I've had quite a few mini adventures since my last blog so I will start at the beginning where I left off the last time. Just under two weeks ago myself, my ozzy housemate Jack and Peadar went to see Mt Eden performing a gig in Queenstown. They were absolutely sick, a very intense night of some heavy dubstep. We danced right till the end by which stage none of us could talk, hear properly or even walk. It finished up at four in morning and we went straight home after and passed out within seconds. It was a great night as Mt Eden are one of favourite DJs and I really wanted to see them live while out in New Zealand.

Two days later myself, Peadar, Paul and Hughy made our way to the Catlins for a weekend road trip. It took around three hours to get there and on arriving I was immediately shocked by the resemblance it had to Kerry. The Catlins is a coastal area on the south east of New Zealand and it is about a third of the size of Kerry. The first thing we did on arriving in the Catlins was to visit the most southerly point of New Zealand. After this we made our way to Curio Bay which is a well known surfing area. Unfortunately my surf board was still all dinged up back in Queenstown so I had no board. But luckily a realy nice Kiwi guy let me use his board for an hour after he had finished up. I was well out of practice but I managed to catch a few decent waves and almost got into a cheeky little barrel. Thankfully the water was no colder than the previous Irish winter so my steamer kept me nice and snug for the hour that I surfed.

After my little surf we made our way to a local little village to grab some munch. We found a nice little chipper where we grabbed a cheap meal before heading into the pub next door to watch some of the ITM Cup. That night we had to drive into the bush a little bit to fine a sneaky place to hide the car. It is illegal to camp in the Catlins and this explained why all the locals kept asking us where we were gonna be staying for the night and if we needed to be put up. But being as broke as we were we had previously decided that the four of us would sleep in the car. It was nothing short of a very cramped and restless sleep but it did the job.

The following morning we awoke before seven to discover snow everywhere outside. As a result we put on the four wheel drive in the car and made our way to one of the many waterfalls that are worth visiting in the Catlins. After visiting the big glorious waterfall in the rainforest we made our way to Nugget point. Nugget point is boared by beaches on either side which have an abundance of wildlife living around them. There is meant to be Hector's Dolphins, all sorts of Seals and a very rare breed of Penguin. Unfortunately we only spotted a single Sea Lion on our visit but even that was pretty cool as it was huge and we managed to get within metres of touching it.

Once we had finished doing all our touristy stuff in the Catlins it was passed midday in the Catlins and time to make our way back to Queenstown. We knew it was gonna be a dangerous journey back as a lot of snow was falling and was forecasted to keep falling till Tuesday. We eventually made it back to Queenstown four hours later but obviously not without incident. Peadar the lunatic had been driving way too fast considering the conditions and he learned his lesson as a result. We had been about thirty minutes outside of Queenstown and Peadar was flying along the road at around 80kph. All of a sudden he lost control of the car and we went skidding off the side of the road but luckily he controlled the crash well and went down through the gears till we came to a nervous stop. It took around ten minutes to get the car back on the road and it was not without difficulty. Both the car and ourselves escaped the minor crash unharmed but it could easily have been a lot worse considering the speed we were going!

The snow continued to fall till Tuesday morning and it was the largest fall in Queenstown in fifty years. The whole town was covered in over a foot of snow and it has only just fully melted from our deck a week later. There is a mountain biking park in the forrest above our house and for the few days that followed the fresh dump of snow it turned into a riders winter wonderland. There was jumps, rails, halfpipes and lots more. We spent two days riding up there. Then last Thursday I headed up to the Remarkables ski resort with my two ozzy housemates. We did plenty of jumps in the ramp park before doing a bit of hiking to earn ourselves the reward of riding on fresh off piste powder. I did one particular off piste run through a little gulley of rocks that was about three metres wide and double black steep. A pretty scary experience but a serious thrill and accomplishment to be able to push my skiing to that level.

I took it easy last weekend to save a bit of money for the world cup as our road trip to the north Island is only two weeks away now. I cannot wait! Thats pretty much all for now folks so I hope ye enjoy the read and take it easy. Peace and love.