Day off today - Friday - too windy up top. Me, Alex (Vancouver) and Dyfed (Cardiff) went up to a local attraction, Puzzling World, which is a sort of Ripley's Believe It Or Not... place. There's a maze outside, and inside there's all kinds of holograms and illusions and rooms which have water flowing up hill and pictures which make you want to vomit because your eyes are vibrating. I tried to take some photos of the holograms but they didn't come out at all. ...

OK - photos are uploaded and ready to rock. Lots of scenery stuff so if you don't like lakes and mountains (you weirdo), don't bother. It is CHUCKING it down here. Approximately 45 feet of rain has fallen in the past few hours. This, I keep telling myself, is a good thing, the reason being that if it's raining in Wanaka, it's dumping snow high up in Cardrona. They've shut the already treacherous access road so no riding for anybody today, just wandering rou...

Breathtaking. Pure and simple. But more of that in a minute. After another flight from Singapore to Sydney (on which I had a total result. Upgraded to a Club single traveller seat - more legroom than Shaquille O'Neal would need, celebrated with a bottle of bubbly which was on the house! or plane more accurately), then another over a pristine turquoise sea basking in sunshine to New Zealand, I arrived at Christchurch airport 28 hours after leaving Heathrow. ...