What has Andy gone and done now…?

So after saying farewell to Australia in the best way possible with a dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef (did I mention I was diving on the Great Barrier Reef? I’m sure I must have…oh yes – see my last post!) I had one last night in Brisbane before sadly having to say goodbye to Sal at the ridiculously early time of 4.45am (yes -  ‘am’ in the morning!) to get a flight to Auckland, via Melbourne. Sal also flew to New Zealand on the same day but she flew to Christchurch to meet her dad and travel with him for a few weeks before going back to England ( Ah well, sure I’ll be home soon enough – only 4 months now (can you believe 2 months have gone already!? Time flies when you’re not freezing your balls off in Ireland all winter..!?).

Ok, back to New Zealand.  I arrived into Auckland on Monday night after a delay of three hours at Melbourne and Marty, Sheree and Sean were waiting for me at the airport.  Really great to see them again, and in Sean’s case – he was automatically promoted to legend status on first sight as he was waiting in his Liverpool top!  Marty and Sheree are house sitting for someone out in the country (yet again I have no phone reception!? If you come to Australia/New Zealand avoid vodafone!!) but we went straight to Sean’s house for a bit of a ‘party’…now bear in mind that I had been up since 4.30am and had been travelling all day…we had a few beers and were getting very excited about the Liverpool vs Everton match which kicked off at 9am.  Marty and Sean are good friends with the landlord of the local pub so we went there to watch it…after staying up all night (well when it gets to 4am and the match kicks off at 9 what are you to do..!?).  So we went to the pub at 8.30 and what better way to ’start’ the day with a cooked breakfast and a beer, eh..!?…

Me, Sean and Marty getting in the pre-match spirit!

9.00am, a fry and a pint…

Well…I’m sure we all know how the result went so lets leave the football there shall we…Tuesday, needless to say was a bit of a writeoff what with no sleep in 48 hours and such, but by Wednesday we were all right as rain (which incidently it hasn’t – 25 degrees and sunshine thanks).

I like the New Zealand lifestyle…Wednesday after the guys had finished working I met them on the shores of the Waikato River (the biggest river in New Zealand I believe…could be wrong but I think I remember reading it in the Lonely Planet…) with a few of their mates who had some ski boats (including Chris – the landlord of the pub).  We had a cracking evening wakeboarding (which incidently I had never done before) and I have now got up on Thursday with very sore arms…anyway, here are a few photos…

Cool wee ‘beach’ on the Waikato River…

Seany gets underway on the kneeboard

Me shredding it up big time…ahem…

Sean and me watch on as Marty does his stuff…

Marty looking cool…

Me giving it stacks…just look at the focus on that face..!!

Not a bad backdrop either, eh..?..

Of course, I’ve put a few ‘choice’ photos up to try and make us look good…but generally it ended up like this..!!..