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Back to Back(land)
SO lovely to be home – it was a good trip overall, but the bloody back problems really took the shine off it for me (and for H). Sitting back in the lap of reality now – today is my full day of Dara at Parkside/CCL. Have seen Prof, nothing to report so am now…
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Our Last Days in NZ
You will be delighted to hear that the supposedly amazing 5 hour train ride from Greymouth to Christchurch over the New Zealand Southern Alps looked more like the 13.35 from Euston to Scarborough – it pissed down nearly the whole way, couldn't see a thing and we were trapped listening to a loud American describing…
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Fox Glacier – our final activity
Phew – very lucky that the weather was ok for us to get up onto the Fox Glacier by helicopter today – apparently 1/3 of trips are cancelled due to cloud/rain/crappy forecast so we would have been gutted to come to this rather one horse town and not be able to go up (the third…
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Doubtful Sound
So this trip was recommended by James & Dominic and another good call it was too! Its a smaller sound than the better known one, Milford Sound, and is technically a fjord, but I stopped listening about that point.. Anyway – we drove…
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Queenstown – the view
Have to mention the bloody amazing view from our Queenstown rental property – it was up the most terrifying hill (I had no idea QT was a smallish town at the foot of huge bloody mountains effectively – thank god for automatic cars and being able to floor it!) Anyway – here's the view to…
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Watery Activities
Strapped and drugged up again, we managed to nail both the water activities we had booked in Queenstown. Hurrah! Firstly the Shotover Jet Ride that I'm sure everyone reading this who has been to NZ will also have done. Basically a half hour speedboat ride at a rate of knots passing terrifyingly close to huge…
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Abel Tasman – Wowzers
Decided to take a bit of a risk, wrapped myself tightly in my back support, borrowed a walking pole and guzzled several Tramadol kindly donated by our hotel owner (!) and headed off with H a few days ago now to do the Abel Tasman tour day. It was the one and only reason we…
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The Fastest Ever Three Years
Can you believe it’s 3 years today since my second stem cell transplant? Man oh man has that time just shot by. Obviously a huge amount to feel grateful for, which I do on a daily basis. Perhaps a touch ironic though that the hideous back pain here now is serving as a reminder that…
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Bay of Islands Boat Week
Well I think we can safely say that having back pain on a moving monohull is not a terribly cunning plan to start with. As even getting up and down the stairs, let alone to the loo in the night is eye poppingly sore. So it's definitely taken the edge of the pleasures of this…
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Bollocky bastarding pissflaps
So my biggest worry before leaving for New Zealand was that something would go wrong on the health front and fuck up the trip. People asked me ‘are you looking forward to the big trip?’ And I couldn’t say yes because I felt that I needed to get through it successfully, then be able to…