MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR AND ALL THAT Hello all sorry it has been so long since my last message, but the holidays are upon me and I find lots of time to catch up. Baden and his family left on the 21st to spend the holidays on the north island with their family, on the 19th to the 21st weekend me and 3 other mates rented motorcycles and went on a trip around the south end if the island, it was a pretty wet ride but still was good. rained the entire day saturday and of course we never [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello ladies and gentleman, boys a girls Found a internet cafe in Methven (the little town close to me) and decided to update you all. Just returned from Christchurch where a bunch of women :-) and my swedish friend hans and I went the the semi final game of the Air New Zealand Cup and saw Canterberry and Hawkes Bay square off, was a really good match and was pretty close right up to the end but Canterberry (the crowd fav) scored a quick two trys and finished them off. Now it gets interesting... After the game in true new zealand/canadian [View Full Entry]

---

---

So having mostly packed the car the night before we are able to leave Ashley Gorge(camp) by 7:10 for our 2 hr trip to Mount Hutt. It's chilly but the sun is coming up and promises a beautiful day. Our arrival at Mt. Hutt is a surprise because here, you have to drive half way up the mountain before you get to the ski area. It's a gravel road and you guessed it—seemingly straight up. Some days your require changs for your tires which they rent at the start of the access road. Actually, not to bad on the straight but [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hello All!! Yes the rumors are true I made it safe and sound all the way to my host family's farm yesterday and completed my first day of work today. This morning Baden and I moved around 50 yearlings around to a different paddock to let them have more "tucker" as they say haha. Then hopped in his JD 6900 and plowed under a field in preperation for planting, then helped Baden clean up some tree trimmings than they did recently that we will prolly burn tomorrow. Im staying in the "party" house about a quater km away from the main [View Full Entry]

---

---

We hired a car (sorry Rocky - you would never had made it) and decided to take a trip to another Ski resort higher up in the South Island called Mt Hutt. We left the house at 5am to begin the 5 hour drive through windy country roads, and then opening out to long straight stretches. When we arrived in Methven, we checked into our hostel. It was a lovely cozy hostel with huge couches and a big fire. We soon realized that our hostel was full of boarding pros including Team Japan. Immediately after arriving, we headed straight for the [View Full Entry]

---

---

Feeling tired we were out of bed by about 10 and cooked up some breakfast in the camp kitchen. We were on the road by midday and headed south down the coast. We stopped for lunch in Timaru and bought some more supplies. We then drove another 200km down the road and stopped just short of Dunedin in a free campsite which was empty. We then proceeded to play Frisbee and football in the rain, Marks ATFFs (All Terrain Flip Flops) not quite handling the slippy surface, before cooking some dinner and watching another DVD in the Spaceship because the rain [View Full Entry]

---

---

Still loving the van, gives that bit more freedom that traveling from hostel to hostel does not offer....but boy we've brought our bad weather luck with us (remember Kath when we were in Mexico and it was their coldest winter ever), well we've done it again, snow showers and roads closed at the moment. Managed to get out snowboarding a few days ago at a place called Mount Hutt, the weather was lovely then (for snowboarding). You arrive & stay at the local town (Methven) & then get bussed up the mountain to board. As its so close to the sea [View Full Entry]

---

---

In the event that people consider the ‘weather phenomenon’ a unique excuse for the British transport system, my experiences on Monday proved that NZ suffers just as much from this problem. Arrived at Auckland airport at 8:30am for my flight to Queenstown and after a new hours delay on the hour, every hour until 2pm when my flight was then cancelled - I then decided to fly to Christchurch with an onward flight to Queenstown on Tuesday morning. Well, the fog/low cloud/rain/whatever else that caused all the flight cancellations and delays meant that I finally flew to Christchurch at [View Full Entry]

---

---