New Zealand

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Matt drove Gail to work so that David could keep the car to take us out for the day (he had just got home from his night shift so we wanted to let him sleep). When we got back to their house we had a lovely morning just relaxing reading our books. It’s one of those things we haven’t had chance to do for ages so we really appreciated having the time and space to do it.

When David got up we headed out for a guided tour of Invercargill, starting with a visit to a local fish and chip shop where we tried blue cod, which didn‘t taste dissimilar to the cod from back home. David showed us various parts of the coast around Bluff, and took us to the highest viewing point where we got blown away and rained on, while looking out to Stewart Island. We also visited a park with beautiful flowers and blossoming trees as well as some large aviaries full of parrots, budgies and peacocks.

As we got back to David and Gail’s house it started to pour down. It seemed to be coming down so heavily everything looked shrouded in a white mist as the wind blew the rain across the landscape. We were pleased to be back indoors for the evening.

When Gail got back from work she cooked us another tasty dinner, followed by yet more pavlova (Matt managed another three slices!).

We spent the evening relaxing with Gail (David had another night shift) while watching tv shows like Jamie Oliver. It felt so funny watching him visit Rotherham on the tv and being so far away. Gail watches all of my favourite tv shows - Location, Location, Location, Grand Designs, How to Look Good Naked etc. I don’t know what tv programmes we’d expected to see out here but we didn’t expect so much of the tv to be English!

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