Ok, so the elusive Natti posts again! No surprizes, but I have been adventuring my fool head off. The most recent items of note were another weekend up at Whanganui Bay (where my mates and I cleaned off another 7 routes or so, 3 of which I did traditional 1st ascents on), 4 days worth (on and off) of cleaning and scrubbing some local limestone cliffs in the Manawatu Gorge resulting in (so far) 3 new bolted routes all of which I lead first, heaps of good bouldering missions to and fro, and well.... the ongoing adventures of work!
On the work note..... I'm finally legal! I can now get a paycheck every week and stay in the country for another 2 years with out any issues from the law!!!!! Life is bloody good. I am still working on breaking in the crew and teaching them all of the cool tricks I know, but at least they are willing to try new stuff. In fact, all of them were present for my first ascents in the gorge and the had a bit of a play on the rock as well! It was funny as watching 3 tree guys bumble around a rock with tree harnesses, hi-vis. orange helmets (complete with ear muffs) and work boots on. It seems like they all really enjoyed themselves though, in fact 2 of them have already gone out and bought there own rock gear already!
So on a different note.... I finally moved out of the hostel I was living at! I just moved into a sweet little 1 bedroom flat right across the street from Cristin's place. As far as I can tell, this is a win win situation. I now have my own kitchen, my own livingroom to lounge in, a king size bed to sprall in, and I am close enough to Cris that she can escape her flat when she needs a break from studying (or partying flatmates as the case may be). The "us thing" is still being sorted out due to our conflicting schedules... but with the new living set up we can both "drop by" much easier now, when time permits.
So I guess that's news. I should have internet hooked up buy next week, so I should be much more active with blogs and emails again once that happens. Again, I apologise for being so negligent in my contact with the Northern Hemisphere.
Oh... one more thing, for those who don't know yet, I'm an uncle again. My sister Diana and her husband Greg are the proud new parents of Mason Erik Theriault! I can't wait to get home to see him in person!