Since arriving in New Zealand on Tuesday I have begun to see how beautiful this country is. We started off with a couple of nights in Christchurch which, as reported in the guidebooks, has a very British feel. The botanical gardens are full of huge old trees and looked absolutely gorgeous dressed in their autumn leaves. Next stop was Aoraki/Mount Cook village which basically consists of a youth hostel, a few hotels and about ten houses. The setting is absolutely spectacular and, being very lucky with the weather, we had amazing views of the surrounding mountains. Despite low lying cloud in the valley we decided to follow a track which took us right up to a ridge. We were rewarded with sunshine, blue sky and a picture perfect view of Mount Cook. It was proper Lord of the Rings country. We have now arrived in Queenstown where we are looking forward to enjoying some of the many outdoor activities on offer. In about an hour from now Matt and I will be hurling ourselves from an aeroplane! I'm so excited! It is a lovely day so we should get pretty fantastic views on our way down. Bring it on!

Fiji to New Zealand

After a bit of pestering, we arranged for our bags to arrive from LA on Saturday. We discovered that the capital Suva, which is over on the East coast, receives a whole lot more rain than the West. The city was steamy and surrounded by rainforest. After checking out the museum and botanical gardens we were happy to escape from the crazily heavy rain and bus back to Nadi. Once there, we checked into a hostel near the beach and discovered where all the other tourists had gone. It seems to me, from the small time that we were there, that the tourist resorts are very separate from the local people. Perhaps that is less true of the smaller islands. The last few days have been sunny and hot so we have mostly just relaxed.

We have now just arrived in Auckland and are taking full advantage of the free internet. At the airport biodiversity customs, the woman informed Matt that he needed to get his walking boots and his sausage inspected. How rude! They confiscated it, poor boy. Matt and I are both very excited to be in New Zealand and I am even more excited about seeing my boy!

Bula from Fiji!

After a wonderful weekend catching up with friends and a 747-style film fest, Matt and I have arrived in Fiji. Mind you, we had a bit of a shocker in LA where a special announcement told us to hurry the hell up to our plane as it was about to leave. We had both fallen asleep on the floor. Oops. Pretty funny really. Not so funny is the fact that our bags did not accompany us to Fiji. Bummer. We are hoping that this is due to some loser called Larry at LA who put them in a corner where they are sitting, cold and lonely. The alternative is that Larry, the twit, has sent them to Mexico where some big guy called Frank has yoinked them off the luggage belt. We shall see. The next plane arrives from LA on Saturday so we shall continue to sweat in our jeans until then. Nice.

Fiji is so green! Like seriously GREEN. It seems we have come towards the end of the rainy season and the heavens have been depositing wet stuff most of the time for five months or something. We jumped on a bus to the capital, Suva, which is much more lively than Nadi. The road took us all the way round the western and southern coastlines which were stunning. We haven't completely given up hope of some sunshine but it's not looking likely. Ah well, perhaps we should have done our homework. We shall have to opt for some rain dancing instead.

I have joined the club of bloggers

I have set up a blog- well at least think I have. Computers are not generally in my circle of friends and I do not doubt that they laugh at me behind my back. In a way I would love to escape computers for 8 months as well as reality. That, however, would leave this blog in some lonely corner of cyber space. Instead, I shall fill it with Emma-drivel for you to read/ignore as you feel appropriate-looks like I've started already. This is only really a test.