Bows and ammo and bucks and weddings and puzzles and friends and.....

I've been in beautiful Wanaka for a wedding. Seany is one my sharehouse buddies from one of the best sharehouses I have ever lived in. He has bounced around between Oz and NZ, but finished up in queenstown, hence the wedding being in o e of the worlds most beautiful landscapes, at this time of year anyway. Going from hot parched SE Qld to the lush greenery and snow capped mountains was a great little trip, not to mention one of the best wedding settings I've seen.





By the time we arrived I had just enough time to get dinner on and have a quick shower ( more on the food at Mother Foccacia later), only to find the owners had forgotten to turn the hot water on. Water from a lake fed by snow capped mountains is an effective but unpleasant way to shake off hardly any sleep from the night in Christchurch airport and the second flight and drive.

I met up with all the boys for the start of the bucks party, two days before the wedding! It started at this place where you could target shoot with bows, 22's and shotguns, plus drive golf balls to your hearts content. It was all great fun, we split into teams and cycled round the venue. Some of these boys have been shooting rabbit and fox for years, the most I've ever shot was a BB gun. I did ok with the 22, had an awesome time with the clay shoot, 8 from 15, not bad for first time and won the archery! At 15m I hit the bullseye 3 times in ten shots, five in the target overall. Not bad for first go. I reckon I might buy a bow and set up some targets here, it was great fun.

The thing is though, I've been reading Ian Stirlings great 'change' series, where it explores what happens if we had to go back to the old weapons. I know you would get better with practice, but it wasn't easy at fifteen meters. What would it be like at 100m, with a cross breeze and a deer spooked by your scent. No wonder animals were domesticated.

The rest of the bucks was the normal drunken hilarous debauchery. I have a great little video that I won't post, despite its low quality and the fact it is one of the most funny things I have witnessed, I'll obey the time honoured rules.

The next day the other flatmate from that great house arrived. Davey and his partner Marj turned up in the arvo after we had recovered a bit. It was so good to see them, we used to have a cooking club together and slipped straight back into our old chatty ways.

The day of the wedding was one of those days where I could move to NZ in the snap of my fingers. We went down and played some touch and frisbee and although all the kiwis cheated all the time, it was great fun. After we went up to puzzleworld, they had all these cool optical illusions and a maze! I was like a ten year old, in fact we all were, running through the maze trying to get to the four towers and back out. Running into each other and demanding "how many towers have you got" and "how the hell do you get to the yellow tower?". So much more fun than running 3km in a straight line.






The wedding itself was a blast. Set in this amazing landscape just lent itself to the magic of the occasion. Seany and Steph are just one of thos couples whose goals and sense of humour just mesh so well together. All the other people were lovely, even the UN diplomat on the bus back who cheerfully insulted half the bus on the fifteen minute journey.

A coffee in the morning with davey and marj and all that was left was the journey home. A car ride and two planes later and our little adventure was over. Keep an eye on MF for the food perspective of the trip.


Lantanaland from the iPhone

Postscript.
One of the hardest things I find about leaving lantanaland is that if something happens to the animals I feel guilty that I wasn't here. Not that it makes any difference, the predator doesn't respect my precence.

When we got home Maxi, my beautiful, plucky silkie, who had been with us since we lived in the city and had survived fox and snake, had been killed. She was a gift from a relative of a mate and a great mum and chook with personality. She'll be missed here on Lantanaland.