Well we’ve been on our Air New Zealand flight to Christchurch now for the past hour or so and I’m getting excited about landing and checking the place out. When we boarded the Captain told us it was 4 degrees there and snowing – Brrrrrrr!! I reckon buying coats will be high on our list of things to do over the next few days.

Wow! -looking out of the window at our first glimpse of “Godzone” as Simon’s friend Nick puts it. The mountains look awesome covered in snow. I know this is going to be completely different to all the other places we have seen and we can’t wait to check it out.

Well we landed on time and it certainly is freezing here but no snow so far. We get a taxi to the hostel we have booked. Dorset House is a great find, a large Victorian style place with huge rooms, thick carpets, sash windows and oil filled radiators, it reminds me of our old house in England. For 100 dollars we have got a shared room with 4 single beds (The exchange rate here is about 2.6 dollars to the pound) and after chucking our stuff in we decide we will walk into town for some food.

The road we are on has loads of bars and cafes to choose from but in the end our minds are made up by Maisie who refuses to walk any further in the cold and drags us into a coffee shop. It’s a good enough choice with a roaring log fire and hot drinks and homemade cakes all round. We get chatting to the fella who serves us and tell him we want to hire a car; he lets us use his phone and tells us we will need to get snow chains also. (Apparently included in the hire price)As its late now, another two hours on the time difference- now 11 hours ahead, we decide we will sort it out properly in the morning.

We stop off and buy some fish, chips and tomatoes for dinner. Not a very exciting meal but it will do and we will be able to stock up on food more when we have some transport. When we get back to Dorset House we sit in the lovely big lounge watching Lord of the Rings. I guess we will see plenty of that while we’re here!

11pm and we’re off to bed with the hot water bottles we’ve been given. Feeling tired but very excited about our plans for the next few weeks.