Figured I better post something now otherwise I’ll never get round to doing it. So whats happened since I left Auckland? Well basically me and hendo did a marathon bus ride down to Queenstown including an 11 hour overnite bus ride to Wellington (not good, don’t think my body will ever fully straighten out) followed by a 7 and 8 hour ride to Q town via Christchurch. We get down there only to find out there is no jobs going at all…anywhere! So gutted, basically my shambolic organization finally caught up with me, could and should have applied online but didn’t, should have found out they only hire at the start of the season (we arrived a month too early) but didn’t. At this point we were starting to get a bit concerned, nae job, nae money and savings were getting battered through so we decided to go back to Wellington and get jobs.

Wellington is a really cool small city/big town, kinda reminds me of Edinburgh size wise and has a good nitelife/arts scene. Ended up getting a flat in the suburbs in a place called tawa – long story was meant to save us money etc but best laid plans and all that (ask me when I get back).

Facts about tawa:

1) Was one of the last dry towns in New Zealand – This explains why the pubs are dead every nite, we went down a couple of times during the week and we were the only people in the boozer! Even on a Friday nite there was just about no one there!!

2) Has more churches per head than any other Wellington suburb – seriously like 23 churches in a tiny village, pretty mental, would love to tell you I go and cleanse my soul every sun (and midweek by the look of it) but that would be lying and God would not approve.

3) It has the best local shop in the world ever…will post photaes later to show you what I mean.

Facts about New Zealand:

1) They like pies – I mean really like em, not in the sense they’re a nation of fatties but in that you can walk into just about any newsagent, café or bar and there will be mass pieage available. They just seem to like baked goods in general, me and hendo have discovered this place called Mr Bun and it is the don of bakeries.

2) More people play football than rugby in New Zealand. A surprising statistic but its true however their attitude can be perfectly summed up by one of the kiwis in our footy team – “Yeah I love to play football but its terrible to watch, give me rugby any day”!

3) 90% of houses have no central heating or double glazing – When we moved into our flat we thought we had been done cos of how cold it gets at night but after speaking to people at work they were like ‘naw the whole of NZ is like that’, so I asked what do you when u get cold? The response ‘aww you know, sit in a sleeping bag or put some blankets on’!! Crazy, especially as the south island gets covered in snow.

Common Kiwi Phrases:

1) Sweet – Good

2) Sweet As – Very good

3) Stink one au – Bad

4) Wop Wops – Middle of no-where (e.g Nah you don’t wanna go there, that’s out in the wop wops)

5) Bro – Mate

6) Cuzzi bro – really good mate (altho been told this is retro and no-one uses it anymore)

Joined the local footy team in tawa (called the tawa devilz!) playing in wellington division 6, was a bit of a horror show at first (2 points from first 4 games!) but went on a 7 game unbeaten streak to finish the season. I played centre mid for most of the season whereas hendo played centre back!! As i kept tellin him cannavarro is only 5'7 and hes the best in the world! Oh yeah i got on the scoresheet 3 times - no bad for centre mid and the boy i usually partnered with kept wandering up front (no goals for hendo - ha ha!).

Worked at Assure NZ as an 'Accounts Administrator' which was ok, nice company, jobs was ok, good perks - more free food and booze than in 4 months than 2 and a half yrs at my previous job!!

Our flat lease expired just over 2 weeks ago so i jacked the job in and went to the south island - caught the end of the ski season at queenstown and mt hutt . Was great to get on the slopes again (also had a couple of days up at Mt Ruaphau earlier in the season) and great to be travelling again, has helped me focus on trying to save when i get back to welly so I can enjoy touring the north and south islands in style!

Am currently in makueta which is near the top of the south island and is where my mate tom is working and hes taken a couple of days off so we can do a road trip (leaving in a couple of hours) which should be a quality laugh.

Anyway better go - will try and update this more often but dont hold yer collective breaths!!