The Long Awaited Post (by my reading audience of 3 anyway)

Apologies for the lack of updates. I guess there is an element of the novalty wearing off, but i've also been rather busy recently and had lots of stuff to sort out/do.

I'll fill you in briefly on Wellington; it's much nicer than Auckland, kinda like a mini-London I think I would say. Lot's of shops and good nightlife. Hostel was fine, although only really got to spend one day there because of how the transport in and out worked out.

Got a short flight down to Queenstown on a little 90 seater plane. They have no security whatsoever on internal flights so you arrive around 30 minutes before you take-off to check-in and pretty much walk straight onto the plane. They didn't check my passport once. The flight over the southern alps is very impressive and at one point you actually fly right through the mountains.

Queenstown is a very nice town, much more upmarket than anywhere I went in North Island, but that also makes it very expensive. I went out for a curry with Amy the Irish girl last night and it cost us $60 (around £25) for two, but when you consider that we had the most basic meal possible, that's quite expensive. I've normally been paying around $15 for a meal when travelling around.

The ski training is pretty tough. We have 3 days of lessons a week, and so far we've had two days. Even in that short space of time though I can feel that my skiing has improved lots, which is good. Haven't got any more lessons for 4 more days so will probably have a days rest before we go off skiing on our own without the instructors. The accommodation is good too. Fairly basic, as was expected, but certainly adequate for the 11 of us that are there. In my chalet there are 10 guys and me (although I do have my own room!) They're all very pleasant people and we tend to cook as a group and eat together which is good, and cheaper.

I'll leave you with some photos of the architecture in Naper (which I should have uploaded a long time ago!) To remind you... the city was destroyed in an earthquake in 1931 and so was rebuilt in an art-deco style which the council maintain very well today. There are quite a few art-deco stores too and the dress is one I found in a shop that I thought was quite good fun! I bought myself a cool purse from the same shop that is in the shape of a bunch of grapes but the pattern is from beads (quite appropriate because napier is wine country).