Dear Diary — May — Freaken Sweet

31/05/07

When I was in New Zealand last week I went (with Craig) to see my Auntie Fay and Uncle Garry's horse (well, they own half of it), Barefoot Zola race:

Watching Barefoot Zola win (2) [800x600].JPG

Not only did we have all the excitement of betting on the gee-gees but Barefoot Zola came in first! I made 14 big ones, easy money.

Of course, I raced up with my cuzzy's (Tania, Brenda and Karl) to get my photo taken:

Watching Barefoot Zola win [800x600].JPG

29/05/07

OK, just TWO more pics of my Niece for now... We went tramping in the bush and came across a Moa! Tyla was naturally freaked out (luckily I held it together, being cool, calm and collected):

Fortunately it was friendly, which prompted a big cheeky grin:

23/05/07

I flew down to Wanganui today for a meeting in Air New Zealand's smallest craft, a Beechcraft 1900D. Check out just how freaken small this puppy is!

I took that pic from the back of the plane. If you look closely at the floor you'll notice a hump, I think there's a rod or something under it connecting the wings together to stop the plane flying apart... which I'm glad was strong as our flight back to Auckland was a bit of a roller coaster in the bad weather, causing someone a few seats in front of me to revisit their breakfast. Yum.

Mind you, it would barely take a fart from a worm to knock this plane around in the air and it was pretty gnarly being able to look out the cockpit window and see the landing strip go up, down, hard left, bottom right and at the last minute appear front and centre.

I guess paying extra for business class would've been a bit extravagant...

15/05/07

I flew into Wellington yesterday for work and took these snaps out of the window of the top of the South Island (Marlborough Sounds) when turning in Cook Straight, lining up for Wellington Airport (with a nice Northerly blowing, just to make the flight extra smooth, not)...

If you look hard at this pic, you can make out what I think is the Interislander Ferry, heading into the Marlborough sounds towards Picton: