macado's se asia adventure I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

Traveling around the south island of New Zealand

Right..I am pretty much out of cash and running entirely on my credit cards at this moment, not a fun way to be traveling so i'm not sure how much longer i'm going to keep this up.

Since I decided to travel more I am using the Magic Bus company which is similar to the Kiwi Experience buses, actually they should probably call it "English Experience" because basically everyone on the bus is English.  Pretty funny...  Apparently I've also gotten quite good at picking up difference between English accents because I guessed somebody was from Surrey and Birmingham within minutes of talking to them which isn't bad because before this trip I couldn't tell any difference between any English accents.  I've also been unable to understand the "Croyden" jokes/banter which I never quite got before Interesting stuff I guess.

The first stop of my trip from Christchurch was Kaikoura which is a place in the south island famous for whale watching (yes... whales, fun!. I mean boring.) Since i've seen whales before I decided to just do a scuba dive in 10-11C degree whatever (That's around 50 degress I think for you U.S. people).  The dive itself was nothing specular and ended up being cut short because the other person diving had no clue how to control his buoyancy and ruined the dive for me and the diving instructors.  Oh well, it wasn't the end of the world.  I got to see some lobsters (crayfish in New Zealand) and some interesting fish i'd never seen before.  We were hoping to maybe see some seals while diving but unfortunately the closest I got to any seals was on the rocks right next to our dive site. Apparently they didn't like our boat.

After that I headed up in a place called Nelson for 2 days and went to a national park called Abel Tasman. Did a 14km coastal walk there which was also awesome for scenery. Abel Tasman actually reminded me a lot of Thailand. The water was extremely clear and beaches were amazing. I will let the pictures speak for themselves because I am sick of describing beaches and water.  Since Nelson is known for being the place in New Zealand that gets the most sun of anywhere in the country and because of the big hole in the Ozone layer above NZ/Australia, I managed to get a bit sunburned on the walk because I didn't wear any sunscreen.

After Nelson, we stayed one night at place called Greymouth. It was a really small town and the only thing it was really known for was the Monteiths brewery which is a popular beer that's drank in New Zealand. For 20 New Zealand dollars (about 13 USD), you got all the beer you could drank pretty much and an all you can eat barbecue. Well worth it. Got smashed and well fed on 20 bucks. I've love to right more about Greymouth

Anyway, right now i'm stuck in a place called Franz Josef until Thursday when the Magic bus gets here. I figured it would be better to stay here a couple extra nights and relax than go to Queenstown and spend heaps of money. Plus, since i've already been to Queesntown i'm really not in any hurry to get back there.  Franz Josef is even smaller than Greymouth. Infact, you can pretty much see the entire town in about 5 minutes of walking. With a population of about 350 people there's not much going on here besides Glacier walks and kayaking.  I did a full day glacier walk yesterday hiking up the glacier and spent approximately 6 hours on the ice exploring ice caves, ice wormholes and massive cravesses.  I know I said this about everything i've done since i've been away but glacier hiking was one of the coolest things i've done so far.

Anyway, since it's only Tuesday and i've got until Thursday to kill some time i'm probably just going to stay in and watch movies with the rest of the people in my hostel since i've really already seen most of the things here.  The hostel i'm staying at is like a mini-hotel and is extremely nice.  25 New Zealand dollars a night, includes TV/VCR, your own kitchen and bathroom.  Not too shabby.

After leaving here i'm heading back to Queenstown, then to Dunedin, to a place called Lake Tekapo for one night and back to Christchurch!  I'll try to keep updating this and post more pictures.