Woodster and Ferninator

More visitors for me! My "sister" Laura came to stay for some good times after being in Samoa doing some Doctoring for a while and she brought with her Rachel who I'd never met before, but now am glad that I know very well indeed! I think I've seen more people I know from home since coming away than I would have if I stayed ay home. That doesn't make sense. Erm.

Rachel "The Ferninator" Fernie and Laura "Curly Woody, The Woodster" Wood. Stop saying Wood. Wood.

It's not often I get to share a bedroom with two beautiful girls, so the week off promised to be full of uncontrollable fun! Absotiddley.

Hot Air Balloonatic

It's not often you get asked it you want to go Hot Air Ballooning. I'm just a lucky boy I think. After having about 2 weeks of clear crisp cold days with brilliant sunshine the trip promised to be something pretty special. Early morning start though, it really does suck to be me.

Man inside the balloon. It was massive! You could play cricket in it if you wanted. Not while flying mind you.

There she blows.

The local lakes tend to be a lot warmer than the surrounding air at this time of year, so you get some really cool mists lying on the waters. Fun shadows too.

Fantastic views. We got up to a height of about 8000 ft, the weather being perfect. Awe-inspiring, if you will.

Toasty-nice! Mental note: next time take some sausages along.

Caples Place: Snow Palace

Finally, we moved house to somewhere warm. All sorts of mod-cons in this gaff - carpets, doors that fit into their frames, windows that close, heating in every room. Living like kings I tells you! The new place is a decent 40 minute walk out of town mind, up several hills so you arrive home out of breath and pretty cattled.

Moving house couldn't have come at a better time as well, a cold front hit us within days of shifting up the hill, followed by a good dump of snow. Snow fields have begun to open and winter begins! Fire the (snow) cannons.

So far winter has included; scrapping snow and ice from cars, worrying about black ice, getting snow-chains for your tyres, worrying about having to wear thicker socks, buying thicker socks, leaving new thicker socks by fire and burning them to pieces, complaining to shop assistant that new thicker socks aren't fire/thermo-nuclear fallout proof, loosing argument about socks, buying more thicker socks, getting stocked up on firewood, chopping said firewood with axe, making snowmen, needing 4 wheel drive and so on and on. A thousand curses on non fire-proof footwear!

Little John nearly got snowed in until I saved him. That boy is always getting into trouble and relying on me to bail him out! He lost his fishing rod though. Shame.

Believe it or not the view from the new place is even better than the last. Even at dawn. With low cloud.

Let's get snowballing!

The Thrilogy

Queenstown: the birthplace of bungy jumping. AJ Hackett started a mad-craze of jumping of stuff with little more than some elastic bands tied around your feet. Appealing? Quite.

The challenge was set. Three bungy jumps, one day, a barbeque, two beers and a free t-shirt. Who's in? I know I was.

First one was the Ledge. A 47m jump above QT, the weather was spot on albeit a bit nippy. I pulled of a nice pose while jumping, one for the cameras and tomorrow's papers no doubt.

Next was the big one - the Nevis is a drop of 134m, roughly an 8 second free-fall. Count that in your head now. Go on..........it's a canny while. Was a real rush, got the adrenaline thoroughly pumping. You know that feeling in dreams when you're falling? It's like that, but actually happening.

Almost angelic.

The pod you jumped from rocked nicely in the breeze most of the time. Very very high.

The final one for the day was the measly Kawarau Bridge at 43m. As I had done this one before with Andy T it was easy-peasy - I was a pro at this stage. I did it in tandem with Rana (from work). Yipee!

Rocky: The Horror!

After a lot of sitting about not doing very much, something exciting happened. We went to see the Rocky Horror Show! Hurrah, I hear you cry. Having seen the film, but not a live performance I vaguely knew what to expect; an evening full of cross-dressers and wierdoes. I wasn't disappointed.

I went as a make-up-wearing-mad-monster-scientist. And Katie went as....erm..herself by the looks of things. Scary enough.

Everyone from work pulled together and we all managed to turn up in something stange-looking at least. We had a meal together, watched the show and then danced the night away.

Steve, my boss (right) wore some alarming attire. We didn't even tell him we were going to the Rocky Horror Show. I've always wondered what he got up to at weekends...nice bit of thigh nevertheless.

Raise your funk fingers. I also dressed briefly as a scouser.

Attempting to look scary - Em, Cazna and Me.

All in all a very fun night! I also wore eye-shadow. There's a first for everything I suppose.

Otago-a-go-go

A while back Dad emailed me a crossword clue about some rocks along the Southern Island coastline that were supposed to be really old, impressive and peculiar. We visited them, they were 2 of these 3 things. Old and peculiar. Crosswords indeed.

AT jumping for joy at the sight of some rocks.

The Moeraki rocks were essentially a handful of boulders sat in some sand. Fair enough. They even wanted money for us to see them! We refused, but did succomb to purchasing some delicious ice-creams. The sundries man, that's where they always get you.

We set off again, back through Central Otago (the region where I live) to QT. The scenery here is cool - wide wild grass expanses. It's where a lot of Rohan was set in LOTRs. Didn't see many horses like.

"Riders of Rohan, what news from the Ridermark?"

Got some fancy looking skies as the sun began to set.

Our final stop before home was at St. Bethans - a canny looking blue lake. Bueno.

So we finally arrived home after 4 days on the road. Was really good to get out and see more of parts of the country that I hadn't seen yet and to share that with AT was especially cool. Roadkill count got to 57. Fact.

On the road again...

From Milford Sound we headed south towards the Catlins - an area of wetlands and rainforests and ferns and all that jazz all along the coast. Fancy scenery and a lot wildlife could be seen, but more importantly we found a place called Monkey Island. Imagine that!

AT next to the notorious Monkey Island. Pretty small to be honest, it took about 17 seconds to climb. Joy of joys.

Nugget Point - a breeding ground for fur-seals and sea-lions.

Some wetlands.

AT walking the boardwalk. Marshes are fun, right kids?

One of the many waterfalls we saw along the way. They were pretty cool.

We also briefly stopped in Dunedin at the end of the Southern Scenic route. It was the first capital of NZ and one of the first cities to be founded, by the Scots. Apparently "Dun" is another name for borough, so joined with "edin" you get Edinburgh. Sort of. Anyway that's your inaccurate geography/history lesson for the day. It was a nice place.

The view of Dunedin from the peninsula.

First Stop Milford

So Andy T and I decided to go on a big road trip and see some of the south island via the Southern Scenic Route; basically a road that goes along the coast from Milford Sound all the way to Dunedin. We planned for a few days away camping/sleeping in the Colonel and seeing the sights starting off in Milford Sound. The first time I went was on a big boat full of tourists at the busy time of day, so this time, as we were driving ourselves, was far better.

Andy T with his "in awe" face on.

Through work I managed to get dead cheap tickets for an overnight cruise on a titchy boat that only sleeps 14 called the "Friendship". With a name like that, you know it's good!

Speaks for itself really.

The weather was a bit rubbish, but we enjoyed it anyway - it's not everyday you get to kayak with seals. The trip continues...

Leap of Faith

So since arriving in NZ I haven't yet done a bungy jump and being that it was all started commercially here and there are tons of them (3 alone in QT) I thought it was about time I did. I gathered some of the troops (Me, AT, Jon and Katie) and set off. Threw AT off first mind!

You can see the blind fear in AT's face.

Perfect swan dive, 10's across the board. 10 10 10.

Not only good fun and scary, but you're guaranteed an mainly asian-based crowd of at least 400. Choice!

We all managed to do it in the end - Jon went last and I think he was in a bit of shock about it, bearing in mind his arms were flapping like a bird's all the way down. Was very brief, but a good rush. Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with a trip to Deer Park Heights; a local sizeable hill with a petting zoo and also several Lord of the rings locations on it. Crackin' views.

The Kawarau river in the foreground, QT airport and the rest of the Wakatipu basin.

My mate Gary. He's a dude.

The Colonel in front of the Remarkables - he's gets around.

Team of Jumpers (not the clothing type) L to R: Me, LJ, Katie and Andy T.

Look who turned up....

Matty T and the Tenacious T

Andy T arrived for a holiday and there was much rejoicing! I took some time off work so we could do some serious jumping off of stuff. Let the fun commence!

Jon. I hate to tell him that Lord of the Rings auditions ended over 4 years ago.

I also found Little Jon floating about aimlessly. After tempting him with tales of free cheese and midgets on unicycles he gladly left the UK in an effort to have fun. He's here too - check out www.getjealous.com/jonnyboy84.