Heading to Queenstown

After the by now customary week of sitting on our hands and settling in, we begin our exploration of the South Island tomorrow. We are driving to Queenstown via Lake Tekapo, followed by a trip into the Fiordland. This is real Lord of the Rings territory with dramatic scenary and of course lots of heights to jump from and fast things to cling to.

We'll meet Simon, Leah and Caitlin in Queenstown too. In case I haven't slagged them off enough already, can I point out something quite disturbing about their very presence in NZ? They put us up, and up with us, for 4 weeks (FOUR WEEKS!!!) while dealing with work deadlines and the daily demands of parenting, in their wonderful home in Brisbane. When we finally left them in peace (and in pieces), they celebrated their new found freedom by...taking the next flight to Christchurch. OK - they have the excuse that Leah's brother is living here for a while too, but I'm not sure that is going to save them from this ribbing. The only explanation is that they want to make sure that we really did leave Australia.

I finally got sick of dealing with the Nokia N800's limitations (I'll explain the details in a later post) and picked up an ex-lease Thinkpad here in Christchurch. I'm almost weeping with joy over the keyboard right now. Hope the bugger's waterproof.