Guess who's back! Nearly 7 months on would you believe... and so here we are still in New Zealand, still in Queenstown for that matter, and well & truly settled into Kiwi life.So we still have our jobs you'll all be pleased to know and we've formed a pretty strong relationship with our colleagues and managers who now provide us with some pretty good sales incentives......mainly alcohol, but it's always very warmly received and we've had many an after-work drink in the office with them, as well as coaxing them back to house parties on a couple of occasions to get them drunk English-traveller style.

There's been some major changes to the living arrangements since the last blog which I think was nearly 3 months ago now (sorry!!). We've moved out of the cold damp camper van (damper van) for a couple of months and are now living in a warm dry chalet with a couple of other friends (Chris aka Bush & Todd aka Scrogg) who we met a while back at the old camp site. The new place is basic but there's ample space of our twice-weekly house parties and thrice-nightly movie viewings!

In terms of crazy activities like bungee-jumping and sky-diving things have calmed down dramatically for the meantime while we save some money to spend when we continue travelling around the rest of New Zealand.Recent activities have mostly been based on the beach down by the lake where we go to have fires/bbq's whenever a few of us have time off work.We have however managed to squeeze in a couple of afternoon's snowboarding up at Coronet peak, about 20 minutes drive out of town.One of which came courtesy of our boss who gave us both VIP passes as a reward for making the most sales in work one day. This turned out to be one of the best days we've had in Queenstown so far. Luckily the day that we had the passes for was perfectly clear and relatively warm compared to some of the freezing weather we've had here previously and to top it all off we had access to the guest area where there were endless amounts of snacks and alcohol to keep us going all day!

A few weeks back we decided to get some exercise and make the 45 minute hike up the mountain/hill to where the legendary luge resides. So Me, Jules and the boys were soon at one of the highest points in Queenstown looking over the 84km-long lake and gazing over at the snowy mountain ranges in the distance....breath-taking in every sense of the word! We looked on for a few minutes while we gathered our breath before our excitement got the better of us and we headed over to the luging track. After carefully selecting the coolest helmets we could find (Jules and his pink helmet won that competition) the tickets were bought and we were ready to go. For those who have no idea what i'm talking about or who are imagining us in lycra outfits on a downhill ice-pipe; luging in Queenstown is like sitting on a fancy go-cart hurtling down a very narrow and very windy hill-side track.

The first race was on the beginners track and it took everyone a while to get used to the surprising speed at which these things could actually reach.We then alternated between the advanced and beginners track for the next 4 races and by the end of it all there were so many little vendettas going on that I'm sure anyone looking on would have thought we hated each other, and had the staff seen how dangerous we had made their wholesome family activity we would more than likely have been thrown off the mountain! Jules managed to prove just how dangerous the luge can be when he got a little over competitive on the final race and rolled his cart over the finishing line, launching himself out of it and off the side of the track!

So once again i'll promise not to leave it quite so long before the next blog and we'll continue walking, fishing, bowling, luging, swimming, bbq-ing & chilling in beautiful Queenstown for the remaining month or so that we're planning to stay here.

Hopefully someone out there is still listening-in so if that's you, spread the word that we're still safe & well and love to all as ever

x x x Steve & Jules x x x