Here I Go Again

I’m back now which everyone should know by now… Sorry to you if you didn’t know, there must be a good reason… :-S

Anyway, regular readers probably noticed my updates getting more and more infrequent.  Its been ages since my last post actually.

After skydiving (which was awesome!) we headed to the north island and took our car across on the ferry into Wellington.  We stayed there for a few nights, its a really nice city and has the only welsh pub in the southern hemisphere!  Its a converted public toilets.

We didnt have long in the north island before our flight so didn’t manage to stop in many places.  We were heading for Tauranga which is where some friends lived and we were gonna spend christmas with,  the suburb they lived in was, get this - Bethlehem!  Well I thought it was funny.  Having Christmas in the summer in a place called Bethlehem on the other side of the world to where I usually spend it was a bit disorientating to say the least.  The family we stayed with though were very hospitible and made us feel right at home (as possible).

While we were there we climbed Mt Manganui which is right on the coast  and is an extinct volcano.

So after a few peacful days there including christmas day where we had a BBQ instead of turkey and shrimps instead of stuffing, we said our farewells and jumped on a bus to Auckland airport.

Next came the dreaded 20 hour flight.  I spent some time in the airport trying to get my head around the time differences and how many hours we’d actually loose or gain because of the international dateline etc but gave up in the end coz it gave me a headache!

No one new I was on my way back because I had cunningly told you all that I’d changed my flight to the 16th January where infact I hadn’t changed it at all! Har har!  I let Dad in on it because I was going to walk in new years eve but needed to know everyone would be there so needed an inside man.  That plan didn’t really work out so surprised even Dad when I got to the house on Dec 30th.  Mam was just outside the house cleaning up the leaves as she does so I walk up and say “Hello” and she returns it just as casually before realising who it is. Mwa ha ha.

So I kept it quiet that I was back and still managed to surprise most people when they showed up at the house New years eve and I answered the door to them, it was brill, I like surprises.

So.  The trip is over.  Spose I’ll have to find somthing else to do now…

Woooooooooooooo!

Skydiving is awesome! I did it from 15000ft (The highest available) where you free fall for 60 seconds and in those 60 seconds travel 2 miles vertically down to earth where your new best friend pulls the parachute cord and you slow down to a glide down to earth. My new best friend was a guy called Adam who was from Liverpool and has been a sky dive person in America and Israel before working for Skydive Wanaka. Read the rest of this entry »

Woah, has it really been that long since the last post? My apologies to anyone that has been faithfully checking back every five minutes… no one? Good good.

Since I’ve done a fair bit in the last few weeks I’ll chuck it all into one post rather than making a post for each, coz I’d have to think of titles for each one, publish each on and put the picture links in each one so for my laziness’ sake here it goes…

Read the rest of this entry »

“What a day!” Is what we were all saying Monday night. We’ve got some new buddy’s by way of Rich (cheers rich), Steffan, who’s from Machen and his mate Ben, they both work at this camp and conference centre called Living Springs. We got in contact with them and they asked if we wanted to go out on a tramp, this was a no brainer because the alternative was probably staying on the settee all day. Read the rest of this entry »

Howdy folks, I’ve got something new to blog about (yay).

Last Saturday we went on a road trip to a place called Arthurs Pass which is like a little village in a national park of the same name. Melissa and Hannah go through here every time they go back home to Greymouth (lucky them).

We didn’t really do all that much and probably could have had a look around a bit more but it wont be the last time I see it im sure, we stopped to get some food and take a few pics of the Kea’s then we set off a bit further on to the Otira Viaduct, which FYI was finished in 1999 and was awarded the IPENZ Environmental award for the challenges of building the viaduct in the geologically complex and fragile alpine ecology of Arthurs Pass :-).

The on the way back we got a little excited about the snow and had a good ol’ snowball fight (I won btw) which was great fun but cold on the hands.

Not long after leaving Christchurch we could see the mountains on the horizon and the scenery just kept getting better and better, I can’t wait till we set off again proper to explore more.

Enjoy the pics

Arthurs Pass

Out.

Yes! Is the answer to all your questions as to whether or not I’ve found a job yet, lol. You can all let out a big sigh of relief he he.

They rang up about an hour ago saying they’d ‘love to have us aboard’ and told me the shifts they can give me - Tuesday to Friday 8pm - 1am which I think is pretty good coz I get the weekends and all day to do whatever.  I’ll be stacking shelves which doesn’t sound all that fun but i’m not bothered really, just something to bring the travel money in, and I think there was mention of having to use those machines that lift crates to the top shelves which sounds fun :-). The place of employment is a chain called The Warehouse (’Where everyone gets a bargain’ - the catchy slogan). I don’t know what I’d compare it too back home, they sell pretty much everything in a big b&q style warehouse building. We went for interviews last week which felt strange coz i’ve never had to have an interview for a job before.

So now that’s sorted I guess I can go out and blow what money I’ve got on a big celebratory meal or something

Hope you have a good day out on the zimmer frame. Sorry I can’t be there but your present is in the post (i think) but might not turn up for a while…

So let me know what you had and what you all did. Happy Birthday.

Hi everyone.
Its around week 4 in Christchurch and we’ve moved into a house with four students so I’ve now got my own room and my own bed after staying in hostels (and cars) for nearly 3 months its nice. The house is really cold though coz its winter outside and theres no central heating inside(!). Our house mates are all ok and we’re getting on well which is good. The rent is cheap too.

I woke up this morning/afternoon to find a big empty space where the telly used to be because it actually belonged to one of the guys who used to live here and so he came and took it back. The girls aren’t too keen on our idea to get a new 32″ LCD though so thats a pity.

The next thing is to get a job to build the funds back up to travel around New Zealand and maybe fall out of a plane or off a bridge or 3…

Spider Pig Lyrics

The Simpsons – Spider Pig
(Click the play button)

K, so I went from Australia - GMT+10(ish) to Rarotonga - GMT-11 then back to New Zealand - GMT+11 all because of a line someone drew on the maps. Marty and Christopher Lloyd had it tough!

Our last night in Rarotonga didn’t have enough sleep in it for my liking. We were rudely attacked by a Houdini-style cockroach! First of all it climbed the wall and got our attention, then jumped off the wall and started flying around our heads. We sat there, screamed our heads off like little schoolgirls for a few seconds then sprang out our beds and were on the other side of the room quicker than you could say entomophobia. We eventually pulled ourselves together and I constructed a trap from a fruit basket and carrier bag and Jonny proceeded to beat my bed with a pillow rather than the cockroach. When it was on the floor I slammed my trap over it. Sigh, relax. But then, was that another one on the other side of the room? No, there wasn’t anything under my trap so he had magically escaped! We then had him trapped in a corner behind Jonnys bed but it ran under it and disappeared again! We searched for it for about 20 minutes but couldn’t find it. At this point we realised we were well out-gunned so admitted defeat and retreated to the other building where the kitchen and lounge area was and calmed our nerves with a brew holding out as long as we could. Read the rest of this entry »