Armagh Lodge Christchurch

Auckland is our landing spot. We connect on arrival in New Zealand with a flight from Auckland on the North Island to our ultimate destination of Christchurch on the South Island.
It was necessary to decide which Island would get our attention on this trip ...

... it was covered in scratches and pits from the files, so we had to start off with quite coarse sand paper and eventually work it down to a fine sandpaper when it looked pretty much done. LJ had an easier design to do for me so finished hers quicker than I did so gave it to John who gave it a buff and put a string through it and she was all done. I wanted to personalize LJ's a little so we decided to put 6 little holes in it and and John glued some Pearlescent shell into the holes. I ...

... stating the bleedin obvious...

So hopefully it's time for some sunshine now - I have lived in the same fleece for 10 days (Anita was right to insist we bought cold weather gear after all).

Thanks for the emails, especially school related stuff, it's really appreciated and we will try to reply to all of you as soon as we can from Oz.

Love, the Loves.


PS - have added a few more photos to the Wellington blog if you're interested

... far too cold. When the wind picked up it was so bloody cold. Andy, Laura and I sat on the boat with fleece blankets over our laps. We looked like a right bunch of old wimps. It was a great day out, loved the walk.. And considering i am the first to whinge if i have to walk more than about 100m, that is a big compliment!!! That day was Andy's 25th birthdy, so we got him a cake and forced a few drinks down him.

Next stop on the tour was to ...

... three days in Christchurch before we picked up our camper van and started our road trip around New Zealand. These days in Christchurch were spent enjoying the local attractions such as taking the gondola up a mountain to enjoy the amazing views around the city, touring round the city on its tram and enjoying a punt on the river Avon. Christchurch was enjoyable but again not very extreme. Hopefully our next stop - Queenstown, will be more fruitful on the adventure front

... of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place."" We had also been praying that God would shine His light and Truth into the dark places, casting out all of the darkness. Meanwhile, the other group didn't even make it around the corner to prayer-walk because they met a woman, and God began speaking through them about the void in our lives that only He can fill among other things. She was ...

... If there are one million methods to blowing and picking your nose, he did em' all! Time passed and we were at last into the final stages of the flight (and the nasal waste of the man beside me, probably being recycled in the air through the fuselage...). I hadn't visited Christchurch last time, and boy, was I excited! There was a (literal) dampener on the moment, though, as the weather-side of the welcoming committee was a tad glum, just the same as what I'd ...

... to keep within my assigned budget or didn't work for nearly long enough to finance this trip, I am here now and have the choice to do what I want to do or go home. And the latter isn't an option. I will be working for the next forty years. We decide to get up and sort this stuff. We head into town and the sun is shining and Christchurch suddenly looks like a much nicer town. Firstly we go to the supermarket and we discover that the cost of living is substantially different to the ...

... satisfied we went for a scout around town and went for the cheap option of drinking on the streets as it's legal in Queenstown. Later on we were given some vouchers for cheap drinks at a bar where a funky band were playing ... female lead was awesome! Lois flung herself around the dance floor as usual and tried to get me up but as I am not yet feeling that confident I chose to guard our drinks instead. Next morning we left Queenstown with the feeling that we would ...

... drove us down to 'the strip', a road near the Avon river with nice restaurants all along it, and the very kind waiter at the establishment we selected agreed to take our orders, despite us being only 1 minute earlier than their deadline!



The food was lovely, the Kiwi beer was tasty if not very strong (most of them are only about 4%), and we had a really great time catching up with them ...