Friday 21 November, 11.57am, Merivale McCafe (just outside Christchurch) While driving to my new hotel this morning, I drove past this McCafe (all the McDonalds out here seem to be McCafes instead) and scoffed audibly. An hour or so later, realising I was far too early to check in, and didn't want to pay for parking in Christchurch centre, I slu...

Christchurch is the most English of NZ cities, it is also known as the garden city. The focal point is Cathedral Square with the main thoroughfares all named after English cities (Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford) radiating from it. These streets are crisscrossed by other streets named after English cities, Oxford, Manchester etc. Cathedral Squar...

After a long 12 hour flight from LA, we reached Aukland on the north island of New Zealand at 6 AM local time. The flight went without a hitch. Our baggage made it to our destination without a single problem. While waiting in the customs line in Aukland we managed to see Serj Taikan, the lead singer of System of a Down. After getting through cus...

Wow. What a journey. Up in Pontefract for 05.30 for the train from Doncaster to London Heathrow. (Thanks to Des our neighbour for dropping us off at the train station). Flight was initially to LAX (11hours 50 mins) on a Boeing 747-400. Big plane. Saw Jack Osbourne on our flight. Only saw - he was escorted upstairs to VIP of course. I guess he go...

Visited Karl, Louella and Eloise. Stayed with Chris in South Brighton. Returned our van to the depot and as no-one was there, despite calling ahead, we simply locked up the van, left the keys with a neighbour and took off. At 4am on the 27th Chris very kindly took us to the airport. We got pinged $210 for excess baggage!

Yes I've been on the hunt again, this time hampered with a stinking cold which makes it impossible to sleep at night and sends shooting pains up my ear (of all places!) whenever I swallow. Grrr. It makes me speak kinda funny which would probably suggest to you that the wisest thing is not to look for a job that invovles a lot of talking. But whe...

Just getting the red dot in the right place on the map. Don't expect any exciting updates for a while! Last night I bumped in to Stefanie and Barbara who are in Christchurch selling their car and went to see The Last King Of Scotland with them. Much better, a film with a story. I met with InsuranceMan, not a super hero but an old posh English bl...

I only spent about 18 hours in Christchurch. I hadn't heard too many great things about this city so I was pleasantly suprised. It is a nice, clean city with lots of things to look at. I spent the day getting myself organized to head down to Queenstown and taking a walk about the city. It was good! Not much else to stay. I slept at Base Backpack...

We've been busy beavers since we did our last entry. We spent a day surfing with our boggie board which was really good fun, just as well really as we haven't used it since!(As the water is so cold!) We made our way down to Rotorua where we checked out the biggest geezer (natural volcanic eruption) which blasts up every 20Min's, we've got to say...

After planning the meal for weeks, okay more like days, I was able to leave work a bit early on Thursday in order to quickly prepare the Thanksgiving dinner. I had wanted to make a turkey, but after reading about all the basting that it requires and thinking that the guys in the office wouldn't really appreciate me filling the office with the sm...