New Zealand hates me. Not content in taking $200 from me at customs, it nows sees me cast into a seemingly gorgeous hostel where i get my most expensive trek gear stolen and hae to put up with rude and obnoxious staff who treat you like second class citizens. New Zealand adds more to the mix by throwing crap weather at me to thwart all my plans. Christchurch is a little boring - i did it all in less than day but will have spent a total of 3 here when i am through. What it does have is seriously cheap activities, hence i'm staying here so long. So far i have booked a sunrise hot air balloon trip twice (and got up at 5am twice) only for them to be cancelled coz of bad weather. I had my paragliding cancelled yesterday but today i was very surprised to hear that they were coming to pick me up. We got to the launch site and i saw the first lady go and was excited at how gentle and graceful it looked, so nerves went out the window and i really looked forward to my turn. The next guy nearly plummeted down the hill as the wind picked up so they called it all off - i was so tantalisingly close! I was even more disappointed when i learned that the couple who got to go first (coz they had to catch a flight soon after) had already been paragliding in Queenstown and Nelson. So very unjust. So, i nearly experienced paragliding but it is not to be in Christchurch. I'm changing my itinerary to go to more activity-based towns in the hope that the weather will give me a break once in a while. I had hoped to build up my courage on less-scary sports before i headed for a skydive, but i have one approaching in just a couple of days so it looks like i'm stuck going for the big drop before getting my nerves trained on anything else. Very scary.

As for now, I am pottering around the tiniest city on earth looking for cafes. I fill my days with drinking tea, shivering, cursing the weather, avoiding the temptations of KFC, and reading my books. The one activity i have left to look forward to today is pizza with the girls in my dorm. It would have to be the mother of all winds to cause that to be cancelled. Cue a hurricane.....