So tomorrow I’m off to the N.Island for just under 2 weeks. Really really looking forward to it. There are two reasons for heading up… one is to see my cousin Thomas

He’s one very amazing guy (he is related after all). After doing 1 year working in Geneva working for the NZ mission for nuclear disarmament (UN stuff), he then did 1 year working in Canada with anti landmine work. He somehow managed to engineer a position co-ordinating anti clustermine work for NGOs around the world (at least that’s my understanding of it all)… and now can work anywhere in the world (currently Cuzco in Peru…). Yeah, kinda puts my work to shame.. It’s funny – mum has a brother and sister.. Thomas is the youngest of my Aunt Mary – and my cousin Catherine is the youngest of Mike (6 months between each of us). Cath is now doing some sort of aids related work in Africa (after doing 1 year in Tanzania), and Thomas is doing the anti clustermine work.. makes you think sometimes.

Anyway, really looking forward to catching up with him, has been far too long.

The other reason is to take in a weeks climbing with my friend Mhairi

– who’s been having lots of fun on the N.Island since she left ChCh back in Dec.. Hopefully get good weather so that we can get some routes done at Whanganui Bay. Should be fun!

So that’s the plan for the next two weeks.. then it’ll be back to work trying to get everything sorted out for leaving in Julyish.. (when hopefully two friends will be visiting – Domhnall and Lorcan..) So I imagine there’ll be an amount of skiing done :) Seriously… can you imagine how hard it is going?!?! to be to leave (if and when)… There’s just far too much fun to be had here.

A few weeks ago it finally twigged that my friend Linda was actually leaving to head back to Ireland quite soon. So I said ‘We should go off on a hike or something, I feel like I’ve hardly seen you’, to which Linda replied ‘Well yes, but that’s because you’re always so busy’. Which, in retrospect, is a fair point. The other day I counted up how many weekends in the last 52 that I’ve actually been in ChCh. It’s about 10 (though most of those 10 I was off climbing in Castle Hill/Rock/ something).

So, headed off on Saturday morning off up to Lake Daniels (Lewis Pass). It’s a really easy hike – just a couple of hours in.

But it’s a pretty sweet location. It was not *quite* as tranquil as I was hoping it would have been. We had some.. colourful.. hunters, staying in the hut too. It was a perfectly starry night though, and while this pic is taken when it was still light, the starlight reflected in the water was really quite something.

Then on Sunday just a leisurely stroll out, a good soak in Maruia Springs, before heading home to watch the final episode of Billy Connolly’s World Tour of New Zealand.

Last night was the culmination of 9 weeks of salsa (and meringue) practice with my (primary school) friend Linda. Lessons ended on Monday – and seeing as I could see everyone was itching to head out and put it to practice, suggested dinner and then dancing at The Loaded Hog (a venue which has salsa on Thursdays..) If you want to see two classy dancers at work (that’s Linda and I) it’s here

Autumn has really come to NZ now. I’m sleeping under my duvet with my sleeping bag over me (I could just put the heater on of course it’s true).

Also, my residency application is proceeding, they’ve just invited me to apply.. I am wondering about the whole thing though, and whether I really do want to live here or not. It’s so tempting.. just need a few more people (or a family member or two!) and this place would be totally perfect… totally.

Went to get the car WOF’d today. It failed. As expected (seeing as I’ve not yet fixed the windscreen since we cracked it with a kayak (as you do)). Still, it’s not going to be more than about $320 to get it all done, so that’s sweet as really :)

Ok, so who out there isn’t on skype yet? Get yo ass in gear! Has been great recently, more and more friends are getting onto Skype daily (plus it’s super cheap to call people). The latest two who I managed to chat to this week – were Brian O’Donovan in Japan, and an engineering friend – Andrew Quin (in Sweden). It’s just magic – especially when so far from home. And then it’s only 1.7cent (euro cent) to call a landline – so had a nice catch up with my savage-climber-friend Eliza Sprecher (in Nice at the moment)… trying to… encourage her to visit NZ… I’m quite sure my flatmate Till would enjoy doing some 8a’s and b’s.

Other fun things just in. This link to the Top 10 things – What have the Brits ever done for us is, while pretty south-parky and rude, funny too…

If you’re into some excellent (though a little old now) political satire – Andrew gave me this link to www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk. If you have real player then click on the ‘video’ link on thedossier site, and watch ‘Between Iraq and a hard place’. Makes for telling viewing really.

So Friday night was slightly random.. My friend Susan who was here a couple of months ago – when she was up in Wellington gave my phone number to an American – Benjamin, to look up when he got to ChCh (she said he hadn’t met too many people over here). So at 4:30pm I got a call from Benjamin (who I’d quite forgotten might call – it has been 2 months..) and anyway, was wondering about hanging out.. There was a table quiz on in work – and so brought him along to it. Nice enough guy, though agrees with Bush’s decision to get out of Kyoto ‘cos it’s not fair that the Chinese aren’t bound in the same way. I said a few things along the lines of ‘well %age wise there are quite a few more of them..’ and ‘at least it’s a start’ and other things.. but it did all seem to come back to ‘Them and Us’ a lot. I did try to say something about ‘actually we all have to live on this planet…’ hmmm, anyway, what can you do.

The weekend itself was fun, the otehake hot pools. A trip I heard about when I first got to ChCh, and have wanted to do for a long time. A pretty cruisey 4 1/2 hour (leisurely – twas a biggish group) walk in. Quite a few river crossings etc.. and then soaking in hot pools..

having wine + cheese etc. Excellent place though, could smell them from a mile away (though Jonathan said it was just Daves’ caving wellies he’d walked in with!) There’s a lovely campsite on an island in the middle of the river. There’s cold river water running down one side, and thermal water on the other, so it’s easy to regulate the temperature of the pools.

My new flatmate (Till – German – climbs 8a+) came along, good fun guy.. and then when I got back to ChCh – two college friends (Anna McHugh + Jackie Foster) arrived.. hardly seen them since I left college.. they’re staying for a couple of days :)