Holidays are Coming....

We have been keeping very busy the last couple weeks with work. John has been on the road a number of days to various places in New Zealand. I have also been doing some traveling for work with a new project in Hamilton. I am currently in Christchurch for a project management conference.

Holidays are coming though. This coming Monday is Labour Day here and is a public holiday. Labour Day is a good sign of summer as the ocean surf rescue patrols start this weekend.


Next Friday friends start to arrive from the US. We will be showing 9 people around the country for 2 weeks. The Auckland Marathon is Sunday Nov 1. Three friends are running the full marathon and one is doing the half. From Auckland, we will be going north to Bay of Islands, Cape Reinga, and the Kauri forest area. We will also be going to Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka and Franz Joeseph glacier on the South Island.

For fun the other night we attended a wine club night. A representative from Duval-Leroy Champagne house was presenting. Four bottles of high end champagne were included in the show, whith one bottle being NZ $214 a bottle! All to pricey for our budget.....

Other big news in NZ is the exchange rate. The NZ dollar is becoming very strong and is up to US $1 = NZ $.76. The exporters are becoming concerned about the rate but the importers are loving it.