Hi again The end is nigh and we only have 2 more nights in NZ. The long awaited rain that the country so badly needs has arrived care of tropical cyclone Oma and the winds are building as I type. A king tide is forecast in Auckland and storm force wind and rain will begin later today. We are actually at the beach today but it is windy. I took a kayak out earlier which was a bit of a thrill in these waves! Tomorrow will have us relaxing inside for our final day. ...

Hello again. I didn't really finish off our Queenstown adventure and wanted to bring that to a finale with our trip up the cable car to indulge ourselves on the luge! It's one of the highlights of the town, shooting down steep concrete slopes on a tiny bit of plastic with brakes that work in the opposite way to any norm! We love it and had 3 runs each. I'll try to upload a video later.....in fact I might try to upload a couple of videos. Never tried but, heh, ...

Hopefully the last fire update and the next blog will be about the fun we've had! We woke yesterday morning to a smoke filled cottage and ash falling on the outside vegetation. This was just too much for us and we decided that it was too dangerous. We spoke to the owners who have refused to refund anything of our 9 night booking as 'it's their busy time and they need the money'. Never mind that the accommodation is hazardous to health! We booked another cottage...

Thank you all for the well wishes. The night passed without incident. At 9 this morning everybody in the locality went to a meeting with civil defence, police and the national fire service. We were told that they had managed to get around the perimeter of the fire overnight, 22 miles and, with light winds forecast today, hoped to secure it with firebreaks and chemicals. So we headed off for the day and had a great time. As we drove back into the city it was obvio...

An update rather sooner than expected. As we were leaving Queenstown we had word that Nelson was in a state of emergency with bush fires. As we landed the fires in the hills behind the city were obvious. Shortly after landing, while we waited for our rental car, a new fire started.....right next to where our cottage was. Choppers could be seen heading there with those huge fire buckets swinging beneath them. This was taking firefighting away from the main area. W...