Oh brother!

I've just been on holiday with my big, wee brother Gregor and his girlfriend Nicki. I drove down to Dunedin from Christchurch in Ruby Tuesday, which took me about 6 hours. Dunedin is quite like Edinburgh in some ways since a lot of the street names and statues have been replicated; in fact it's quite uncanny! I met Nicki's parents two weeks ago on Tuesday night and they treated me to a lovely roast chicken meal and a couple of glasses of vino, which were well received!

The following day I spent the day with Nicki's mum seeing Mosqueil and Dunedin, we went to the Botanic gardens, which are really well designed and give you a great view of the city. Gregor arrived that evening and I went with Nicki's dad, Bill, to pick him up at the airport. He flew right over with no stops so as you can imagine he was pretty exhausted when he arrived, it was great to see him though and he was in surprisingly good form considering he hadn't been to bed for 2 days!

The four of us, Gregor, myself, Bill and Ruth (Nicki's parents) travelled further South to Wanaka, which is probably one of the most attractive lakeside townships I've ever seen! Nicki arrived the following day, she flew to Queenstown from Auckland and so Gregor and her dad went to pick her up. It has been a real good opportunity for me to spend some quality time with Gregor and get to know his girlfriend Nicki and her family.

I don't know if I mentioned that I had been invited to a wedding by a kiwi couple that knew Gregor and Nicki well and I had met once in Edinburgh for dinner at Gregor's flat. The wedding was our focus for the first part of the trip and I went with Nicki and her mum to the hen party, which was for all the woman, young and old. It was all very civilized and I got to meet loads of people who were going to be at the wedding.

Later on I went out for a drink with some of Nicki's friends to a very swanky little pub called apartment 1; it reminded me of one of the new town bars in Edinburgh, it had a small exclusive feel to it and there was a big open fire that everyone sat around. I really enjoyed being with people my own age and just relaxing and chatting. One of the guys out with us used to work in Iguana in Edinburgh!

You would have been proud of me, on the day of the wedding I went for a 3km run, it was great! The wedding itself was in a fantastic setting beside a lake in a place called Hawea. The service was very personalised and beautifully done.

After the wedding I met up with Steve and Reg (a couple of guys I know from Christchurch who happened to be holidaying there at the same time) they were in good form.

Central Otago.