Introducing ... Big Al!

Well as promised, here's a bit of info about our new (hopefully trusty) steed, 'Big Al'. Despite his mild mannered appearance he is a fully equiped Mitsubishi Delica Exceed 2.5l diesel 4wd monster with 7 seats. These can be folded flat and have a mattress chucked on top for weekend outings. We bought him off an English backpacker who had his surfboard strapped inside on the ceiling and said he just drove right up to the surf across the beach without any problems.

We went up to Porter Heights ski field on Sunday and blasted past all the 2wd's fitting snow chains at the bottom of the hill. Stuck him in '4L' and didn't have a slip the whole way. Hopefully there'll be more big of Big Al's adventures soon.

Now the dust has settled a little, its time for a little info on how we're getting on.

The 36 hour journey now seems like a distant (repressed) memory, I recommend checking flight schedules thouroughly and ensuring there no potential hiccups, like 14 hour stopovers in Singapore for example.

We arrived to an unusually cold snap in Christchurch. I feel at this point I should comment on the kiwi notion of heating. They seem to be under the impression that heating is an optional extra in a house. They are wrong. On a morning in Chez Darren, you can barely see through your own breath-mist to chip the frostbite off your toes. What all this cold weather does mean is that there is loads of snow. We have already visited Porter Heights and the man eating T-bar lifts of Mt Cheeseman (pronounced 'Mt Cheese, man').

We started house hunting pretty much on arrival, and have put an offer in on a place. You can get a sneaky-peeky at http://www.homesell.co.nz/new_zealand_real_estate/5299.phpKeep watching this space for more updates on how that goes.

After being confined to the house and bus routes for a while, we have also finally bought our own monster truck, nicknamed 'Al'. Pictures will follow after our first weekend excursion.

There are a few photos from around New Brighton and the ski-fields at http://bollo.hoodee.co.uk/~malc/gallery/nz/ , more to follow soon.

Thanks for reading,

Malc