'You can take the girl out of the city', they often say......

I'm completely in love with the countryside in New Zealand. Motorways don’t really exist apart from when you are approaching Wellington and Auckland. The rest of the roads are fabulously maintained ‘A’ roads which allow you to see all the fantastic scenery.

It was one of those roads that we took to Hamner Springs – our last stop before the airport in Christchurch.

The journey down was breath taking. A million different shades of green lined the roads and those fantastic white flowers in all the trees that shimmer like fairy lights in the sun.

The roads are quite scary for me because they are all mountainous and really bendy. My family and I went off the edge of road similar to the one below in a car accident in Italy some years ago, so I’ve always been a bit nervy of them. But the reward for braving them is worth it.

Every now and again we’d come across a little waterfall or a view over the sea that we just had to stop the car to gawk at.

The road from Kaikoura to Hamner was a lot more flat, but no less gorgeous.

We were happily driving along, when we came up against a huge herd of cows in the road. A cow herd was with them looking quite stressed and seemed to be having trouble moving one of them in the direction he wanted them to go in. He was hitting the poor animal with a stick, which wasn't very nice.

Anyway, it seems the other cows must have got bored of waiting for the errant cow to get back in line so they all started to wonder around too. One of them in particular decided to come check us out. I now had one cow right in front of the car and another slightly to the right of my window peering in at me.

I was tickling the cow's nose when along came clearly irritated farmer who was telling me to drive forward! Is he mad? There's a huge cow virtually under my wheels! There was no way I was moving an inch and risking hurting the animal.

"You have to inch forward, just do it!" my boyfriend was saying to me.

It was at this point that the other cow who had come over to say hello decided she needed a rest and actually sat on the bonnet.

She then started - and I'll put this politely - defeceating all over it. No joke.

It was soooo gross. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or be sick. We decided on laughing - and I was almost crying too, because I was laughing so much.

The farmer looked furious and was gesticulating wildly saying that I should move the car forward. I think he just thought we were a pair of stupid Pom city ***ts. I laughed so hard, and to be honest was in a state of slight shock that I didn't pull the camera out. To be honest I think the guy would probably have gone for us if we did, he was so angry.

It's a real shame. That would have made a gross, but great picture. But the image will remain with me forever, of that I'm sure.

We were there for a full half hour until "Lady Muck" decided she was happy to move on.

For the first time since reaching New Zealand I found myself thankful that it rains so much here.