Helen: No news for a while because we've been at sea or up hills. It was odd being back on board again after so long on land, but we settled back into the routine well enough (the routine including mandatory sea-sickness for the first 24 hours) and had a great week. Our sailing instructor turned out to be my friend Eva's uncle Johnny (I swear there aren't many people in NZ, or the world for that matter, who Eva doesn't know by some roundabout way or other) and he was about as different from our last RYA instructor (who was an arrogant knob-head) as it is possible to be. He laughed and encouraged me through 5 days of sailing and manoeuvring leaving me feeling much more confident about our exam on Feb 9th. Still not sure I'm going to pass...but at least I feel I have a chance now. C did really well too – but he was always much better at all that stuff than me anyway. He bought himself a 'Drizzabone' hat so he looks like a professional now too!
Nelson is a friendly wee town – not as much character as Wellington, but nice enough. Got some yummy cherries from the road side on our way in, have met our yachtie friends Pagos and caught up on all their news, and are feeling very smug as we've booked the next leg of our journey... C is mortally embarrassed about this but we are going on a CRUISE from Sydney to Singapore from Mar 19 to April 4. Yes, I know it'll be full of blue rinse old bats, but it's way way way cheaper than getting a cargo ship (weird, huh?) and it means we don't have to fly – we've got this far without flying (ok, technically we did fly a teeny weeny bit in the Caribbean, but not much), so it would be a shame to start now. We're also deep in discussions with Igor and Anastasia (I kid you not – I bet their real names are Darren and Tracey) in the UK who are going to sort out visas and train tickets for us for Russia, China, Mongolia and Khazakstan. Just so long as I don't have to do it!
We've also been hiking in the Abel Tasman National Park (top of the south island) – the place is crawling with tourists, but 95% of them do the easy walk along the coast – we opted for the inland route and got the place mostly to ourselves (we saw 13 people for 3 days, apart from the last half an hour which is along the popular Coastal Route where we saw 49!)
OK, got to go now – just put Star Wars 1 in the CD drive (I know it's awful, I know, in fact I'm sure the first time I saw it I swore I'd never see it again, but we want to see 2 and 3 again and they won't make sense if we don't watch this one first, so we'll grit our teeth and bear it. All particularly galling considering we could have been watching Erol Flynn's Robin Hood this evening at an open air screening – but it's too far away and C's not feeling well – sore throat – so it's Darth Maul instead.)
Okey Cokey – that's all for now,
Lots of love
H&Cxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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