Well the Snowboarding was cool, we paid for two days and both ate a lot of snow the first day, but everyone has said that that is to be expected, and you should start to ride properly by day three. Anyways, on day two the weather was terrible and we both wussed out! Sat with a coffee for a while and then headed back down the mountain. :) Still, it was a good laff and I want to spend more time on it sometime. After that we travelled on to Queenstown where we had a couple of big nights exploring some of the nightlife (where the happy hours are generally 10 till 11 at night!) and did a 134m bungie jump - it's the third biggest in the world or something and because I was the heaviest (inevitably!) I was first to jump. In the end it seemed pretty surreal (especially being hauled all the way up again upside down) but a fantastic 30 seconds or so and I'm v glad I did it.
We are currently in the west of the South Island, in Fjordland which is one of the most beautiful (and isolated) parts of NZ - drove over to Milford Sound this morning and found out that it isn't actually a "Sound" but a "Fjord". You learn something every day..... As it is the depths of winter we had to carry snow chains for the car but thankfully didn't need them. The car parks at Milford were huge things, almost empty with only a dozen or so cars and a couple of coaches - it was a visual reminder as to how much different our holiday would have been, had we travelled in summer.
Only a week or so now before we are flying to Peru. My self-taught Spanish lessons are coming on reasonably well so I'm starting to feel a bit more confident about getting around once we get there. Also planning to get a few Spanish lessons once I'm over there - they work out much cheaper over there than here in Kiwiland.

On to the Central Otago region, and Wanaka. We have arrived here right in the middle of the ski season and everywhere is packed - quite a change to the east cape! Tommorow we are (fingers crossed) going to try snowboarding for the first time. Given my height, poor balance (even when sober) and adversity to early mornings I don't hold up much hope for staying upright for too long, but we shall see..... I've been given some great tips from Mark which will hopefully help me a little .

Well we've been on the South Island for a couple of weeks and I've got to say the scenery is just spectacular. We went across the top to Nelson and Golden Bay (bit of a hippie area there - lots of organic cafes, people playing guitar and a very high beard ratio (BR)) all the way to the Farewell Spit (Eirily quiet sandunes and birdlife with roaring sea waves) before heading south to Greymouth. We had intended to carry on down south but got a bit waylayed by the Monteith's brewery tour, which ended in about 1/2 hour open bar. So we didn't feel much like driving anywhere after that! We also got caught a bit short by the huge distances between towns here and almost ran out of petrol coming into Westport..... Currently at Franz Joseph, about half way down the south island where there is a huge glacier. We took a helicopter up onto the ice this morning, and the views were just spectacular and the weather was superb. Quite an expensive, but it was definately worth it.

We've been in Wellington for three days now, and in a couple of hours we take the ferry over to the South Island. Can't wait! we've been partying a bit here in the capital, everything seems much more "crammed in" a smaller space here than in Auckland, and there is absolutely no problem finding yourself a nice bar at 2 in the morning! :-) On Friday we went to see Rhombus and Gomez, Gomez played for over 2 1/2 hours, some of their stuff is bloody LOUD, not really what I expected but good nonetheless. Overall it's obviously a v cool city, and it's a shame we didn't chance to get some work here and see a bit more of the place. 'Starting to get cold as we head south though, I'd best be off to buy me some thermal undies.

We left Auckland on Sunday morning any made our way around the East Coast, stopping at Opitiki, Tokomaru Bay, Morere and now Clive (near Napier). We have developed a bit of a routine of gettting up (relatively) early, going hiking for a few hours, driving for a few hours and then finding somewhere to stay. Travelling in the depths of the low season has its advantages and disadvantages - every night so far we have had the whole place to ourselves, so no need to stress about planning a route in advance and booking ahead, but on the other hand we are only getting about ten hours of daylight a day. Plan to hit Wellington this weekend and maybe check out a club and/or see a band, then we have the ferry booked for the journey over e South Island on Sunday.

I remember having an email conversation a couple of years ago ago with Tim and Rob about whether 'older' established artistes are actually able to produce decent music.... We racked my brains to think of anyone over 40 who is producing anything but couldn't really come up with anything. But since then there have been albums from The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and U2 which are arguably their finest work... and a fortnight ago I got hold of the new one from the Beastie Boys, which arguably also fits into that category. Great video to the single as well, IMHO it's still apt that they are still 'Boys' whilst pushing 40! As with a lot of my favorite albums, it has quite a few rough edges. In "Rhyme the Rhyme Well", the beat completely colapses half way through the song, it's one of those moments where, the first time you play it, you wonder if your CD is scratched. The tenth time you play it, it fits perfectly. Also the first time that they have become explicity political on record - in "Right Right Now Now" MCA rhymes "We got a president we didn't elect/The Kyoto treaty he decided to declect .... I'm getting kinda tired of this situation/The U.S. attacking other nations" That's the exeption rather than the norm though. Most of the lyrics are the ususal B-Boys rubbish about food and bragging ("Whatchoo talking 'bout Willis? Who's the illest? You know my name is Adam; stop callin me Phyllis"). Great Stuff :)