Hurricane Alison......

Hey Dudes

I hope the Christmas break treated everybody well. We were certainly treated very well. Christmas Eve at the hostel was most excellent, we all chipped in with bringing food and booze, we were the last standing, again! We ended up having Christmas day with Jack, Chrissy (who we are renting from), their friends and family. It was a fantastic day if a little strange being away from home, friends and family. We coped though and you will be pleased to hear that my liver is back to full working order, in fact I was very proud of the amount it coped with-Angie and I got smashed. Angie did not fair so well the next day :-(!! I did call Sarah after 12 hours of drinking, I'm not sure I made any sense and I cried a lot!!

Jack and Chrissy were lovely, everyone was so welcoming and friendly. Their genuine kindness and care of others is amazing, I would love to see what would happen if everyone was like them.....

So, there has been muchos drinking over the last week and hence the title of this post. While having a drunked evening with two new found friends, Steph and Amber, we have decided to call hangovers like hurricanes. There has been many this week and being New Years Eve, we have predicted that there will be one tomorrow and it will be an Alison!!

The sunshine has been lush, I had my first swim on boxing day, it was sooooooo cold! We have done some venturing amidst the sea of alcohol. We went for a trek with Steph the other day to Cape Palliser, the peninsular on the south coast of the North Island!! That sounds so stupid! It was lovely, the sun shining and looking over to the snow top mountains on the South Island-cool.


After climbing up 243 steps to the light house and back down, I though it was time for another swim on the beautiful beach, there were many. Seemed such a good idea at the time. The swim itself was great, the getting out was not so great. Due to sand being on a slope down and a ridge and then leveling out this caused some wave action. They didn't seem that big until I was kneeling down talking to the girls, I felt something big behind me and before I knew it I was being hurled around and around and around some more. I'm sure this is what it must feel like to be in a washing machine. Being so close to the shore I knew I was not in immanent danger so started to laugh while being trapped by the wave, again not a good idea. Finally I was washed up to shore covered from head to foot in black sand, gravel and snot laughing so hard, the girls pissing themselves. They were laughing way after I had stopped!!!! Lovely Jane, if you are reading this it reminded me of our day at the beach in Cornwall!! I also had no towel and remained looking like I had been ship wrecked for the rest of the day!!

We met some very stinky dudes that day at the seal colony at the cape. So graceful in the water, and so not when getting out. There was a whole world of blubber going on! We were able to get really close on the rocks next to them before they gave us the eye and growled as seals do. It was amazing to be right next to so many chilling on the rocks. Meet Bill and Susie!!










The adventures continued on the way home when we were very close to breaking down due to Vinnie having no petrol, it was a little scary as we were driving through a very steep mountain range with limited space and no where to stop. The car was in neutral a lot of the way down, but you will be pleased to here we survived and celebrated with a few more beers!

So the New Year will be bringing some welcome changes for us girls. In light of us doing some hard research in the wine department we have got a job in Blenheim, South Island (Marlborough region) in a vineyard!! What better place to research the NZ wines!! We start on the 5th and leaving the comfort of the flat tomorrow to camp for a few nights and ferry over to the south on the 3rd. We are hoping to stay in the Department of Conservation camp sites near to work which are dirt cheap, mainly cause there are no facilities!! Solar shower here we come. I'm really looking forward to moving on now, itchy feet and ready to see more of this beautiful country. Not sure when the next blog will be but as soon as we have access to a computer I will post again!

Pixie and Dixie, so good to hear from you. Thank you for the Christmas Card, we loved the hamster!! Now Dixie I hope you are looking after you.......nice one on the no smoking xx

Really sorry for not being able to check e-mails yet dudes, I will try to get back to a computer tomorrow or as soon as and sorry Sarah for not having the chance to read your blog. I miss you Chever chops and love you heaps and heaps.

Love to you all.

PS Music recommendation: Fat Freddies Drop