Boulder-dash!

Sorry it's been a wee while since we blogged. You all know what the lead up to Christmas is like for everyone!

In the past few weeks we've been up to a lot:

2 weeks ago Andrea went up to Auckland for the weekend whilst Dave (her brother in law) came down here to go hunting with Greg. Andrea had a great weekend with her family, including taking 2 year old Jeremy to the zoo and a family dinner, and Greg and Dave had a great weekend too. They went down to Haast for a couple of days and although they got close to deer, didn't manage to shoot any. However they spent a day culling goats a bit closer to home and had a ball.

We've also had the most recent street "do" here and had a fantastic evening with the neighbours - we had a cocktail night with fancy canapes and everyone is still talking about it... and when we'll do it again. We had a good turn out with about 30 guests - not bad for a street with only 12 houses in it!

Greg and Chris in the kitchen preparing Martinis (Shaken, not stirred):

Andrea and some of the other "girls" (enjoying our night out of the kitchen!):

This weekend we went away for a bit of a hunt/tramp between Makarora and Haast. The idea was to follow a stream up a bit, but it turned out to be a bit more challenging than we'd thought with some of the boulders the size of trucks. In fact it was often easier to bush bash than walk up the stream, and although it was hard work, we had a lot of fun. Reminding ourselves regularly as we hauled ourselves over yet another large boulder that there are tourists in Queenstown paying good money to go "bouldering" (the sport of climbing large boulders without harnesses - although they are surrounded by mattresses... we were surrounded by... large boulders). Although we didn't shoot anything, we had a deer run across about 10 feet in front of us, far too quickly for us to even think about taking a safe shot. Very frustrating! Especially after a 4 hour climb.

We took a few photos so that you could all appreciate the beauty without the hard work.

Some of the lower part of the stream:

Also the lower stream:

Once we got up a bit higher the stream got decidedly calmer (and clearer):

Although this only looks like a stream, you had to be careful as the water was so exceptionally clear, it only looked knee deep but some parts were over your head.

We got back out relatively unscathed, with the exception of a few decent bruises and a mildly scratched cornea on Andrea's eye, which ended up with a trip to A&E this morning (don't worry, she's fine).

In other news, Andrea has a new job which she'll be starting in early December. Greg's work is still going well, but he's very busy and looking forward to Christmas when he'll get a long break and a chance to catch up with his family who are all coming to stay with us.

Roll on Christmas!