See you soon...

Can you believe that 2 years ago, we were setting off on our big adventure or big OE (Overseas Experience) as they call it here? We have enjoyed our experiences over here tremendously and would like to thank all of our readers out there for following our blogging updates throughout the years. We have greatly enjoyed our ability to update everyone with our adventures through our blog site. We will be posting updates during our 7 week adventure, but it won't be on a daily basis like we have tried to do here at times. Please keep an eye on the blog for updates.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone back in the US in a little under 2 months.

But, it's with great sadness that we leave both PwC and Hudson as well as this wonderful place that they call Aotearoa (The Long White Cloud). Take care everyone and see you soon.

Our little plants have a new home

While we have been here, we have had the great pleasure of owning 4 plants. Unfortunately the first summer we were here, we had a tragic loss and one of the plants died from lack of water while we were travelling. Despite losing her, we have been able to keep three plants alive and well and have watched them grown a great deal while we've lived here.

Tonight a new chapter in their lives has started as they have moved to live with Stephen and Deon on the first floor of Viaduct Point (our building). We think they will be very happy with their new owners and we look forward to getting updates as they continue to grow.

Stephen and Deon also decided to take something else off of our shoulders and buy our BBQ. If you remember back to mid-May 2007 we searched long and hard for a BBQ and finally found one that we were very happy with.

Tomorrow will be our leaving drinks which we are having for both PwC and Hudson. They will be held at Cargo Bar in the Viaduct which is a new bar that has recently opened replacing the Loaded Hog.

Farewell Dinner with the Jameses

Today started off with a jolt as we slept through our alarms, waking up suddenly at 7:30. We were able to shower and change and be out the door within 30 minutes which was a good record for us.

Our evening was much more relaxing as Deon and Steve (who are in NZ on secondment from the PwC office in Hartford) wanted to take us to dinner to say goodbye. Steve is off to a work training so he'll miss our leaving drinks on Thursday night. They very generously treated us to a wonderful dinner at Mikano, a restaurant on the harbor. We stuffed ourselves with appetisers, main courses and desserts. Then Steve and Deon gave us a bag filled with NZ treats like Tim Tams, Pineapple Lumps and Crunchy bars that we will take home with us. We really enjoyed sharing our last 6 months in NZ with Steve and Deon and will miss them a lot! They will be here for another year and a half, so be sure to check out their blog: http://onlyinnewzealand.blogspot.com/

When we got home from the feast, Jeremy had a very nice message on his phone from another one of our friends, Nate. Nate is here from the Pittsburgh office (and mad that I've converted from a Steelers to a Patriots fan) for two years. He'll miss our farewell party as he's off to Samoa for work tomorrow morning. We have enjoyed spending the past 6 months with Nate and will miss him a lot too. Check out his blog for some more NZ adventures: http://2yearsinkiwiland.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow is our third to last day of work which is hard to believe. Tomorrow night is our "free" night but it is our chance to pack our bags for travelling, so we will definitely be busy!

Last Working Monday

Today marked the last Monday that we have to go to work for a couple of months. What a nice day. It was also our 6th to last day in Auckland, which was very sad. Our final set of visas arrived, so we are all good to enter into Vietnam. We were getting nervous as the departure is very soon, so I was happy to receive that mail at work today!

I also had my last personal training session at the gym tonight. I was very sad to say goodbye to Jaimee as she's been a great trainer for the past year. I will miss her in Boston and will be looking to hire a sarcastic Aussie trainer if anyone knows one! :) She made me finish off the session with my least favorite exercise, but I promised to do a set for her when her baby arrives in a few months. I told her I would do the number of repetitions equal to her baby's weight. I'm hoping for a 5 pound baby!

Jeremy finished his workday with drinks with one of the partners he works with. I met up for dinner with Michelle who is Jeremy's coworker and our friend from California. She won't be around on Thursday night for our work farewell drinks, so she invited me to dinner which was very nice. We indulged on huge pasta dishes and red wine. Jeremy met up with us towards the end of the meal as well.

Tomorrow is another busy day for us. I have my last Integrity Selling training session at work and then we are off to dinner with Steve and Deon tomorrow night. Our friends are definitely keeping us busy in our last few days. Wednesday will be our night for packing!

Send us back to the US

We can't believe that we've been living here for 2 years and the time has come for us to say goodbye. Although we are very excited, it's also very sad. We had a very busy weekend which started on Friday evening with a dinner at Jackie and Jerry's house. They live in Birkenhead which is north of the city. We picked up a bottle of wine and some beers and headed up to their place. (As we've sold our car, we are currently borrowing Brian and Di's VW Polo) We had a lot of fun with Jackie/Jerry and Jackie made a great Green Curry.

Saturday was filled with cleaning and some last minute shopping. We also spent a bit of time preparing for the evening festivities which included a party at our place with a US theme. There were many purposes for this party but one of the primary ones was to finish our alcohol. We asked everyone to come wearing red, white, and blue and the rule was if you didn't come with those colours on, that you would have to eat a Wheetbix (NZ cereal bar) without any liquid as fast as you can. These bars are very dry and the challenge is to see if you can do it in under 60 seconds. Needless to say, all 16 people at the party tried the challenge (although most everyone was wearing all three colours), but no one was able to do it in under 60 seconds.

There were 4 key drinks which we had ingredients for (Horny Bull, Dark 'n Stormy, Cape Codder, and Gin Chiller). We also had some Jack Daniels (straight shots) and Bailey's (mixed with vanilla ice-cream). Erin had done a great job decorating and preparing some very tasty snacks for all the guests. We stayed at our place until around midnight and then headed into the Viaduct to a couple of bars.

Sunday we did a little more shopping and more cleaning. At night we went to dinner at Brian and Di's house up in Forrest Hill. We brought Matthew an overdue Birthday present and ordered some takeaway food. A very fun night with a lot of very funny stories.

Our last full weekend in Auckland is coming to a close and we are about to begin our final week of work. Stay tuned for more updates throughout our last week in NZ.

La Clique

Tonight we joined Kevin Martin, our friend from BU's study abroad program for La Clique, which is part of the Auckland Festival that is going on right now. The is described as a fusion of cabaret, new burlesque, circus sideshow and contemporary vaudeville. It was amazing!

Kevin had invited us and 7 other people who are supporters of the BU program in New Zealand. Kevin coordinates the study abroad here and arranges internships for students while they are studying. Last year, Jeremy arranged for one of the students to work at PwC. I had also been in contact with Kevin when we first arrived and was looking for a job. He has become a good friend to us, so it was sad to say goodbye. He does make it to Boston every so often, so we hope to see him on one of his visits!

The show was a mix of magic, acrobatics, singing, dancing and many other things. We sat at a booth towards the back of the room - thankfully as they picked on people who were up close! We would recommend the show if it comes to your area anytime soon.

Snooker & St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day over here in New Zealand and like St. Patty's day anywhere, it's celebrated pretty big. We didn't have the day off which was a bummer, but oh well. I was able to share a couple of beers quickly at a pub and was able to convince the bartender that she should give me a really cool Guinness t-shirt.

Later on it was off to Ponsonby Pool Hall for a little Snooker. Since arriving here in NZ I've learned about the game of Snooker which is similar to pool, but played on a table which is much larger and has much smaller balls. Since hearing about it, I've been speaking with Phil about playing and finally we were able to get a time booked on the calendar. Phil's wife Lyndsay and Paul from Scotland were there as well as Erin. I was able to figure out the rules and played alright, but the rules are more than I want to write about on here, so please click on the link above for a little summary of the game written by wikipedia of course.

We have a couple pictures which were taken on my camera and I will load them tomorrow so stay tuned.

Busy Bees

Our last few weeks in Boston were very busy as we prepared to move to NZ two years ago. Well, things are pretty much the same as we prepare to move home! On Tuesday of this week, we enjoyed a delicious dinner with friends at the top restaurant in Auckland, The French Cafe.

Wednesday night was a night of culture with our friends who are in the the "Culture Vultures" group we are part of. It was our last outing with the group, so they will be busy recruiting two replacements to try out some more fun things in Auckland. We enjoyed a dinner of Thai food followed by ice cream cones before taking in Circus Oz, an acrobatics show. The night was a good way to end our time with the other Culture Vultures.

On Thursday Jeremy had a work event and I hitched a ride with Deon and Steve to the super market. It's not a big deal walking there, but the weather hasn't been too great the last couple of days, so the ride was much appreciated!

Last night we celebrated a pre-St. Patrick's day at our Irish friends Paula and James' house. We BBQ'd tons of food and played PIG on the neighbor's mini basketball court. Again, another fun night!

Jeremy is off at a beer festival today and I've been sorting through our goods to prepare for when the packers arrive in two weeks. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate in just a couple of years. I'm happy I started this weekend too, as I only made it through the kitchen today. Hopefully I'll be more productive tomorrow!

Car-less

The big news for this blog is the fact that our car has been sold!!! It was an exciting Friday as there were a couple inquiries regarding our car that came through on Thursday evening. After speaking with one of them, he had an interest in viewing the car on Friday, so I came home and met him. A little under 2 hours ago, I was back in the office without a car. It was exciting to sell it and the fact that we sold it for only a little under we advertised it for, but it was also sad to realise that we no longer had a means for transportation. We celebrated our sale with a bottle of bubbles!

Saturday was not a very busy day, but we did make it to the gym and went to a number of stores throughout the city looking for some final Kiwiana things to purchase. We also went to the fish market and bought some snapper. Erin was able to cook up a nice meal for the evening as well.

Today was a relaxing day and included a trip to the gym as well as the grocery store. Although it was a little more difficult as we had to walk and carry our food home. In the afternoon we hitched a ride with Jennifer from PwC down to Drury where we went to an engagement party. Emma from PwC is currently working in Vancouver and got engaged to her boyfriend Tim while in Canada. They have come home for a visit and had a little party at her parents house. It was good to see them and a fun afternoon.

Ouch - shots!

To prepare for our move and trip to Asia, we have many things to do. This morning we had a doctor's appointment to determine which vaccinations we need for our travels. We were given a DPT vaccination and also a blood test. The blood test will be used to see what other things we are/are not immune to. The results will come out on Friday - hopefully we don't have to get any more shots, our arms are sore! We also received a prescription for malaria pills. We will take the pills two days before entering Cambodia (our first "malaria risk" stop) and then for a month following that. As much work as it is to prepare, we are happy to do anything to avoid getting sick.

We were also very pleased to receive our Chinese visitors visas today! After they arrived, we tackled the paperwork for Cambodia and shipped those documents off. With our short time frame, we are hoping everything works out! To celebrate that we received our first of three required visas for our trip, we went out to dinner. Even though the visa is for China, we ended up at a Japanese restaurant. The food was delicious and we enjoyed a nice view of Auckland's harbour while we ate. We tried some new things including snapper sashimi and ostrich carpaccio. We are really looking to tasting even more delicious things in the coming weeks!

We also posted our car for sale! We will be sad to say goodbye to our reliable friend, but will be happy to pass it on to someone else who is as eager to tour New Zealand as we were (or someone who is willing to pay what we are asking for that matter!) Here is the ad for our car on TradeMe, which is New Zealand's equivalent to eBay: Holden Vectra for Sale. If you know anyone in New Zealand who is looking to buy a car, please send this along to them!

Stumps, Overs, Bails, Wickets, Bowling

What do all those terms mean? They all refer to the 16th century sport called Cricket.

Tonight I played in my first Cricket match and it was a lot of fun. I play on a PwC team who plays against other business teams in Auckland. We've had 2 games so far in the season, but I have been busy on the other days so wasn't able to attend. It was a great night and we WON!

We scored 162 runs and they only scored 100.

OK I'll give you a few details about the game...if you're interested.

• There's various kinds of games (20/20 cricket, 1 day test, 5 day test matches, etc.)
• 6 balls (pitches) per over (20/20 means that there are 20 overs)
• The wickets (stumps) are the 3 sticks at each end of the pitch (bowling lane)
• The Bails sit on top of the wickets
• If you hit the ball and it rolls over the outer circle you get 4 runs
• If you hit the ball and it goes over the outer circle in the air you get 6 runs
• When you hit the ball, you get as many runs as times you can run back and forth

Our PwC games have some similar rules, but it is co-ed and you have to have at least 2 females on the field for each game. There are 8 ball per over and only 14 overs per game.

Not sure if you guys got any of that, but please let me know what kind of questions you have and I can answer.

Derby Day

We had high hopes for this weekend being a busy one, but heavy rain and wind on Saturday caused all of the events we planned to attend to be cancelled. Fortunately, The Auckland Cup was only postponed a day, so we were able to enjoy a sun filled afternoon today cheering on our favorite horses. We had a fun day at Derby Day (or Darby Day as it is pronounced here.) We bet on four races and won three times! It was a lucky day for us. They also had a fashion show with some of the ladies’ showing off their own Derby Day designs.

The rest of our weekend was filled with housekeeping tasks. Because we only have four weeks remaining in New Zealand, we are busy preparing for our return home. We washed a took photos of our car so that we can put it up for sale, planned more of our trip to Asia and Germany, and spent some time taking in some views in the city from a little hideaway we found across the harbor from our house.

As we drove back home tonight a song came on the radio: Massachusetts by, the Bee Gees. We found the lyrics rather fitting but the timing of the song…a coincidence??

Feel I'm going back to Massachusetts
Something's telling me I must go home
And the lights all went out in Massachusetts
The day I left her standing on her own

Another one bites the dust / Sailing

Tonight we had dinner with Gareth and Claire before they depart New Zealand to head back to Manchester. They are spending about 8 weeks travelling the US before arriving back in the UK. We've enjoyed hanging out with them and they'll be missed. But we enjoyed a final meal in NZ with them at Kermedec.

In addition, I went out on one of the partners sail boats today. He has a 40 foot Beneteau which is actually the same kind of boat that Erin and I got our beginner sailing certifications one. It was a beautiful day on the harbour and we stopped at Motuihe Island which is in the harbour and me and another guy (Cameron) went for a quick swim. Check out some of the pictures below:

Stephen, Cameron, Valerie

The City

Rangitoto

Hanging over the edge

Rotorua

We have a few final things to see on our New Zealand list. This weekend our task was to go to Rotorua, a city south of here, to see live kiwi birds. The kiwis are in captivity, but we heard from our friends we would be able to see them in an open air enclosure, which is the closest we would ever get. Rotorua is also one of the Pacific's most active thermal regions and is surrounded by mud pools, geysers, and hot springs.

Our first stop when we got to Rotorua on Saturday was to visit Rainbow Springs Nature Park which is where the kiwi birds are. A ticket to the park is good for 24 hours, so we spent some time walking around the park looking at trout, native birds and other random farm animals. We went into the nocturnal house and finally saw a live kiwi! It was behind a glass wall, but we couldn't believe our eyes - it was so much bigger than expected. We had been looking for something the size of a softball but this was the size of a rugby ball. We still wanted to see a kiwi up close, so we kept our tickets for the evening show, when other kiwis would be running around their open air enclosure. (Sadly no photos of the kiwis, as it was dark when we saw them and we weren't allowed to use a flash!)

Small Wallaby

Erin and a friendly donkey

The next stop on our trip was to the gondola and luge in Rotorua. This is very similar to the one that we have visited in Queenstown, but the luge ride is MUCH longer. We had purchased three rides each, but the rain started to fall and we were a bit tired with luging after the first ride so we decided to give our remaining tickets to some strangers.

We hit the road for our hotel, which was 15 minutes outside of town. After checking into our hotel, we grabbed our bathing suits and towels headed off to the Polynesian Spa where we had booked a private hot pool. The hot pool was very nice and we had secluded views of the surrounding bubbling mud pools. It was very hot, so when our allotted 30 minutes was up, we were ready to go.

A large chess set at our hotel

Our private hot pool

Next stop was dinner in town. The rain had stopped so we sat outside at a cafe where there was live entertainment. We enjoyed dinner until sun-down when it was time to head back to Rainbow Springs to see more kiwis. The park was lit up with blue, green and red lights which made it feel very exotic. When we entered the kiwi enclosure, we didn't expect to see much, but were lucky enough to see three more kiwis scampering about. They are nocturnal animals so they were out looking for food and other exciting things. They certainly did move fast!

After a long and exciting day we were ready for bed. It was back to the hotel for us as we had to get up early on Sunday for more thermal explorations.

Sunday's adventure was a visit to Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. At the park, we walked through bubbling and hissing pools, steam vents, craters, and other exciting things. We felt like we were on another planet. At 10:15 we joined the other visitors at Lady Know Geyser as she erupted and hit a height of almost 20 meters in the air.

Jeremy checking out the sites

Devil's Bath

Champagne Pool

Mud Pools

Exploding geyser

Our weekend was a busy one and we are finishing it off by doing more research for our trip to Asia in just a few weeks. We hope that everyone else had a nice weekend!

Touch Rugby Career is over

In November of 2008 I began my touch rugby career. I played with a number of people from work and we got off to a good start with a couple wins in the first few weeks. We then lost a game and I was pretty upset as losing is never good. Overall my first season was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it.

This year I played again, but unfortunately our team was very bad and not winning a game became all too common. My last rugby game of my career was this past Friday night and I was playing on another team which we won with a final try with no time left in the game. It was a great win and a good way to end my career.

Unfortunately I injured my finger in one of my last games and it still hasn't gotten better. I went to the doctors and he's told me that I have to see a physical therapist (physio as it's called here). It sure does sound strange, but yes, I have to see a physio for my hurt finger. I have an appointment for Monday, so hopefully they can help make me a speedy recovery.

Everyone over here has told me to take Rugby back to the US and to start up a touch league in Boston. As much as that sounds like fun to me, I'm pretty sure it'll be difficult to start up a touch league, so I'm guessing my career in Touch is over (at least for now).

Squid

On Saturday we were hoping to watch the final races of the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series on the boat of two partners that Jeremy works with at PwC. Unfortunately the weather didn’t pan out the way we had hoped and there was lots of rain, so our trip was cancelled. We spent the day at home avoiding the rain but our afternoon was interrupted with lots of boat horns blasting in the harbor. We ran outside to see what the commotion was (the rain had finally cleared) and found out that New Zealand had won the race! There was a celebration right around the corner from our house where the race boats were being stored, so we joined in the cheering for a little while.

That evening we got dressed in our Valentine’s red and pink for a farewell party for our friends Gareth and Claire. They are leaving Auckland this week to return home to the UK. Their trip home will take them through the US for several weeks of travelling. We started at their house before heading to a couple of bars in the city. It was a late but very fun night for us.

We topped off our weekend with a delicious lunch today at Squid Row, a seafood restaurant that we’ve been talking about going to. We both filled our bellies with the salt and pepper squid, which was fantastic. We really will miss all of the good restaurants around Auckland!

Hawke's Bay Wine Festival

On Thursday morning we set off towards the Hawkes Bay, which is a 6 hour drive south of Auckland. (We enjoyed a four day weekend this week, taking Thursday off and Friday was a public holiday; Waitangi Day.) The Hawkes Bay is known as wine country and New Zealand and part of our weekend included the Hawkes Bay Wine Festival.

The first three hours of the drive were very familiar to us as it is the drive that we take to many of the popular sites on the North Island. After we hit Taupo, the scenery was new to us – but of course great.
We got to the Hawkes Bay around 4:30 and decided to explore Napier, one of the cities that make up the Bay. Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s and had to be completely rebuilt. The city now has an Art Deco theme that it is famous for. We strolled through some of the public gardens before heading off to our final destination, Hastings.
For this trip we decided to try a Kiwi summer tradition and go camping. We rented a tent from a home business in Auckland and were all set. The campground was very nice with lots of open tent sites. We got ourselves set up and went into town for a quick bite to eat. The sun set around 9:30 which left us with not much to do but read by flashlight or sleep, so needless to say, we were in bed pretty early.

The birds were chirping nice and early for us on Friday morning. We were up and running by 7:30 am. We decided to drive to Cape Kidnappers which is a famous golf course. When it opened a few years ago it was ranked #27 in the world. We had a hard time finding the course and when we asked someone where it was, they told us that we had to have permission to enter the property. We found the gate and dialed the course, begging them to let us in. We learned that it never hurts to ask as we were at the Pro Shop within a few minutes. The course was heavenly and the staff were so nice and accommodating.
After taking in the sites of the Cape, we were off to Kemblefield Estate to start our first day of wine tasting. We were told that we had to see Kemblefied, but it’s far away from the festival, so we decided to make an extra trip on Friday. After tasting a few wines we enjoyed a delicious platter of food as we were definitely ready for lunch at that stage. The woman at the vineyard suggested a few other wineries in the area that we should visit, so we mapped out our afternoon to do just that.
The afternoon included Trinity Hill, where after tasting wine we read and napped in the shade, Unison Vineyards, Matariki Wines, and finally Craggy Range where we drank an Avery Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc while snacking on a variety of cheeses. We also stopped to watch a random go carting race that we came across during our journey.
Saturday was the official start to the wine festival. We had no trouble getting to bed early on Friday night, so by 8 am on Saturday we were ready to go again. We walked into town to meet up with our shuttle for the day. We were given tasting glasses and a bus pass that we were told we had to wear on our necks all day. (It was kind of hard to drink from a glass that was tied to your neck, so we didn’t exactly follow all of the rules.)

Our first stop was Beach House Wines, a small vineyard. We only stayed for a short time and were back on the bus towards Elephant Hill – stop #2. When we got off the bus, we were greeted by tour guides who poured us generous glasses of wine to taste. They then walked us through the vineyard explaining that Elephant Hill opened just a few months ago. It was a very nice vineyard but we still didn’t feel like we wanted to spend the rest of the day there, so we were off again to stop #3, Clearview Estate.
Now this was more like what we were looking for. There were vendors selling snacks, cellar door tours, tastings and a restaurant where we were lucky to grab a seat for a delicious lunch in the shade amongst the grape vines. After lunch we hopped back onto the shuttle towards Kim Crawford. The shuttle took us straight through the vineyard which was kind of neat. At Kim Crawford we secured a bale of hay under a shade tree. We had packed a small blanket and travel Yahtzee which came in handy as we sipped wine all afternoon. The vineyard was serving thin crust pizza and ice cream, so we enjoyed that (and plenty of water) as well! The last shuttle back to town was at 4:30, so we were certain to get on one a little bit early. The shuttle dropped us off at Vidal wines where we purchased a final glass of wine for the road (the road was a walk to dinner!)

This morning we were on the road at 7:30 am, thanks to chirping birds and crying babies. We got back to Auckland in the early afternoon and hit the gym in an attempt to burn off some of the calories we drank over the past few days. For dinner we stopped by the Lantern Festival, in celebration of the Chinese New Year. We went to the same festival last year and sadly forgot the camera this year! We dined on scrumptious dumplings and spring rolls which were the perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

Blown Away

Jeremy is off playing touch rugby this evening and I am busy catching up on our friends' blogs. Stephen and Deon (they live in our building and are from the US as well) keep a great blog. I was checking it out and was blown away by the photos Deon took on our trip to Tongariro. Check it out: http://onlyinnewzealand.blogspot.com/. She's a professional photographer, so the stakes were high, but I think she she did a great job! I'd also like you to notice the picture of me carrying our heavy pack for some of the trip. See I'm not 100% lazy :)

Another great blog to check out is our friend Nate's: http://2yearsinkiwiland.blogspot.com/
He is from Pittsburgh and (of course) a huge Steeler's fan. Jeremy watched the Super Bowl with him yesterday at Fox's a bar in the Viaduct. Nate was the organizer of our trip to Tongariro and he did a great job planning the trip. He has some great photos as well!

Anyways, enjoy the photos! It's a short week for us (3 days!) and then we're off to the Hawkes Bay for a wine festival. It's one of the few places we have yet to see of this amazing country. We're going to try our hand at camping since we've had good experiences in both the Outback and Abel Tasman. Fingers crossed for great weather and we'll catch you soon.

Stardome, White, Circus and more

It's been a busy last few days for us down here in Kiwi land. On Thursday night Erin planned a great evening out at the Stardome here in Auckland. Over an hour and 1/2 we learned about the different constellations in the southern sky and then went out side and spotted a number of them through telescopes. We also talked about the various solar systems, subplanets and the sad story of how Pluto was demoted from being considered a Planet.

Friday night was the last night for one of Erin's co-workers Joe who is headed back to the UK and month end drinks for my work. We ended up at the same bar, Dakota, and had a fun night out.


Saturday was filled with a stop at Wendy's to get a burger, fries, coke, (for Jeremy) and a baked potato (for Erin). Then we headed to the ASB Showgrounds for the Travel Expo. We were very excited and had hoped to purchase our flights for our travels through Asia on the way home. Unfortunately after 2 hours of sitting with a Flight Centre agent, the cost of the flight they gave us didn't seem like a very good deal and had us going to Hong Kong 6 times...very strange.

At night we hung out with Gareth and Claire who are winding down their time here in NZ before heading back to Manchester. We went to White which is a fancy restaurant in the Hilton Hotel. It was great food, service and company. During the night we noted many words which are pronounced differently between the UK and the US. One example is the word Tuna. Everyone in the US knows how we pronounce it, but people from the UK pronounce it Ch-una. Interesting.


Sunday was a day spent trying to work on our travel plans and at night we went to see Le Grande Cirque with James and Caroline. It was an absolutely amazing and jaw dropping acrobatic show and we enjoyed it very much.

Now all eyes turn to the big day tomorrow...GO STEELERS!!!

Fishin'

Our friend Steve is a huge fan of fly fishing. We’ve never tried it before, but NZ is a great place for fishing, so Steve offered to teach Jeremy on Sunday. We hit the road after breakfast in search of the perfect fishing spot.

We planned to fish along the Retaruke River , but had to gain a local farmer’s permission to do so. We didn’t have much luck with that. We either couldn’t find a farmer, or ran into unfriendly people who didn’t want to share their part of the river with strangers. Finally we came across a farmer who owned 1600 acres around the river. He said he didn’t know much about fishing, but directed us to a spot that he knows is popular for fishing.

The spot turned out to be perfect! Deon and I sat in the shade under a bridge. (The sun was scorching on Sunday.) We set up blankets and chatted away while the boys headed upstream. About two hours later some more of our friends arrived with a BBQ and lots of food. They started grilling some burgers and hot dogs and when the “fishermen” returned we enjoyed a delicious feast. The fishing, swimming and fun continued late into the afternoon, until the bugs were biting too much for us to handle. Some fish were spotted, but none were actually caught, unfortunately. The day was nice and relaxing – which was just what we needed after the long hike on Saturday.