2011 News.

Christchurch has been an exciting(sometimes too much so), place to live this year. Our year got off to a relaxing start with our camping holiday which was spread between Lake Wanaka in the south and Mapua up north of Nelson. We caught heaps of fish in Wanaka with Chris' four pound trout taking the family record.

Wanaka is also becoming a real hotspot for mountain biking, the Minaret Burn track is a good half day trip and the new Dean's Bank circuit is great for a fun hour.

February was literally a shaky month with the devasting magnitude 6.3 earthquake that ocurred in Christchurch. The number of deaths, injuries and the amount of damage were due to the proximity and shallowness of the quake. The city is currently a bit empty as many buildings have been demolished. Hopefully the opportunity will be taken to build something nice in their place.

After the earthquake and the ensuing aftershocks there was a good incentive to escape Christchurch at weekends and we had a cool trip down to Purukanui near Dunedin. We stayed in a lovely cottage on a tidal inlet. It was very "Famous Five", a bit of a smuggler's cove with 'lashings of ginger beer'.

We had to stop on the way back for a photo at the famous Moeraki Boulders. There is a whole visitor centre for some spherical boulders on the beach. Very NZ!!

We spent Easter in Wanaka where the autumn colours are always good.

With the obligatory visit to the Puzzle Centre.

Lucy was ten in May and had her party at Adrenaline Forest just outside of town.

                        
I had to make a couple of trips this year to Germany for work, the first one was just for ten days but the second was for virtually all of July and August. Germany was interesting as I've never spent much time there. Luckily I was on the edge of the Black Forest so it was good for getting out in the country.


While I was away the family had some record snowfalls in Christchurch. The trip went quite quickly and with Skype it seemed a lot easier to stay in touch than when I did a similar trip in 2002.

Chris has just finished his first year at high school and Lucy has finished Year 5 and has one more year before Intermediate school. Chris is into his mountain biking and longboarding with football being his main team sport.

Dee is still working at Cherry's pre school which she really enjoys.

I'm still managing the odd bike event and manage to get the odd medal in the old farts categories :-)

We manged to fit in an overnight trip up to Lake Daniels just this week. Lots of fishing but not many fish. Beautiful place to hang out though.

Happy New Year to everyone....

Pete, Dee, Chris and Lucy xxx