The JP Chronicles - the 10 year celebration

Hello everyone,

I expect you are wondering where we have been - well all I can say is that the last few days have been truly 'full on'.........and yet this is probably the part of the blog you are most interested in - the JP Chronicles - more commonly known as 'James down under'.

Well rest assured he is VERY well, he absolutely loves it over here and is really enjoying the cricket and the school....but I am jumping ahead - so much has happened that I am going to create several blogs covering our time with James to make it more readable.....

So going back to last Friday - we left Mount Cook and drove back down Lake Pukaki and made our way to Timaru.

The lake is a beautiful blue created by the 'rock flour'





We arrived at Karen and Pete Walsh's house at 16:30 - we kinda knew they had some event on as we had finally spoken to James the evening before. As we turned onto their land a huge marquee faced us - 400 people, mainly sheep station owners, were coming to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Pete's company - and the Timaru cricket team, including James, were serving drinks and nibbles to raise money. We had 30 mins to try and smarten up!






James with some of the cricket team - we were certainly not expecting our first sighting of him to be this smart!!









Arthur with some new friends






This is Pete Walsh - as you can see from the photo he is a truly fabulous, fun and very welcoming New Zealander. His company Peter Walsh Associates is a livestock broker between the farmer and the buyer - really fascinating. As the weekend progressed we realised that Pete and his wife Karen are very well known and respected across the South Island.





Here he is with his business partners cutting the celebration cake - they are wearing the black watch tartan - the trade mark of their company.





Imagine having the opportunity to meet so many locals .......and of course Karen and Peter would not hear of us staying in our van!!! so it was luxury for a few days. (Spot the van parked right by the front door!!)

















and finally speeches.....a fantastic evening.

Tomorrow - the first cricket match........