Bugger, we're back!

You've gotta love a country where the national fencing championship involves the actual building of fences! We had a ball in NZ even though the weather was more often than not less than hospitable. That's right, it was cold and most of the time the wind made things difficult. Needless to say it played havoc with the fishing but we'd do it all over again and will even consider moving there for a year or two. We saw some pretty amazing scenery but didn't get to see any real live kiwis. We were too busy looking for fish like these:

This was our first fish for the trip which got us pretty excited. Unfortunately we didn't catch too many more like this for a couple of weeks. Eventually we did find a couple more tho like this one:

And not to be outdone, Ruth provided fish of the trip, a 7lb beauty from Lake Marymere.

Other high-lights included a jet boat ride at Queenstown and some of the magic views that stretched on for miles as we made our way around the south island in our campervan that we named Nora. She was a little bigger and faster than Lulu and we were able to stay out of the weather as she had a built in kitchen. The bed however was terrible and we needed to buy some extra foam and blankets to make sleeping a little easier. And then there were the sand flies. And boy did they love me! Ruth copped a few bites also but there was something about me that really got them buzzing!

We spent so much of our time cruising around inland that it wasn't until the second last day when we got our first glimpse of the coast. Had it not been for the foul weather killing off a last chance at catching a few more fish we might not have seen it at all. On our last day as we tried to find the airport, we ended up driving through Christchurch. It's not until you're at street level that you really begin to appreciate the destruction caused by the recent quakes. It really was devastating.

Eventually we found ourselves back at the campervan depot where we handed back the keys to Nora with no real dramas. We didn't tell them that we managed to break a headlight and then fix it ourselves. It was probably much cheaper than letting the company fix it. A complimentary shuttle bus dropped us off at the airport and after a couple of hours we flew out of Christchurch watching the snow covered mountains fade into the distance. We've been back a couple of nights now. Spent two nights with Pedro @ "The Well" and now we're at Tegan's place waiting for everyone to finish work for the day. Not sure where to next but we'll let you know when we get there! Be good peoples!