Now in New Zealand

Sorry for the delay in posting a new entry, it's been hard to find a quiet few minutes in which to collect my thoughts.

Last time we were still on Moorea, one of the Tahitian islands. We're now in New Zealand. The summary for Tahiti was that it is a bloody expensive place to visit (think US prices and then add 20-40%!), getting around without a car is a pain in the arse, the mozzies bite lots in the evenings but that the diving is excellent. I put a couple of the diving videos on YouTube; a green turtle and a black tip shark feeding frenzy, for your viewing pleasure. Photos are yet to make it online.

Now. New Zealand. We landed here on the 10th and the plan was to do a few days of diving with old Reading friends Graham and Fiona who have a boat. In the end the conditions were crappy so we just went for a cruise for a couple of days. Also on the boat were more Reading friends; Paul and Bianca. I'd not seen Paul since my wedding, and hadn't seen the others for more than five years so it was excellent to catch up.

Graham then lent Emily and I his truck for a few days so we could tour the North Island a bit.

We then had a little bit of a panic as we had a flight booked to Christchurch on the South Island for the 15th at 7pm. We had gotten it into our heads that we were flying on the 16th. We realised the error of our ways at about 4:30pm on the 15th as we returned to Auckland and were refuelling the truck! Thanks to some phone number assistance from Graham and an efficient taxi company we made it to the airport with a good few minutes to spare!

There now follows a bullet list of the things that we have seen on the South Island:

• Albatross
• Fur Seals
• Yellow-eyed penguin (climbing up grassy hills from the beach!)
• Some sort of sea lions
• Lots of cloud
• Plenty of rain

It's all very nice, but somewhat reminiscent of Keswick in the Lake District.

For the next few days we have some glaciers to check out on the West coast, some walking in the great outdoors, a ferry back to the North Island and then some glow-worm infected caves to explore.

Oh, and I've had the excitement of an New Zealand Emergency Room / A&E department! After some ill-advised pull-ups on Graham's boat I was puching a supermarket trolley when I suddently had a stabbing pain on my right shoulder blade. It really, really hurt! Could not sleep that night, then it took me about 20 minutes to get out of bed the following morning due to the pain. Apparently it was a trapped nerve...24 hours and some prescription pain killers later and it seems much better.

I would have tried to make the above a bit less factual and more lively, but it's getting a bit late and the timer is ticking down on this PC.