Hello our loyal followers,

So as most of you will know we are still in Queenstown, living the dream in our holiday let with 4 friends. Unfortunately in the not so distant future, we will be down to 3 friends as Keith is heading home for a wedding and is unsure if he will return.

On the plus side, I have a job at a local bike shop called Outside Sports. It's a great job selling bikes, maintaining the retail fleet and general mechanics work. Both Nicola and I were looking for part-time work around 20hours a week so we can still enjoy being on holiday and earn some spending money at the same time. The job has other bonuses like free use of the downhill bike demo fleet, huge discount on all bike parts and big discounts off anything in store including ski clothing and equipment (perfect for winter).

During the last month, the Super 15 rugby league has started and is all over the TV. We were lucky enough to watch a pre-season friendly which was played on the local rugby pitch in Queenstown. The game was between Waikato Chiefs and the Otago Highlanders (our local team). It was a beautiful sunny day with 3000 spectators held back by a paper tape (which would never happen in England). The team included some world cup winning All Blacks players and was a great game to watch.

So since our last update my birthday has been and gone, thank you to everyone who sent cards and presents. Unfortunately on the day I had to work but in the evening Nicola and I headed out for dinner to a local restaurant called Flame. The restaurant is known for its ribs and meat and it didn't disappoint! We had calamari and stuffed mushrooms for start and a HUGE mixed grill platter for main. It was cooked incredibly and had lamp, steak, sausage and a full rack of ribs. The following day we decided to have my birthday night out where we went bowling followed by a few drinks. We couldn't remember the last time each of us had gone bowling so thought it would be a good laugh and a bit different to the normal drunkenness. It was a great night with lots of fun and one too many bad lemonades!

It's been an exciting time for biking with two big biking events taking place since our last update. The first was "Red Bull Roast It" bmx jam which was held at the local jump park approximately 10min from our house. There was a full line up of professional ridings from all over the world including three American riders, one UK rider and some up and coming locals. It was an awesome event with some huge transfers, a double back-flip and awesome tricks. The second event was the Unit farm jam just outside Invercargill. There were freestyle motocross riders along with bmx and mountain bike dirt jump competition. The weather wasn't that great with a number of the events being stopped due to the rain but was still a great day out.

The weather is starting to turn to autumn here with the nights getting colder and sun going down earlier. We have had a few incredible morning views over the mountains where it has rained in town overnight but snowed on the mountain tops causing a amazing contrast between lush green forest and snowy mountain tops.

Much love from Queenstown

Nikki and Ben