Hiya - hope you don't mind me sending you all one email! Just to let you know that we've been travelling around the South Island of NZ for the past couple of weeks - there's limited internet cafes and when you come across one they're normally very expensive, hence having to resort to the round robin!

Well, it seems like the whole world has decided to take their holidays in New Zealand! Most hotel/motel accommodation is fully booked, not only in towns and cities, but even the B&B's in smaller villages! We can't believe the tourism boom here - completely different to Indonesia where you can pitch up anytime and get a room! In parts of Bali and Lombok sometimes we were the only guests - not so here! I guess it must be due in most part to Lord of the Rings popularity.

The other alternative to hotel/motels/B&B's is to travel using Holiday parks - but even these get fully booked unless you book a few days ahead. We resorted to buying a tent and we've used that most of the time! Interesting accommodation for a family of 4! Sometimes we've got lucky and had a cabin (basic accommodation usually with 2 bunk beds), but most of the past 2 weeks has been in our 3 man tent! At first it was quite good fun, the kids loved it...but the novelty soon wore off with the onset of the worst weather in February in NZ for 170 years! Wind and rain - Leala and I got colds and I felt miserable for a good couple of days.

Thankfully scenery here is absolutely mind-blowing, regardless of weather and we've done the Lord of the Rings sights - Mount Olympus, Mount Cook (huge snowy mountains), along with Canterbury plains (Hobbit-land), rainforest and glaciers. Yesterday was the highlight - Leala went swimming with wild dolphins off the east cost (Akaroa). It was incredible (we just watched from the boat). The dolphins are protected - so they can't be enticed with fish, it really is the luck of the draw and thankfully yesterday was a good day for the dolphins! The boat was small and there were only 6 people swimming (Leala was one of them), there were a group of 10-12 dolphins in the water, swimming around - they enjoy swimming/playing around people. Also the weather was great - warm and sunny, so it was the best day and experience for all of us so far - well, apart from Ben who feel asleep for the whole trip. NZ is a great place if you love the outdoors. We've also witnessed mad people doing bungy jumps over rivers - not my scene, even watching makes me feel nauseous. Leala is keen to have a go when she's older.

We've got 3 nights now before we depart for the North Island, where we'll spend 2 weeks. We're staying in "proper" accommodation, which I managed to book 2 weeks ago - in the YMCA! It's a well-run hostel - good beds, clean sheets, fresh white towels - it feels like 5 star accommodation after the tent! Mind you, we've still got to use the tent in the North Island...so a couple more weeks tenting to go! Let's hope for good weather!

Anyway got to go as my internet time is running out.Looking forward to seeing you in couple of months!

Jill, Paul,Leala and Benxxxx