Onto New Zealand, Wooooooo and I quote myself on the first full day of New Zealand "This is the best country I have ever been to". A bold statement to make, but one that hasn't yet to come back and bite me on the ***, so far it's been nothing short of AMAZING! (JB on the decks by the way)

A 2500km flight, from Cairns, via Brisbane (bout 3 n a bit hrs), saw us arrive in NZ, Christchurch to be precise, at around midnight once we'd done the whole passport and are you a terrorist rigmarole through customs that we have become accustomed to. Classic questions you know… "Has anyone put anything in your bag without you knowing sir?" mmmmmm. "Well how would I know, if they did it without me knowing….!".

First full day in Christchurch we spent wondering, getting a feel for the place and also job hunting of course. No joy on the job front, but we did get a good vibe for the city, it's called the English city and you wouldn't be surprised to hear that its very English, there is a River Avon that runs through it, an Oxford St, Gloucester St, Manchester St. You get the picture, very English. With no disrespect to anywhere else I have been, I felt that the city had a lot more character compared to somewhere like Brisbane or Hong Kong say. They have a cool little Cathedral in the main square too, which kind of helps. O yea and also the weather is a lot more comfortable, its cold. I had to put socks on for the first time in months! Strange.
Day two we went up the Gondola/Cable car to the top of Mount. Cavendish, it overlooked Lyttleton Harbor and the Canterbury Plains and you could see the Southern Alps in the distance snow capped n all. Check out the pics it looks awesome.
As a result of there being little action on the job front, we booked a coach down to Dunedin for that afternoon.

Over to C for our time in Dunedin………

So onto Dunedin… we got onto the coach not really expecting to get a coach ride with spectacular views for approximately 4 of the 5 hour journey but what a great surprise, the scenery in New Zealand is amazing so each coach ride isn't actually that bad! So we arrived in Dunedin which is known as the university city, as it has the biggest university in New Zealand, we arrived at about 8 in the evening and then went for the standard walk around the town to try and suss out where things were and get some food! Well most things were just closing so we were forced into a Subway, Dunedin was getting better!! The following day we went and looked around for jobs, applied to some online and then in the evening went and met someone who used to coach North, we had a few pints and he told us where the best place to look for jobs etc. The following day we signed onto a job agency and sorted out the bank account and tax number and all that garbage! The first signs were good, it was a Friday, they had one job that evening and one on Monday, so Jack took the job that evening, he was a Binman, I thought this was very amusing, apparently he didn't!! He thought it was a "Rubbish" job! Excuse the pun!

So anyway onto the best day of the week, Saturday, the day of sport and we had a good day lined up, we were off to watch some local rugby in the afternoon and then the Super 14's in the evening, now we thought being in new Zealand we would get high scoring, fast paced rugby...we thought wrong! The local game was only their first game back after pre season so it was a bit ropey, and 0 - 0 at half time, but they did open up a bit in the last 20 mins of the 2nd half and one team won by 4 or 5 trys. So it wasn't so bad, we still had high hopes for the Crusaders v Highlanders game, a local derby, both teams not doing particularly well and looking to kick start their season….well neither of them did!!! It wasn't the most entertaining game, again 0 - 0 at half time, and in the end it was 6 - 0 to the Highlanders, they were happy, us not so much! It was the lowest scoring game in the history of the Super League and also the first time in about 14 years the Crusaders haven't scored a point!! Ah well..I suppose it means we will just have to watch a couple more! Although one highlight was seeing Richie McCaw play, and although he only lasted 30 mins due to injury he did show why he's the best 7 in the world! Pure class. So the beer was flowing nicely throughout the game and we decided to see what Dunedin nightlife had to offer, we met up with Tim and he showed us a few places to go, was quite a good night, the next day wasn't so good! It turned out to be a bit of a write off!

So onto Monday, what was to be my first day of work for a while, I was all ready to go when I received a text saying that unfortunately I wasn't needed anymore, bit annoying but I got over it!! We then chilled out for the next couple of days, went on a run to the worlds steepest street, Baldwin Street. Barnesie managed to run the whole way up it, I managed about half then struggled massively with the other half! That night we met a couple of girls from England who said they were driving out to the Otago Peninsula the next day, so when asked if we would like to join them we thought it would be rude to say no, who would turn down a free trip! So the next day we went to the Peninsula which was pretty spectacular and also went to the Steepest Street again to get some pictures. By this point we hadn't been offered enough work so booked a coach to Queenstown for the following day. So two of the major cities down and only a couple left in the South Island and not much work to go on, were hoping for better things in Queenstown as it is more touristy so hopefully there will be a bit more work, stay tuned for the next edition of the blog as its sure to be a good one……….

Hope everyone is well,

Take Care

C and Barnes

xxxxxxxxx

Mobile No. 0210719616 (drop the 0 and and 64 we think from overseas)

P.S. (Jack again, did you all see Liverpool beat REAL MADRID 4-0! Woooooo)