Greetings from Middle Earth

I have been in New Zealand for 12 days now, and still haven't spotted any Hobbits, Giant Gorillas or talking Lions, which is disappointing.

The flight over was fairly painless, aside from the ridiculous "transit" at LAX. We were made to line up, fill in a green form, get photographed and fingerprinted, walk 50 metres and hand half of the green form back, then get back on the plane again. Massive threat to US Homeland Security averted there. Oh well, at least they didn't make me pick up my bike and lug it the 50 metres, and it gave us something to do for an hour while the plane refueled.

Having a great time in Wellington, getting out on the bike and visiting friends and relatives. As Winton (my second Dad I guess you would call him) had to work on Christmas day at the Dominion Post we had a Christmas Eve dinner up at the beach house at Te Horo, with my sister Fiona and her bloke Andre and my nephew Alexandre, and Winton's daughter Rosie her husband Matt and their daughter Charlotte. Had a brilliant time, cooking the food on the bbq and sitting on the deck in the sun overlooking Kapiti Island.

Mother and I had a pretty quiet Christmas day, visited my cousin Amanda in Upper Hutt to see her new house, and was pleased to also catch up with auntie Linda and uncle Graham and my cousin Andrew.

Attempted a long hard technical route on the bike a few days ago, the Kennett brothers (famous kiwi trail builders) have put together a trail along the ridge from Mt KauKau to Makara Peak. You can see the ridge from my mothers house in Wadestown, and I have often looked out the window and wondered if I could ride my bike along it. Sadly not, was 6k into the 36k route and was getting blown off the bike in the howling northerly. Its very exposed up there, and after coming off backwards and just missing a rock with my head decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and cowardice was the better part of discretion. Will either find a friend to go with or wait for a less blustery day.

Went out on tuesday with Adrienne and Stephanie (oldest friends from school) and a few girls in town. Few drinks and nice malaysian meal. Small education on acceptable taxis at the end of the night, things have got so bad with complaints about assaults from drivers that I was made to wait for a cab from a particular company to arrive at the stand. Pretty worrying, used to be that you could trust a taxi to get you home.

Winton owns a 1956 Wolseley that used to belong to his dad that he has restored. We had a great day out in it yesterday over in the Wairarapa visting some of the vineyards. Very stylish for travelling in. Will post some pictures when I figure out why my mothers PC won't accept the USB connection from my camera. Have eliminated the possibility that it just needed a good kick. Bizarrely I ran into an old friend Caroline Atkins who I used to work with at Vic Uni Library and more recently lived in London. She was back seeing family and is living in Auckland now, and pregnant (of course, everybody I know in NZ either has babies or is pregnant - am surprised people don't utilise me as an aid to conception) anyways that was a pleasant surprise to run into her and catch up.

Busy next few days coming up, off to see Jo and Daniel and baby Lucien today, going to Narnia with mother tonight and visiting the wildlife sanctuary in Karori to see the Tuataras (big native lizards) with Ady and the twins tomorrow.

Heading down to Christchurch for New Year weekend, my friend Alistair is there staying with his bro for 6 months and will catch up with some of my aunties, uncles and cousins. Hoping to get a days mountainbiking around the Port Hills, but have just had alarming email from Alistair that he is a pure roadie these days so might have to do something about that.

Petra - have some pictures of Alexandre will send them when I sort the technical issues at this end !