My 'Round the World' travels!: Don't blame it on the weatherman

Dear Mr Weatherman/Santa, all I want for one day or possibly a few hours is a bright, orange, warm ball that sits in the sky, some Vitamin D for my skin, less of the hurricane force winds and driving rain and a few less green soggy, marshland fields as my little tent is not a boat. Thank you very much. Oh and I've been a good girl too.

New Zealand -what can I say? The place is very familiar to Ireland and parts of the UK, like the Lake District, parts of Scotland and the SW of England. Sometimes it feels like I have been magically transported back home (so mum, keep me some Sunday lunch). Could swear I was camping at the Quoile sometimes.

At present I'm in the South Island, with stunning views (when the cloud cover lifts) of mountainous areas and sparse population - this is Lord of the Rings country afterall. The North Island is full of green fields and more cows than sheep. Been cycling a bit of it (when the weather eases) and is a great way to see the country. Would I ever emigrate over here?...my answer would be no, well not to camp anyway. Why do people leave Ireland to come back to Ireland again!

On a tour of both islands - in fact, I'm half way through and getting used to the smell of wet canvas against my face in the mornings, really cold temperatures at night and frostbitten hands from trying to pull out tent pegs from the ground. I've had two tents for use in the North and South islands. My first tent was called 'Sharon Stone' and my tent now is called 'Britney Spears'. Britney has been giving me ball ache and has not been behaving herself at all. In fact, I've lost the bap with her at least twice as she wouldn't go back into the tent bag as she was too wet and must have expanded. Needless to say, I've mistreated her badly, kicked her around the field with a few expletives added in for good measure. Have had to upgrade quite a few nights as it's impossible to pitch a tent in a marshland. Maybe it would be better if I anchor my tent in the Tasman Sea.

One particular night, most of my group decided to upgrade, whilst myself and a few cyclists decided we were hard and wanted to stay outdoors. Well, we nearly got blown away from gale force winds that came from nowhere. One girl's tent collapsed with her in it and everything got soaked...so off we went (with Junior in my arms) to the nearest living room in the adjacent hostel for a night's sleep. Have slept in the most random of places, in the middle of nowhere, had a dress up night in a country pub with the barman/owner (Paddy)being more drunk than his patrons. It was one drink for you, five for him and kept going like that all night. I kept asking him for a barcardi and coke and everytime he filled it up with vodka. Each time I kept saying, "Now Paddy, you gave me vodka the last time, can I PLEASE have bacardi this time round?"...still he got it wrong! The craic has been great though and the fellow travellers I've met have been a good laugh.

The weather hasn't been kind at all with 7 of the activities that I'd planned to do being cancelled - an Alpine trek was off (due to heavy snow/ice), Mount Cook (a bridge was being reconstructed), Routeburn Trek of 3 days..(off, due to high winds and snow), kayaking (too windy), white-water rafting (off as the water levels had swollen to dangerous levels), dolphin swimming (off, the dolphins were probably cold). Did however, get to go to the Milford Sound yesterday (the road normally closes on bad weather days), but luckily nice mother nature only rained loads, so it stayed open...that was amazing.

Skydive...done - wow, what an amazing experince jumping out of a plane 15,000 feet above the clouds. The freefall was out of this world..all I was shouting was Wow - plummeting to earth at over 200 kph. Would I do it again?..hell yes, for the buzz and the fact I was strapped to a very handsome tandem master!

In Queenstown at the minute, which is the capital of adrenaline here in NZ. 10 of us have left our tour for a few days and made our own way here and found a nice hostel. To us it's like the Burj al Arab or whatever that fancy hotel is called in Dubai! Anything, instead of a campsite in the middle of nowhere and there are great spots to go out to. So Britney is without her owner for a few days - maybe we'll make up again when we re-unite(?). The weather forecast for the next 5 days? Yep, you guessed it, rain, rain and a bit more rain to add to the other rain...camping...you gotta love it!