Good morning,

It's Sunday morning here and we had a nice lie in. As we were making breakfast we heard about the earthquake in Chile and the possible Tsunami's in/around the Pacific basin...including New Zealand. I wanted to let you know we're fine and quite far from the coast. In fact, the sea is over an hours drive away and on the other side on some very big hills/small mountains.

I hope any of our friends & family who may be travelling are also safe!

We've had a nice weekend house sitting for Maggie. (She is at the coast but up very high.) We were up early yesterday to help her friend Nick spray the grapes. That involves moving the nets we had just put down so that he could get the little tracter in between the vines to spray & then put the nets back down. We were well equipped with gas masks to make sure we didn't breath any of the spray. (Yes, there are pictures which I haven't loaded yet but it was a very chic look! NOT!).

In the afternoon, we walked into town to explore a bit. Dinner was grilled vegetables and venison sausages with Maggie's wine, of course!!

Today we'll be getting our bags packed, doing laundry and making sure our travel arrangements for the next week are sorted. The plan is to take the train tomorrow, Monday morning, to Wellington where we'll get on the 1:00p ferry to the South Island. From there, we'll rent a car for a few days to see the Marlborough region, (Nelson, Blenheim & Picton) before taking the bus on Thursday or Friday to Oamaru on the Southeast area of the South Island.

From Oamaru, we'll go West to Kurow to stay & work w/Steve & Fenella on their vineyard. Check out their website www.sublimewines.co.nz. I think we'll be there about a week.

Not sure when I'll have internet again but will write again as soon as I do.