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Our rooms were on top floor of the servant’s quarters. Each room was named by the theme it was decorated it. My parents stayed in the Queen Victoria room with a stern looking Queen staring out at them from her portrait. My room was called the Kauri room; it was a comfortable room with well-crafted wood furniture inside. The view from my room was spectacular, and the view from my bathroom was even better. The only problem was the lack of curtains in the bathroom; this meant that I had a great view of the valley while taking a shower. This didn't really disturb me though as the closest house would have to be several kilometres away in a straight line.

We had dinner in a small restaurant only 15mins away from the castle. I had a beautiful steak for dinner that was served with bacon and melted cheese on top. The meal was large so we didn't stay for dessert; instead, we went back up to the castle and settled down in our rooms. I watched TV and spoke with Fiona on the mobile before I went to bed. Next morning we woke up, ate breakfast in the stables then headed off to the city centre of Dunedin. We did a bit of shopping before we went to the see some albatross. There were meant to be 40 adult birds and 20 chicks but we only saw a few of them. Anyway, we had dinner in the castle on Friday night. We were in a formal dining room with 8 other people. I had Quail for entree, it tasted like chicken, and then I had pasta, followed by fruit salad and ice cream for dessert.

After we all had sat around our coffee for a while, we all decided to leave for bed. I gave Fiona a call before I went to bed, had a shower then curled up in my big warm queen size bed.

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast, finished packing all our belongings, hoped into the car and drove to Queenstown. The trip was filled with scenic pictures and snow-capped mountains and sheep scattered hills. After a short 4-hour trip, we had arrived at the picturesque area of Queenstown. Our lodging for the night was at a 5 star apartment on the shoreline of the lake. The apartment was two-stories and very comfortable. In the afternoon, we took a gondola trip up to the peak of a small mountain where we got the chance to watch a Haka performance. After the entertainment, we enjoyed a buffet dinner before taking the gondola back down. After a night in our comfortable beds we woke up early and unfortunately had to pack.

A taxi came to pick us up and dropped us off at the Queenstown airport where we took a short helicopter trip up into the mountains and then dropped us off at the Nevis Snowmobiling. We put on special protective clothing and hoped on a snowmobile each. Soon we were speeding along snowfields admiring the beautiful mountain peaks. No words can describe the wonders that we saw.

Snow covered ground stretch before us, and on the horizon, we could see the icy peaks of the other mountains. A brisk wind blew a light snow covering along the ground. The chill wind numbed your face as we drove along the fields.

After 1.5 hours, we had made it back to the cabin where the helicopter was waiting for us again. We stripped off the special clothing and jumped back into the helicopter. In a matter of minutes, we were soaring back over the peaks and heading to Queenstown.