Not much to report - i arrived at 2.15 am this morning some 5 hours late but at least i got here. The tour operator being most understanding had rescheduled my tour for tomorrow - so today has been quite civilised - just wandering around.

I was actually here during Christmas 2001 so there are bits i remember from that trip. i didn`t do any tours then as the weather was bad would you believe - so hopefully i`ll get to see Sugar Loaf Mountain - well, go up it as i can already see it - and go & see the big statue of Jesus - which is presumably the one George Michael was singing about....

For anyone reading this in England submerged beneath 6cm of snow - the most that has ever fallen anywhere, ever i believe - and enduring the worst winter since worst winter records began - then you`ll not wish to know it is a balmy 32 degrees celsius here - the occasional fresh breeze wafts in from the Atlantic, toning down the humidity.....

My hotel is on the sea front - the Orla Copacabana - and for people that like fruit you`d love the breakfast - fresh papaya plus water melon (Walter Melon in Switzerland) (of course) with flavour - weeny bananas - juicy mango.... - ok, you don`t fly 5,500 miles just for a nice breakfast but it does start the day well (rough coffee, though) (that`s better - there`s nothing we English like more than a good whinge)....

In fact - you may be wondering how i managed to get here at all with all that snow that fell on Heathrow rendering the runways inoperable for - er, two hours - well, rest assured my flight was 5 hours late taking off.

Jenny had kindly dropped me off at Heathrow around 07.40 - and it was clear that all was not well at Terminal 5. For a start it is clearly not designed to handle large amounts of people - such as passengers - sweet, really (did they not think to see how Disney handles crowds - is it that difficult?). The queues for the check-in machines merge & mingle with the queues for the laughably named ¨Fast Bag Drop¨points - which are just like the old check-in desks except that to speed things up you have to check in at a machine first (unless you can print a boarding pass at home) and then queue up to check-in your luggage. I`d love to know how much time this process allegedly saves. Anyway, rambling over & i won`t mention the airline systems going down such that they had great difficulty checking people`s - er - ¨bags¨in or that half the desks in section H weren`t operating until 10.00am despite the queue snaking back - i queued for 110 minutes to give you an indication.....

Still, who cares? I`m here now. And it`s beer (cerveja) time - saude! - there`s an accent over the ü¨in saude (cheers)....

For anyone wondering - the itinerary in my first note stops with my arrival in Auckland - that`s simply because nothing has been organised beyond that point (other than a room at the Heritage Hotel upon arrival)......