Hello.Hope 2009 is going well for you all! So were back at work luckily for us though we didnt have to start back until the monday as the friday is a bank holiday over here! First week back still had that tradiontal january feeling unfortunately as we had quite a eventfull holiday!I hit the floor running and was straight in with a couple of breakdowns and took a tractor for its mot! which was a new experience, and Anna has been flat out Black current harvesting, im very proud for two reasons, one shes been driving a tractor and knew what model it was and two she is provding New Zealand with Ribenna!!!! So after our first week back we thought we would treat ourselves and decided to book our selves in for white water rafting,mmm i was a little unsure but never the less thought i would give it a go! So after really hot sunny week and joking about the river level going up if it rained making it more dangerous, but we would be fine, we woke up saturday morning and it was throwing it down, but undetered we set of up in to peel forest and the showers were getting worse!! Anyway we got up to the lodge and there must of been about another 30 people there, so we had our briefing and free lunch got our wetsuits helmets etc and jumped in the bus and set off uphill to a wide shallow part of the Ranitata river. When we got there we were split in to teams, we ended up in a raft with a couple from Denmark and an Irish couple who were similar age to us and our guide Steve. We set of down the river did the practice stuff and off we went it started off a doddle few bits of waves etc then they pulled us up and asked if anyone wanted to get out, not us we went for it down through the gorge through all the grades and it was brilliant but not for the faint hearted!!!! We skipped the jumping off rocks bits though to be honest it looked a bit slack jumping 10 meters into a storm filled river!! So after three hours of fun we headed back to the lodge and claimed our free bbq tea watched our photos and called it a day the best 350 dollars we ahve spent so far! Sunday Anna got drafted into work, but i was invited with Grant and William to the National Motor racing at Timaru so i thought it would be a day out! The races included Suzuki Swift, Mini, V8 salons, Porsche, Forumla 3 racing which were all ok but to be fair im not that keen on track racing, but what was absolutely brilliant and hillarious too was the Super truck racing, really they were just a load of old trucks painted up with massive engines but they could do 100mph!!! Once the smoke had cleared it was brilliant! We managed to get some back stage passes and got a tour of the Porsche Pitts and the Ford V8 pitts so all in all was a good day although i did get sunburnt he he!!Monday came before we knew it and iy was back to work to move a sold combine down to Dunedin 350km away, so we set off at 5.30am and i drove it down it waas a rather steady day but once you gat past Omarou the scenary really changes and there are some really big hills unfortunately the brakes failed in Timaru so the last 250kms, yes 250kms were rather intresting i kept one hand on the door handle just i case had to use the ejector seat he he, but anyway somehow i made and only ran a couple of cones over through some roadworks but that was more a width issue than brakes!! Anyway we made it in one piece and i got home at five past midnight so its was quite a long day!!

So its wednesday night here and were just starting to think what to do this coming weekend, to be fair saturday is going to take some beating! Also we are staring to look at moving further south at the end of next month maybe somewhere round Invercargill but we'll see. Hope your all well

Tom & Anna