Fyffe on Riccarton Christchurch

... Luke’s telling of the Nativity story. I had never seen a Catholic service before and it was joyful to her the sermon that was given by an American woman working at the University here in Christchurch. The rain finally arrived as I left the service to head back to my hotel.

For the three days while I was here It had never rained. The mid days weather was a comfortable low 70’s, as long as the easterly wind was not blowing.

... and am trying not being ill. I’m not going to be tied and I’m going to start doing because it used to be true that more I did the more energy I’d have.

If you want to get something done give it to a busy person.

I’ve also made some plans for the next adventure, I go to Oz in 10 days, they won’t let me in without a onward ticket so, I better get ...

... so we avoided a charge for that – Yey!

As Fiji was beckoning we then had to spend a few hours in the library organising accommodation and boat tickets, and we desperately need to do a spot of shopping for our week in the sun. My Bolivian quality £1.50 sunglasses had broke (would you Adam and Eve it!) and so I needed some new ones. And Luke had lost his swimming shorts so he needed a pair of them.



We had a spot of ...

... It was magic, but over all too quickly. The whole trip was only about 40 minutes, but quite exhilarating.
This had been our third helicopter flight, and all were so different, but so exciting! First was along the Franklin river from Strahan in Tasmania and the second over the Grand Canyon and down to have a boat ride on the Colorado river.



By the time we got back to the car it was almost thawed out, so we packed up and headed off for Lake Wanaka. The road wound ...

... from SE Asia is easy to see in the larger cities and it's influence will surely only grow as a wave of NZ-born talented immigrants emerge from the academic system into the workforce.

The country is very proud of it's potential for self-sustenance with it's farming produce and also it's renewed Swiss-style approach to foreign policy. The residents of each town or city are fiercely proud of it in it's own right and the jokey rivalry ...

... one of the most scenic drives we've ever done and we got a great day for it, so clear and calm. I was a little dubious of going through the Homer tunnel, which is basically a 1.2km tunnel right through some pretty high mountains absolutely amazing!! We stopped to take in the view at the other side, when a Kea took a fancy to our van (maybe as it has a kea on it!!) and started trying to destroy it - time to go!! We enjoyed our boat trip to Milford Sound, we ...

L'Ile du Sud est vaste, sauvage et remplie de paysages plus spectaculaires les uns que les autres. Nous avons debute notre sejour sur l'Ile du Sud par une arrivee panoramique dans les Marlborough Sounds a bord du traversier. Les paysages rappellaient etrangement le Sagnuenay. Nous sommes donc debarques a Picton, charmante petite ville cotiere ou il regnait une atmosphere de vacances. La cousine de Sabine, Julie et son mari Russel, y ...

... the cells had been converted into the rooms and the old internal structure has been kept in tact, just given a lick of white paint to freshen it up. It definitely goes down as one of the most innovative hostels I've ever stayed in, although the bedbugs that attacked me during my stay were a bit of a let down! Personally, I didn't really notice the Britishness of the place. Possibly because I'm British, but the blue skies don't really remind me ...

... after (we think), being cased by the cops a couple of times because we probably parked too long, we drove around trying to find somewhere to park for the night. Thankfully, our very last night was an excellent view of the sea and harbour and completely free. It just the bathroom issues that you have to worry about...

... do until she'd spoken to her family properly and understood in more detail what had happened.

As you can imagine the next hour or so were horrible for Katie, she was absolutely devastated.

In the middle of all this Bex knocked on the door of our apartment, so I had to explain what had happened and asked her if she & Hutchy could waste some time while I found out if Katie wanted to go ahead with lunch or forget all about it ...