Hey!

I went to Mount Cook yesterday. On the way, we had a little break at Lake Tekapo (in the picture above). It is as gorgeous as the picture. The little building is a church and it is absolutely tiny. I reckon any more then 12 people would be a squeeze. Apparently the Japanese love it and travel all the way here just to get married in the little church. In the alter of churches, it is traditional to have spectacular stained glass windows. Here though, the back window is empty and lets the worshippers look out on to the lake! On our way back yesterday, there was a huge stretch limo outside the church. A very strange sight, when you have hardly seen any cars or even tractors on the mountain road for the last hour before. There had just been a wedding at the church and apparently, the bride and groom had just flown off in a helicopter for wedding pictures on the mountains and glaciers.

Snow has reached New Zealand and the caps were covered. They offered three different flights over the mountains and the nearby glaciers. I really really wanted to do one, the ski plane (the wings has skis)?which lands on the glaciers and cuts the engines so you can go out to explore areas, untouched. It was a lot of money though for a hour activity and I simply could not afford it. So I wallowed a bit while the people in front of me got all excited and boasted how they had read about the miracoulous ski planes that they were about to go on. However, as we got closer to the mountains. The phone went warning them that there was a 90% chance they would be cancelled due to the weather. They had to go up in helicopter instead (they don't cut their engines). I know this makes me a bad person and I should have felt for them a bit more, considering my sky dive expereience, but half of me did wanna?go 'Ha'!

Mount Cook is 12000 ft. The highest in New Zealand. Apparently that is not that high (I jumped out of a plane higher then this. See, my head not swelled to normal size yet) but technically, it is really difficult to conquor. It has three peaks. The two main ones are 2.5km apart but the ridge which links them is only about 6inches wide and this?may be?why 184 people have lost their lives on the mountain in less then 150 years. Only nine weeks ago, there were three Japanese climbers and two of them died.

It was a very long drive four and a half hours there and nearly five coming back and that is without the breaks!?Left at seven and did not come back until almost 8 last night. Was shattered.

Am off to the coast tomorrow. Looking forward to that. Fingers crossed for the weather which looks like it could go either way today!

Went to another art gallery earlier in the week and have to tell you, I found out what the flicking lamp means. It is all about taking a fresh look. Each time, a light turns on you have a chance to see something new. It reminds you to keep taking fresh looks at the paintings because if you do then hopefully you will see something new.

Astronomy is quite a big thing here. When the English first came, a lot of them built their houses the wrong way round. The sun was meant to always be at one side of the house (front?) but they forgot they were in a different hemisphere and the sun is in the north here not the south and it was only when the sun came out, they realised all their houses were the wrong way round. Not sure where the sun was when they were building them but there we go!

Anyway back to astronomy. Somewhere in Oxford, England, a scale model of the solar system was built for the millenium. The earth was something like 2.5mm and one of the stars, that is part of the model is hanging here in Auckland because it is that far away from the earth in reality!

Hope all ok.

Sam xxxxxx