NZ
Written Friday the 13th.
Currently in New Zealand, in Nelson, visiting Eva. It's a nice little town - just big enough to have everything you need, but small enough that you can easily know lots of people. Sits right between the mountains and the sea - really nice scenery.
Went and threw myself out of a plane the other day - from 13,000 feet. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your view point, I was strapped to the front of Bob, the instructor. Was extremely scary the first few seconds, then it was pretty cool. Over altogether too quickly though. Bob told me that I did a pretty much perfect free fall <IMG alt=":)" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-1.gif" border=0>. Stay tuned for the photos <IMG alt=":)" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-1.gif" border=0>
On Thursday, Eva and I went by sea taxi up into the Abel Tasman national park, so wecould go for a bit of a hike, a gourmet lunch, then stay on aqua-packers, a hostel that’s on a boat. All sounded pretty damn good, right up until we actually went and did it... The weather on the boat ride up was a bit rough, but okay, and it started raining. Walking through the rainforest was not too bad - didn't get rained on much, but getting to the gourmet restaurant required an estuary crossing, which was a little damp. Halfway across, it started pouring down. From there, walking to Aworoa Lodge in the rain wasn't fun. Managed to dry off a bit, but missed out on lunch by 12 minutes - they'd closed the kitchen :(. Abysmal service too... Heading onwards by water taxi to the place we were staying was a bit of a disaster too. Pouring rain, we ended up having to wade out to the taxi, in thigh deep water, and no undercover seats left. So, an hour long ride in the rain, in soaking wet clothes, in the cold wind, over very rough seas. And to top it off, the driver decided to stop at the seal colony... Got to the aqua-packers, looking like drowned rats, and then looked at the accommodation we were booked to stay in, and decided to skip it - very cramped is the phrase, I believe. So, last water taxi of the day back to the car and home for a long hot shower... All in all, a litany of disasters, which all in all, made it a enjoyable day :). A few less disasters, and it would've been annoying, but this many, and all you could do was laugh. But, a beautiful park, amazing natural scenery.
The odd thing about being in New Zealand, and especially in Nelson is that Nelson is Hollys home town, so I was really expecting to visit NZ with her, rather than her being on the other side of the world. Odd. She's also very jealous that I'm here and she's not <IMG alt=":D" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-2.gif" border=0>.
Anyway, its now Saturday evening, and we're just about to head out on the town, and tomorrow, I'm off to Los Angeles tomorrow - should be fun <IMG alt=":)" class="emoticon" src="/images/emotions/emotion-1.gif" border=0>