Suzi's Travels

Just a quickie to say I've booked my flights and I'm off to Asia on New Year's Eve! I'm flying in to Singapore for a few days and returning in April. Not sure of the itinerary yet but will post more when I know more. I'm so excited!

Sue x

It dawned on us that we only had a short space of time while all three of us were still here in Queenstown so I took last Friday (20 October) off work to spend the day with Kat and Sam. After umming and aahing for a while we decided on Wanaka as our destination.

We left home at about 9 in the morning, heading out through the Crown Range and over to Wanaka. (Trivia: the Crown Range Road is the highest sealed road in Australasia.) The first thing we did when we got there was to get breakfast - there's a really nice bakery called the Doughbin on the lakefront. Kat and I had pies and pastries (yum - chicken satay) and Sam just had a pastry - claiming it was too early for pie. It's never too early for pie!









After pigging out on pies and pastries we took a few photos (Sam - the man who couldn't run fast enough after setting the timer!) and headed on to our first destination - Puzzling World. I'd been there before with Maggie back at Easter but we'd only done one section of it as we had to make our bus connection to Queenstown.


Sam holding up the Puzzling World sign.





Me and Sam taking a well-earned break after completing the challenging route through the maze. We found all four corners in a set order and then found our way out into the courtyard in the centre. Well almost, we were really tired and needed the loo so headed for the nearest emergency exit sign... I swear it was taking us longer to find the exit than it had to find the first corner!

Kat trying to stand up straight. This is in the wierd room that I couldn't go in last time. The wall that Kat is facing has one of those wierd geometric line thingys on it which made me feel sick. You can see the angle that the floor is on from the way Kat is standing... I made it through this time though, it's really cool!

Kat and Sam in the Lord of the Rings room. See, men are such short arses.





Trying to hold up the Leaning Tower of Wanaka...





Windy woo...






A nice group photo...




For lunch we went back into Wanaka and ate at a cafe along the lakefront.

Then in the afternoon we went to "Have A Shot" - a local shooting range-type place. We each paid $12 for 30 rounds in the air rifle target area. This is where me and dad shooting the rifle at the garage back home paid off. I scored 345, 350 and 400 - beating Kat and Sam who couldn't get above 300! Aftger that we had a round of mini-golf. After a pretty disastrous start we got into the swing of things and I managed to win the game. Sam was not too impressed! Mind you, he had been feeling ill for the last couple days - that's his excuse!

On the way home we stopped at the Cardrona Hotel for some light refreshment...

We did have plans to have a barbecue on the lakefront when we got back to Queenstown but it was after 6 and we figured we wouldn't get the thing going in time as we had plans to go to the Q-Lounge at 8 to meet some people we met while doing Rent a few weeks ago. So we by-passed the barbecue and went home and cooked.

A quick change later and we were in the Q-Lounge. This is a pool hall that we all like going to. Sam made up for his previous losses of the day by consistently winning here. Pete and Jane (from Rent) plus Jane's friend Alanna joined us and we all had a few games and drinks.








At about 11 we decided to move on and Kat and I decided that as we'd never been to the World Bar and had teapots of cocktails we shouldn't miss out and so headed in. Between Kat, Jane, Pete and myself we had 5 teapots.

Well, Kat, Jane and I drank 5 teapots, Pete slurped most of his up from the table - Jane had managed to spill a lot while pouring the drinks and, well, waste not want not, right Pete???



... Is there something Sam and Pete would like to tell us...?






And another nice group photo...







Well, that's it for that day I think... we had an absolute blast... more soon, promise.

Sue xx

Hmmm it appears it’s been two months since I updated this blog so I better get going huh?

Back in August one of the local theatre production companies was putting Cabaret on at the Memorial Hall and one of the people I work with was in charge of the front of house crew. I said to Kat and Sam “so, do you fancy helping out with front of house work for Cabaret?”. Sam and Kat said yes. I said “what days can you do?”. Sam said any nights and Kat said the second week – her family was coming down for the first week. Boy did Sam regret it cos I took him at his word. We ended up getting dressed up in 1930s gear for a week and a half, putting on quasi-german accents to show people to their seats and sell programmes and other stuff. And it was great fun! They converted the Memorial Hall into the Kit Kat Club complete with tables instead of rows of seats and they put on a hell of a show. And we had a blast.

Here’s Kat, Sam and me all dressed up– and that's Nikki between his legs – and then Kat, me and Kat (and Nikki's hands) with Alex (another guy I work with!) - we were trying to recreate one of the pieces from the show. The last pic is Phena (the head of the front of house crew, aka Fraulein Schist) and her fiancé Photographer Dan. Phena was very scary.

On the middle Sunday, Kat’s family came into town and we went bowling – and almost got thrashed by Kat’s 9 and 11 year old little brothers!

I was there for each night, apart from one when Sam’s brother David arrived in town. We took the night off – primarily so we could go night skiing, but the weather turned crappy so we went out for dinner instead. We went to Surreal which does a mean steak for just $15 – a bargain in Queenstown! We then headed on to Brazz for drinks and shots. Suffice to say a good night was had!

The next day, Saturday 19 August, was the final night of Cabaret (when the above photos were taken). Afterwards everyone headed to Sky City to celebrate (and lose money at the blackjack tables if your name is Sue)…

The next weekend (26 August), I took advantage of the great snow conditions up the Remarkables and headed up for a ski lesson. I had a one-on-one lesson with an instructor whose name I forget now but got me to try a few new things and gain some confidence. It was a really good day but pretty exhausting.

In the evening it was my firm’s mid-winter Christmas party. Yes, Christmas is technically in summer over here but I for one appreciated the sentiment. It actually felt quite Christmassy over the winter – they decorated the shopping centre with snow and pine trees – which I tend to associate with Christmas anyway to that was good.

My firm hired a small restaurant/bar for the night and plied us all with free alcohol and food… what a fantastic combination. They also themed it as Cowboys and Indians. The Thursday before, I headed out to Arrowtown with Ros and Clark from the office to the fancy dress shop to hire something awesome. I ended up as a saloon girl. I took Kat with me as my date (thank god) and we partied the night away in 19^th Restaurant on Steamer Wharf. We had a great night, I managed to dance the night away and generally had a fab time. Here’s a few pics… and yes, there’s that Alex again, partying away…

On Thursday 31 August I once again took the day off work and Kat, Sam and I headed up Cardrona once again. It was a little more difficult this time – the conditions were rather icy and windy on the Sue-friendly side of the mountain (on the left on the map below) so we took the plunge and headed over to the other side which was more sheltered. To get there, we had to ski along cat tracks which, given the strength of the wind, was slightly scary – I was paranoid I was going to get blown over the side – Kat almost did on her board. Sam had sold me on the other side saying “well, it’s a little bit steep here but then it opens up into a bowl and will be ok”. I guess I need to reconcile my definition of “steep” with Sam’s… OMG. I had to stop practically every other turn to check my way down. How I got down I have no idea but it scared the hell out of me! I did feel quite chuffed that I had managed it though. We all headed up the lift back to the top and I headed back to the other side of the mountain for a few runs – again along cat tracks! The only way back to the “nicer” bits was by going down blue or black runs (not gonna happen!) or by using the cat tracks. Anyways, I got my confidence back up and went back to join Kat and Sam for lunch on the steeper side. All the way down I had to keep telling myself “you’ve done this before, Sue, you can do it again…” and I got down in one piece. After lunch I headed back to the other side for a couple more runs before heading to the bar for a diet coke and a wild berry crumble which was yummy.

Unfortunately that was the last skiing I’ve done for this season. There just hasn’t been enough snow at weekends to make it worthwhile going up. Concrete Peak closed last weekend and the Remarks closes this weekend. Not fair!

Heading into September, we obviously hadn’t learned our lessons from Cabaret, and had put our names down to get involved with the local production of Rent. Sam got a sweet gig doing the sound for the production (he also turned out to be the sound man for Kat’s mate Simon’s band when they did gigs in town…) while Kat and I got involved in front of house work again. In the week beginning Monday 4^th September we all found ourselves in our worst clothes painting the interior of the Memorial Hall to look like a New York warehouse. Two weeks later we found ourselves ready to go on opening night, Kat dressed up like a hooker to sell programmes and me all in black to show people to their seats. The upside is that we once again got to see the show for free each night, the downside sometimes was that we got to see the show… This was truly an amateur production which didn’t really seem to hit it’s stride until the final night when we had a really great energetic audience which the cast seemed to play off of. After the show, they had an award ceremony followed by a skit put on by the crew. I haven’t laughed that hard in ages – I was in tears.

Here’s Kat and Sanna dressed as hookers selling programmes…

Rent ended on Sunday – and we’ve all been pretty exhausted since then. Although I did get up the energy to go to the White Tiger on Monday. I’ve wanted a tattoo for absolutely ages and I figured now was as good a time as any so I booked myself an appointment for a consultation to pick a design and colours. When I got there a dude was getting a tattoo of a spiders web on his elbow – which must’ve been bl**dy painful… I picked a butterfly shape and colours and handed over half the dosh - $50. I then went back yesterday and got it done. OMG it was painful. When he started doing the outline, it felt like I was being cut with a scalpel without anaesthetic… and well you know what I’m like with needles… after about 5 mins I felt really faint, and had to lie down. Another guy came into the shop with a question so that was good timing! Once I felt better, we started again but after about another 5 mins I felt faint again. This time the recovery was better though as he had finished doing the outline so we finished it off – this time he was filling in the colour which just felt like a momentary stab which was much better. I was only in there for about 50 minutes and now I have a beautiful butterfly on the back of my right shoulder!

I’ve just got to get used to it now. It’s freaking me out a little bit, especially now I can see the places where the needle went in! But I really love it. My original plan was to get a little tiger cub alongside it, batting his claws at it… I’m still considering it but need to get up the guts for it… the butterfly is about twice the size I originally thought it was gonna be, which means the tiger would have to be bigger too… we’ll see!

And here’s a few other random pics from the last couple months…

Well, that's about all for now, gotta go and have more adventures...

Love and hugs to everyone
Sue xxxxxxxx
Sweet as