Rest Day

We were booked in to do a skydive today with Wanaka Skydive. On looking out the window of Famous Room 16 the sky looked predominantly blue, with a few clouds and not a breath of wind. We were both sure we'd get to fly today. At 10:30 Scott called to check it was all systems go but we were told that there was too much low level cloud. Boo. So we sat tight in the nice lounge at Wanaka Bakpaka (terrible name, it doesn't do such a brilliant hostel justice!) and ate lots of fruit. At 11:30 it was still no-go so we ate more fruit, planned the next 10 days or so, including booking our accomodation (can't risk being stuck now we are tentless!) and called again at 1:30 when we were told a final no for the day. Boo. Instead the only treat for us was to clean the bikes - not quite the adrenalin rush promised by falling from a plane!

We gave the bikes a very thorough going over (they were covered in sand from the unsealed roads of the Catlins) and Scott pulled his frayed gear cable out. Ah, that was why he was having trouble with his gears! We dashed into town and found a great bike shop to buy a new gear cable, spare chain links, inner tubes and lubricant (exciting stuff, who needs skydiving) before going to Wanaka's famous (in New Zealand?) Cinema Paradiso to watch Into The Wild. It was an amazing film (based on a true story and based on a book by Jon Krakauer) about a guy who has enough of his family and materialism and goes off to be alone, travelling through the US up to Alaska. It was very good and very thought provoking but left us both in the mood for a bit of Pixar animation next time! Cinema Paradiso itself was wicked - the seating is a selection of old couches and a Morris Minor and they bake fresh cookies for the intermission!

We had some great news via text when we got back to our room - Sarah and Dan Newman had a baby girl called Emily, weighing 8 pounds on Saturday evening! Yay!!! Congratulations Sarah and Dan :0)