Well Lids and I are on our lonesome for the first time since India but more of that later. Since Triona and Barry left Aoife and Ray did the Nevis bungy jump (second highest in the world!), Lids and I did a wine tour (drunken madness) and Fee did some eXreme driving on a dirt and rock track over a mountain with no fences by cliffs (it looked like a normal road to Aoife and I when we on the map before we headed off on it, funniest thing though when she finally got the people carrier over this mountain 30 minutes later and saw this farmer doubling up with laughter, sure he was saying “bloody tourists”). Fee has headed to the north island and boy do we miss her. On her last night we got her a wee birthday cake and we went for a gorgeous meal but yet again we failed in our attempt to find a pumping nightlife in Christchurch. Though I was incapable of going the distance no matter what cos I had a bad cold. Poor me! Oh on a side note I managed to finally see Batman Begins after a year in a wee motel we stayed in on Thursday night. So right now what are we up to you may be asking yourselves? Lids and I have set ourselves up at my mate Ruth’s house in Westport, which she owns with her fella Clive, after a gorgeous train journey cross country (the very reasonable Tranz Alpine) with Aoife and Ray, who went south instead of north from Greymouth and just climbed Franz Josef today. We’re following in Dee’s footsteps as she visited Westport in Ireland a few weeks back and we felt left out so here we are. And its been pissing raining most of the time, just as it did for Dee. Coincidence! I know Ruth Joly from my Esat days when I started back in 1998, tis great reliving those days now and the girl has not changed. Jaysus though Esat was a class act to work at back in the day. Glad I left it when I did though cos now its gone to shit. The one shameful thing is that Ruth’s got work all weekend but her lovely fella has been looking after us. Yesterday we went to visit Ruth at work, missed out on the seals though as we were too busy chatting. We were all wrecked last night so it was early enough to bed, after a few glasses of vino of course. Sure Lids only got 2 hours sleep on Friday night! Today we got up late had a great breakfast, our first fry in months, and then went to watch some local plays one of which featured Ruth. The first play featured kids and was someawhat manic, very frantic and catchy. The second play was somewhat weird with a bit of unknowing incest and crazy manic cook ready to mince people because she’d never got anything after she’d cooped herself and a family up in this bomb shelter under pretence. Then there was Ruth’s play in which she was the central figure. Real New Zealand story based in the former intended capital of the southern island, Charleston. Very good but sad, there was a rape and a suicide. Ruth was fab altogether. She told me not to sit in the front row because years ago we went to a play together that a fellow Esat employee, Patrick O’Donnell (keep an eye out for him in your theatre programs), starred in. Ruth and I were sitting in the front row and at one stage Patrick had to seduce a woman by the name of Ruth and she was demanding he say her name many, many times. Ruth and I were shaking and crying with laughter and poor Patrick was dying. Afterwards good ‘ould Clive (also a former Esat employee from the good ‘ould days of Dennis O’Brien) brought us out past Granity to the place where they ran a cafe for a while. Twas a miserable day but its still a stunning beach. We met the couple that they leased the Cowshed cafe and camping ground from, Phil and Ellen, who gave us a coffee and a lovely welcome. On our way back into town we stopped for some beers in the Big Fish in Granity and dropped in on Hamish and Sophia, a couple the guys know. Gorgeous house. Right now we’re waiting on Ruth to come home from work and we’re gonna have dinner and a few more glasses of vino. On the natural forces front we experienced our second earthquake today. A west NZ earthquake doesn’t last that long but the whole house did shake! We’re planning to move on and head north on Tuesday.
Ruth, Clive and Ernie Dingo (extraordinary Aussie presenter, he was the guy in Crocodile Dundee who made the call) from when Ruth ran the Cowshed a cute cafe in a gorgeous location, pretty much in the middle of nowhere that we visited today.