at an ungodly hour on a total of zero hours sleep we picked up our camper van, a.k.a Sir Ed (you'll see why from the photo), and made our way sharpish out of Christchurch. Unfortunately due to the earthquakes its a shell of a city now, and a tremor a day keeps Matt and Sam away!
Our 1st stop was Akaroa, a small town about an hour south of Christchurch on the coast, very picturesque. We only spent a day here but did a lovely walk taking us high above the town and harbour. Our 2nd destination was Tekapo, about three hours south west, and on arrival very wet and windy - our dinner of beans on toast was nearly cold beans on bread but a nice Polish couple offered us their kitchen (a much more advanced camper van than our budget one) to cook in! Luckily we woke up to clear blue sky and hot sun. Lake Tekapo is famous for its strikingly turquoise colour (see photo-it has not been photoshopped, this is what it really looks like!). We decided to hike up Mount John where Canterbury University have an observatory. Its apparently one of the best locations to view the night sky in New Zealand but unfortunately our evenings were cloud covered. At the observatory we got to look directly at the sun through a solar filtered telescope which was very cool!! Our evening was spent at the local Alpine Springs - 3 hot pools varying in temperature from 35-39 degrees with a view of the lake.
The following day we made our way to Queenstown, Otago a three hour drive South West where we met up with Mark and Jen who we'd met at the wedding in Melbourne last week! They showed us the town by night with more than a few drinks and some great pizza in a place with a roof that opens to views of the starry sky.
At the time it seemed a great idea to do a bungy the next morning, after all Queenstown is home to the original bungy by AJ Hacket - so jump from a 43m high suspension bridge we did... Another extreme activity ticked off our 'to do' list :) the adrenaline left us shaky and exhausted for the rest of the day (this may have something to do with the night before too!), so we ambled around a small town called Arrowtown, once a gold mining haven for the rest of the afternoon. We camped out a few km's north of Queenstown on the way to Glenorchy where we spent the next morning before heading back to pig out on the famous 'Fergburger' with Jen and Mark - it certainly lived up to expectations and we WILL be having another before we leave the area!