Lazy weekend, registered for kite surfing which should be fun. Headed off to see a bouldering competition in castle hill, but it rained so no show.

Pretty close and loud (and wet) thunderstorm on Saturday night – haven’t had one of those since getting here.

Oh – and while I try not to watch tele, I make allowances for (admittedly crap) remakes of… Battlestar Galactica. They’ve remade it. But it’s still pretty cool. I mean any series which starts with the human race being annihilated down to 50,000 people has gotta be good? right? ;) No, but seriously, I lived in fear of the cylons (and my brothers), so it’s good to catch up with them again.

So, interesting last couple of days in the new job, doesn’t look like it’s going to be like what I thought Call Centers would be like.. at least there’s no selling involved.

Glynn is in India, which sounds like a bunch of fun, but it’s kinda good too, as I feel slightly less unfit now that this

isn’t happening this week. I dunno, when you get past 100 situps in a single sitting (ba boom) it’s too much! Mind you, I guess it’s good for those overhangs.

Me, well – I’ve been playing a bunch of squash, almost every day this week!. Oh, and good news for next week, looks like caving could be happening on the West Coast / Nelson with Dave and maybe a few of the others we went Canyoning with back in the beginning of January.. who knows.

Well, last day in work today, well the Administration job at any rate.. pretty interesting one as they go – conducting reference checks and stuff..

The interesting stuff though was that head office (Auckland) is migrating all the system over to Exchange 2003 so mail has been totally messed up, coupled to that they want to set up a VPN, so looks like there is a fairly good chance I will get some contract work out of it (at contract rates too I hope ;)

Start work tomorrow in a government call center.. should be a whole lot less pressured.. there’s no targets, no deadlines, just do as much as you can in the time given, and will get 15 min breaks too I guess (thank God for bureaucracies I guess!) So quite looking forward to that.

Kite surfing lessons this weekend – Billy Connolly is in town too, was fairly tempted to get tickets again! but they were re-sold out (he put on an extra show).

Got killed at squash by Thor! dunno what happened :)

So.. Friday was Waitangi day – which celebrates? Commemorates? When the English gained control of the NZ by offering the Maori citizenship in return for relinquishing their sovereignty.. (on 5th Feb 1840).

But of course, what’s really important is that we get a Bank Holiday :) So off to Nelson to visit Kirsten (who is the 1st cousin of my 1st cousins husband – and the 1st cousin of Jonathan Carr who we went canyoning with..) easy right?

So off to Nelson, lovely drive up.. well I was asleep for most of it after being out at karaoke with Rachel and Nate the night before! Got up and into our hostel – the Green Monkey.. and then headed into the town to get our bearings and meet up with Kirsten – which we duly did at 6pm in the pub, though were only drinking refreshing lime and bitters..

Off to an *excellent* (dingy looking) Thai place – forget the name.. has tables for 6 people! but does take out too. Great food though – was recommended by one of the people in the hostel.

Nice long walk along golden beaches (have got to get back up and do the Abel Tasman walk…) and then an early night.

Sat – checked out the market – bought my PolyPros.. basically thermal underwear that all kiwis wear when hiking… it looks odd, but seems to work. Always very bright stripy colours, pics to follow eventually!

Off to the trailhead then, the AA sign at the start said ‘1 in 5 grade, experienced drivers only’. I was more worried whether the car would make it up..

Here’s a pic

But it did, though I didn’t find that ‘Cars coming down the hill should give way’ was in operation much..

The hike to the hut that we were staying in was through more beautiful beach forest

Seeing as I had my backcountry pass ($65) the hut was free for the night – it’s a really excellent card that one – you can use any hut in the country for free (except for ones on the Milford Track and the other great walks..) Met a guy called Bob there – (Bob Negryn) – a photographer, infact if anyone is in Dublin and feels like dropping in, a couple of his pics are on display in The Royal Hibernian Gallery – 2 Ely place.. might be worth a look!

A pretty cool evening, polished off the wine, which was great, and then a moonrise

Oh, met a bloke wot works for DOC (Dept. of Conservation) pretty interesting guy. I was asking him were the stoat traps…

…making any difference. Not much was the answer. They want to spray these pellets – called 1080, but they kill off all the nasties (Stoats, Possums) and deer.. and there’s a pretty strong hunting lobby. But apparently a huge amount of wildlife and fauna is slowly being taken over by imported animals..

Off early the next morning, and a long drive (via more excellent fresh tomatoes and stuff) home. Had a horrible scare driving home.. I will have to chalk it up to experience.. back luck to even get into the situation, but flying home, came to a “FORD!” sign.. so a ford.. should have guessed it would have water in it (place is so dry at the moment) but it looked more like a humpback bridge was the real danger, anyway, as luck? would have it, at exactly the moment I went through it, a huge articulated lorry did too, completely covered the windscreen in mud.. couldn’t’ see a damn thing with a huge amount of oncoming traffic. I’m not at all proud of getting into the situation in the first place, but am glad to have got through it unscathed… but if anyone is passing through Fords again.. I would recommend putting on your windscreen wipers preemptively ….

Yay! A much better day – in fact, an excellent day. So off to work – Wynnis – the company director was down for the day, a very lively lady altogether!.. But the best thing was that Julie (who has now attained super-hero status) found me a job in a sorta customer service government call center. Ok ok it’s not perfect… but it’s NOT SALES which is great. And no KPIs (Key Performance Indicators – see I know all the lingo now)

The great thing is that it’s for two months, which will bring me to Mid April.. which is when our lease here runs out.. And I am thinking of heading to Queenstown probably (I’m also maybe going to angle for contract work in Oz with my old company.. but I kinda doubt I will be able to pull that one off.. never know though) But yeah – so if all goes according to plan – get two or three (or four if no contract work happens) months in the cruisey call center job, then three months for the ski season… then maybe go WWOOF ing for a month or two.. and then start travelling… very loose plans, very much subject to change at any time.. but still, you have no idea what a relief it is to have work again..

Looks like I will also get some extra work when they (madison – the company I’m working with at the mo) move office.. setting up their VPN (Virtual Private Network ;) It was kinda funny – Wynnis asked me today if I knew what VPN stood for.. when I did she then said that maybe I could help set it up.. will have to angle for more money for that skilled work :D

Hehee, so that was great – and then also Nathan and Rachel – my two cousins – were back for their final night after a year and a half abroad – before heading back to the US/Canada.. and they took me out for dinner (bday present) and then we went to my auld favorite dingy dive (though full of character and cheap drinks) the Chancery.. were we karaokied the night away .. Rachel ending with the very apt ‘Leaving on a Jet plane’ If anyone comes to ChCh it’s a must see honestly ;)

And off to Nelson tomorrow (bank holiday here on the friday!)