"What's the NATO for U?"

First major mishap of the adventure. Claire and I were having a booking session. We'd got a trip to Milford Sound booked and then a whale-watching trip at Kaikoura. Aside from a few issues telling each other booking references over Skype, including a failed attempt to remember the NATO phonetic alphabet, everything was going well. Just as I move on to get a hostel booked for our second night on the North Island, we have a run through of what's been booked on what dates so we know who owes each other money.

Idiocy has struck. I've managed to book the whale-watching for the wrong day. Indeed, I've booked it for a day when we're just driving from one place to another. All day. Horror.

A frantic email is pinged off to the whale-watching company, begging (but not begging, because I'm English and it all came out very polite) for them to please change our booking to the day after the one I've booked. Please?

Claire takes the piss out of the situation and refuses to take any responsibility for my idiocy, which is perfectly understandable. I, on the other hand, am glued to my inbox after remembering that it must be sometime in the morning in New Zealand and therefore it's perfectly feasible that they'll get back to me before I go to bed. I am overly concerned about the whole thing.

A little while later, a very short email appears in my inbox. It simply says that my booking has been amended as requested. It gives me the impression that they're not all that impressed with my stupid error, but I think a thank you for the speedy response of the nice lady at Whale Watch Kaikoura is needed.

On a side note, here's the sightings blog from said whale-watch company – so excited! Sperm whales and orca and dolphins and SQUEE!

Note to self – in future, triple check all dates before booking anything.

Shawn the Prawn and his delicious little friends...

Our first planning session in months is underway. Well, I say underway. This is Amy and Claire doing useful stuff:

They're looking up useful things like hostels and things to do at the many, many places we're going to visit. This is what I was doing:

Because all of our planning sessions need to be soundtracked by the brilliance that is Howard Shore. And then it all just degenerated into silliness. Beak the Kiwi got a mind of her own (or rather, Claire gave up doing serious bits):

And then I found the most excellent thing ever when trying to find things to do in Taupo while Claire's throwing herself out of a plane. (Have I mentioned about Claire throwing herself out of a plane? I'm going to wait at the bottom and take pictures of her screaming). It is called the Huka Prawn Park. We are amused:

"If learning about a day in the life of Shawn the Prawn doesn't fire your imagination, dine on some of Shawn's delicious little friends in the adjacent riverside restaurant." Gotta love this Rough Guide.

And then we adjourned for lunch. Which lasted about 3 hours. Then the fun of booking began. So far we've managed to get the hostels and most of the activity/additional things booked for the first week. So the first few days look like this:

• 28th July - Arrive at Christchurch. Be jet-lag zombies.
• 29th July - Slob around Christchurch. Continue to be jet-lag zombies.
• 30th July - Catch the TranzAlpine Scenic train from Christchurch across the Southern Alps to Greymouth. Pick up the car, then do some sightseeing - up north to the Pancake Rocks and then south to spend the night at Franz Josef.
• 31st July - Trip to Fox Glacier. It will be epic. And cold, probably. Very, very cold.
• 1st August - Drive down to Queenstown. Spend the afternoon wandering around the town and admiring the cold, cold views.
• 2nd August - Take a day trip down to Milford Sound (not booked yet). Try not to squee at all the pretties.
• 3rd August - Drive east over to Dunedin. There's not a lot there, so it'll be a nice relaxed day.
• 4th August - Drive north up to Kaikoura. Various stops on the way, including the Moeraki Boulders, which are awesome. It's a 6.5 hour drive, so Amy and Claire will no doubt collapse when we get there.

My debit card doesn't know what's hit it and we've only just done the first week! All the excitement.

The (Un)official Mascot

Did anyone else have Beanie Babies as a kid? Stupid question - loads of people did. I was just one of those people who kept them all in a box in the hope that one day I'd have a use for them. So when we decided to go to New Zealand, I decided we had to have this little guy as our mascot.

Its name is Beak, it's a Kiwi and regardless of what Claire and Amy might think, it's coming to New Zealand with us. I intend to take photos of him everywhere we go, because I'm just that sad.

In other news, planning resumes tomorrow, so maybe we'll actually get round to updating this blog more often. Woo! Let the countdown to July 26th commence.