SiPie

Heard good things about them and certainly won't fly Cathay Pacific again ... very poor.

Their winter is not a bad time either with long clear days and the sun lower in the sky, so you don't need to sunblock yourself to the max every time you go out.
Autumn tends to be wet but as Phil mentions, summer can occasionally be a downpour as well.
We were lucky in missing the Otago floods as we were still up North and caught the best of the weather

rgv_stu

i was there for the whole of december and never used a sunblock more than 4, and half the time i never bothered at all. didnt seem a problem.

SiPie

That will be because they had the wettest December on record......not much need for sunblock in the rain

Brendan Hughes

Si, did you get to go to Skippers Canyon above Queenstown, where they have the Pipeline Bungy? Being a passenger down that road scared me more than doing the jump itself! Sign at start of 16km road - "WARNING to Avis, Hertz, Budget, Sixt rented car drivers - your insurance is invalid beyond this point"

BexTait

Nice pics. I can't wait till I go (being forced to as part of my uni course) at Easter. I won't get to see that much of the place as I'm their for fieldwork purposes and don't get very much free time, but will get to go up glaciers and volcano's. Oh the joys of being a geography student.
Bex

ozzy

feckin students; so that's where all my tax is going ................

SiPie

No... but we'd meant to and I couldn't help but laugh when I read in the car hire brochure that 90 mile beach and Skippers Canyon were excluded....

Wish I'd seen it as it looked pretty mad from the pics I saw of it

Mal K

PhilC,
We were staying with family in Paraparaumu. Raumati Beach.
Beautiful area, would love to come and live there but NZ has immigration well sorted unlike here.
Mal

Gizmo555

Went up and down there on way to White Water Rafting . Must be mad to drive that track especially as its 2 way.

When they say not everyone comes back from white water rafting my guess is they're refering to the drive rather than drowning. At the water bed they gave us an oppertunity to back out of the rafting and go back in the van. Stuff that - i was going back on water.

Cheers

Mark

philc

you should've popped in and said hello - I live in Raumati Beach; did you get to go over the Paekariki Hill Road ? - it's made for WRX's

Sorry the weather wasn't better; it's been in the mid 20's for the past week or so .......

SiPie

Any jobs going where you are ?

Christchurch appears to be the only thing 'print production/publishing wise' on offer and I'm not convinced that I fancy spending my leisure hours punting up and down the Avon

Brendan Hughes

102 metres - long way to fall without a Bungy!







Someone falling looks like this (tiny speck in centre of screen):





And from a distance it's THIS big :

Steve Perriam

great pics

looks like you had a stunning time

we're planning on Oz next year. hoping for 6 weeks if the wife can take that much time off. not easy even though she works for herself.

ozzy

Will it be your first time to Oz Steve? If so, you'll love it. Even for an outdoorsey person, I loved Sydney and the laid back lifestyle. Couldn't resist a trip to the Blue Mountains; only a couple of hours by train, but worth the visit. No comparison to the scenery in NZ though.

I went in their summer and up in Surfers Paradise it was still 26 deg. That's a heatwave for a Scot

philc

- there's a few jobs around (not sure if I selected the right category)

http://www.seek.co.nz/jobsearch/inde...ccupation=1478


and we've got the lowest unemployment in a decade with employers desperate for skilled workers (not that it seems to influence the Immigration Service ....... ho hum )