Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas... And a Happy New Year! My New Year's Resolution is to have a life outside of work: How exciting!!!

So that photo, the first of 2007 since the last one in 2005 (reflecting the consistency of my interest in IT), shows my current home... the French Alps for a season of snow and hopefully speaking some French. The last year and a half since returning from NZ have been eventful... a few photos to tell the stories... Here is one of my lovely flatmates from Glasgow - Catherine and I (strike a pose!) had a mad lotta banter this year...

as was also the case with Vikki and Caroline as demonstrated by the weekend we got snowed in - Glasgow came to a standstill... and we built a snowman taller than us and as big as the school across the street!!!

re-learning to blog...

...and if this works you should be looking at a photo of me, alli and colin on Christmas day with the slopes in the background...

This is the lovely Phillipa who i met my first Sunday at Crossroads. We had a great chat and she coped admirably with me being a blubbering mess who she'd never met before! We have become firm friends and i have been out at her home for lunch, practising piano, going for walks, we've been for coffee, and i went with her to Rongotea bible chapel for a missionary report she was giving to a ladies meeting for the New Hope ministry she works with. She was instrumental in helping me acquire a keyboard to send out to the lovely people of mana island (fiji) for the church and school, and has even organised for its transport in september :o) meeting people like this is what makes travelling special...

I saw this sign in the middle of Palmerston North...and just thought, excellent! so just in case you needed even more reasons....there you go!

The lovely faithful ladies of Rongotea bible chapel...afterwards Phillipa and I went for lunch at the home of Eileen (in red jumper). she is 82 and made us yummy homemade pumpkin soup!

Hannah looking right at home and comfortable with her arm extended inside a big cow....are you meant to be enjoying it this much??!!

the girls arrive back from just another normal day at vet school!! Someone told them it was NADS day... National Appreciation Day for Skanks....and not wishing to seem 'unappreciative' they donned this attire to make an ordinary friday of lectures a little more interesting! Apparently next week is IPD - International Pirate Day! RANDOM!

If you feel like you could do with a good laugh today i seriously recommend you looking a little to your right...see the link to andrew jordans blogspot (itspk)...and go and read about his nothing short of absolutely hilarious encounters with seagulls. I thoroughly embarrassed myself in the university library here having such giggles at the stories. If you feel like reading on, another quite amusing story follows where Andrew recounts his 2nd degree burns from making cups of tea...although to be fair that does sound to be quite sore. but the seagulls are hilarious. Thanks Andy.

So we managed to fit into our ‘op shop’ dresses!….now I just need Granda’s final opinion …do I look like I’m dressed from a second-hand shop?!


This was our attempt at ‘bling’ which was the theme for the vet ball…well, maybe we don’t watch enough MTV or Hollywood or whatever but we did our best! We can’t help it if class and elegance is what comes naturally!


Pre-formal photos...a crazy Jen smiling manically in the background!


A houseful of vets….you can’t imagine these girls with their arms up a cows behind can you?!

Hannahs lovely flatmates….left to right: Jen, Lucy, Jenna

I saw this family on a bicycle...not just made for two...but with a wee third addition added on! How cute :o) I wonder if this will be Hannah and Warren a few years down the line!....The woman was delighted that i took a photo....i was worried they'd think it was rude but obiously not!

I watched the sun go down in Nelson on Sunday evening after a wonderful morning at church and then lunch with the pastor and his wife and young family and lovely friends. It was a good day. I ate dandelions in my salad along with some other random flowers and leaves from the garden. That was a first! I have about a zillion photos of this sunset in different phases and decided to spare you the multiple angles and stages of it. I thought this was a good one.



If you didn’t know before how much I love rainbows you can know that now….this was just a part of the Queen Charlotte Track and it was wonderful because just as I was thinking about some difficult things….I turned a corner and there was this BEAUTIFUL rainbow completing a gorgeous view. It made me smile. I thought of the hope it symbolizes. It made me happy.

I have no idea how or why this old van got here...it was along the Queen Charlotte Track - a 75 km walk that took 3 days. There are no roads...only this track through the dense rainforest. Aboat drops you off at the end of the track at the end of Queen Charlotte Sound and then you walk your way back towards civilisation ... or at least, a jetty, and from there a boat taxi collects you again. The places you stay over along the way get their supplies in by boat...so where did this 'electricians van' come from?!

Im not sure the photo does justice to these ‘pancake rocks’ at Punakaiki on the west coast….They are unique apparently and have these cool ‘blowholes’ which are quite a distance inland from the beach…when the sea crashes into the shore the waves continue in through tunnels and with the pressure build-up the water spouts high out of the ground at points such as this one known as ‘the chimney’. It is quite addictive to watch…like sitting in front of a fire….obviously the rougher the water the better the display of fountains from the blowholes.

That day I cycled from Greymouth to the rocks at Punakaiki – a distance of 45kms – and fully intended to cycle back. Now I think the last time I cycled any distance was the Belfast-Dublin maracycle and I clearly forgot the pain which is experienced from the bicycle seat. It will also serve as a reminder that free bikes at the backpackers are never quite such a good idea as they seem because the saddle will almost certainly be bottom of the range. It was so much not an option for me to cycle back the 45km that I has to accost this poor courier man in a van who was delivering to a roadside café. I asked him if he was heading south and could he give me (and my bicycle) a lift down the coast. He was a little unsure and said he didn’t normally do this and in fact had never lifted hitch-hikers because he could do without the trouble. So I began to wonder if he was insinuating that I looked like trouble…hhmmm. Well, anyhow, I thought he was safe because his young son was travelling with him and so he re-directed my request to his child (nice, I thought, to consider him in it)…and said “Well, Bailey, how do you feel about sharing the front seat with a stranger”. (I thought to myself…that’s what I am to them….a total random. It was a strange feeling.) Thankfully the child was feeling generous and possibly took pity on me as he later recounted a story about having been made to cycle huge distances…so I got a lift down the road, arrived safe and sound…nothing dodgy at all, and most importantly, didn’t have to get back on that bike seat. Happy days.


This was the moment when I thought I had spotted the almost extinct kiwi bird on my cycling adventure. I may have been delirious from the excessive exercise and therefore my intellectual capacity was diminished – considering they are nocturnal and this was the main highway on the west coast…add to that it was extremely tame and allowed me very close to take a photograph…it turned out to be the quite ordinary and very inquisitive ‘weka’ and what has it in common with the kiwi? They’re both birds, and both brown. Well done Barbara.

This is one of the encouraging road signs they like to put up along the way...

Walking through the New Zealand rainforest was a wonderful experience and I have never heard so many beautiful birdsongs and seen such pretty birds in their natural environment. I so enjoyed my walks in blissful solitude and loved the time to think and reflect and pray. I think I may make a habit of such times. The Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds was 75 kilometres over three days (plus one rest day when I read all of Lance Armstrong’s first book ‘It’s not about the bike’ and was totally inspired).

The lovely Lake Wanaka at sunset

Just another pretty view with the sun hitting the top of the mountains on one side while the moon comes up on the other side.

This is me sitting in front of the Franz Josef glacier hoping it wont crumble down behind me...it is quite scary to hear a big mass of ice drop from it and crash into one of the glacial streams running off it....im happy to be a safe distance away...

...a view of the Fox Glacier (as in Fox's Glacier Mints/Fruits) from a nearby lake...i think it was almost a perfect reflection....HOW beautiful :o)


And this was a church near the Franz Josef which instead of stained glass had a much more appropriate glass window behind the altar to see out to the glacier. Genius.

Well, I couldn’t understand why everywhere I’ve visited has signs for ‘Plunket’….honestly…every village, town and city. So eventually I discovered it is a nationwide childcare service…and was advertising with this slogan which I thought Will would just love!!!!!

This was just one of many beautiful views from the road … no wonder the tourist brochures warn that one of the biggest risks while visiting here are the distractingly beautiful views and therefore RTA’s involving tourists are common…I also heard a statistic that more tourists are hurt more often from being knocked down crossing the road to take photographs than are mugged or robbed in New Zealand. But then you know what they say about statistics.

I have seen SO many sheep on my travels that I thought it only fair that they get a look in! There are approximately 44million sheep in New Zealand and the human population is only 4 million which means the people are outnumbered by their woolly friends by 11 to one!! Baaaaaa!

This was the youth hostel in Milford sounds after a long and quite extreme drive…you can see why hot ports were in order!

I just caught this last bit of colour in the sky as i finished one end of the Routeburn Track....i really liked it because it looks just like the cover of my (fiona's) lonely planet guide :o)

I have not yet discovered a reasonable explanation as to why, but the kiwis seem to love attaching random things to fences…here are a couple of examples…..biycycles…..old shoes….just whatever takes your fancy!

…so this is the one I ended up jumping instead. I have quite a funny video which I took with my camera taped to my hand….there’s is also one from the bungy people but its not quite as silly because you don’t get to hear my daft running commentary about feeling like a bird!!!

I had a look at this jump which was 45 metres or so but thought it looked a bit tame….

We came across this poor beached whale and instead of taking care of it (as you would imagine from a vet student)…Hannah allowed me to climb all over it and pretend to be a mermaid sitting on his tail…imagine how Jonah must’ve felt inside one of these boys!....this was from driving round the south coast but the photo just amuses me :o)

One of the types of swing bridges that i encountered often on my walks. Lovely.

Thoreau did a better job than i might hope to about describing the magic and beauty of waterfalls and their effects.

Walked to a lovely waterfall in the afternoon and stopped off in Te Anau on the the drive back round towards Queesntown. Couldn't find a backpackers with room in Wanaka (predictably in ski season) so slept in the car and woke up to a beautiful view. Today has been laszy and spent around the shores of the lake but im soon heading up the west coast to the Franz Josef glacier and hope to do a bit of walking on that.


On Sunday i went to a crazy church called 'Queenstown Baptist'. It made Crossroads look normal! But it was good and the talk on 'Learning to love by Faith' was good stuff. Plus they really make visitors feel welcome and the more churches i visit all over the show the more i realise how important this is. Then i drove 4-5 hours round to Milford Sound through some serious alpine landscape and an AMAZING tunnel. Got into a quite cool and very remote backpackers for a good nights kip before attempting the other end of the Routeburn Track. This was an 8 hour day and very good exercise. A hot shower was very welcome back at the hostel. They had no tv and very limited communications but did have a piano :o) and a boy giving me free hot ports! wonderful. Just my kind of place.
Next morning i went on a cruise on Milford Sound (which is not actually a sound but a fiord) to see the Mitre Peak - the largest seacliff in the world apparently. So there you go. Saw some little fur-seals and many beautiful waterfalls etc. It reminded me very much of Norway.

Next day I went and walked the Queenstown/Glenorchy end of the Routeburn Track up to the Routeburn Falls which was a great fun 4.5 hour hike. It was also a lovely drive out to it (pictured below) Had to finish in the dark though because beforehand i went looking for a wee place called 'Paradise' which was on the map and signposted on the road but it wasnt there! Haha! I even went an extra mile and still didnt find it. I though this was quite interesting and got all philosophical about it!...Maybe people are always searching for Paradise where it doesn't exist. Hmmm....


I went on to Queenstown and did the Nevis Bungy jump which was a good laugh. 134 metress (440 feet) out of a cable car arrangement down a big mountain valley towards the river. Next day I went skiing at a nearby resort called Cardrona. All in all it was pretty poor....very limited skiing, any recent snow was very windswept making for a particularly good icy fall, the base of snow wasn't even a good covering, and of the 3 lifts one closed! Honestly...and they call it 'world-class skiing!' I think not. But maybe i'm spoiled with what i'm used to. Plus it was school holiday time so there were loads of precocious brats pushing for those 2 lifts. But i struggled on and did my best! Haha! Oh, and last complaint....there is no door-step skiing...it was a 1.5 hour bus journey EACH WAY to get to the slopes. Not fun.

Hannah took a notion to do a spot of surfing. I think she did just brilliantly...total natural.
this poor beached whale was having enough problems of his own when we rocked up and decided to take silly pictures....but i think he looks happy enough, doesnt he? Well. wouldn't you be with a mermaid on your tail?

we found this giant paua sheel and i seem to be defying gravity by perching alongside of it!

On Monday we went to the museum, sorted out our flat tyre, went to Bluff (pictures below) and had a swim before our dinner of Bluff Oysters followed by Blue Cod fish'n'chips. Now they tell me these oyster thingys are aphrodisiacs and i dont know how that works but i think i'd rather manage on my own thankyou very much. That said, i was quite committed to my new tasting experience and managed to eat 9 RAW OYSTERS! But i don't class them in my list of favourable delicacies. Give me mussels in cream and garlic any day. (Although that is likely to have the opposite effect to an aphrodisiac! haha). We slept in the car that night by the ocean in Riverton. The most awesome storm came in from the sea over the top of us. It lasted for ages and we weren't entirely sure if it was safe to be in the car...so i texted my lovely friend Ruth who is always reliable enough to expect a reply from....could she find out if it was safe or not....helpfully she replied immediately. Unhelpfully, the reply was this: 'I don't really know but they said on 999 one time that you should get out of the car, take off all jewellery and stay away from trees.' For some reason at the time this caused unspeakablke amusement and considerable laughter. Thanks Ruth. Anyway, the storm passed, we were fine, and I slept well. Can't say the same for Hannah, but when you're as committed to sleep as I am you learn to sleep anywhere!

Tuesday we took a coastal drive to Gore and on to Hannah's beloved Millers Flat (pictured). It was lovely to see where she spent her summer working on this massive farm in the middle of nowhere. Her boss Dougal McDougal gave us a great tour all round the extensive 8.5 thousand acres it covers during which time we saw some of the 11,000 sheep he rears. Plus cattle. Plus horses. Quite the operation. His lovely wife also made us a yummy chicken dinner. We went on from there to Cromwell ... famous in the Goldrush times over here, and walked round an old mine and the village. The next day Hannah went on a 7 hour bus journay to Christchurch so that I could have the car to carry on travelling. She then had to fly to Wellington, stay overnight, bus it up to Palmerston North and then cycle miles to work on the farm. VERY BIG THANKYOU :o)

Driving down south we were on gravel roads most of the day and Mr Miyagi did us proud. Went to Nugget point (pictured above) and saw some little blue penguins (from a great distance though!). There was a lovely lighthouse here too but i decided to spare you another one! ...also went through a cool disused railway tunnel, and found a nice youth hostel - with a fire! yoho! in Invercargill.

This was the view we woke up to at Waihola Lakes.