Anyone seen Tom and Dad!?!?

Paparazzi
Originally uploaded by ange.j.

Hi!

This is all that we have seen of the boys for the past 2 days! Their cameras appear to have become surgically attached to them!

No dodgy comments about lens size please!

As you can see the weather has taken a bit of a turn today and we have even had some rain - but then again it wouldn't be the Gibbos at an airshow without rain, snow or fog!! At least I have been able to wear my Red Arrows Fleece - I didn't bring it 12000 miles to leave it in my suitcase!

Might let the boys put another plane pic on tomorrow. ;-)

bye for now

A, T, S & A

Welcome to Wanaka

f111,
originally uploaded by thomas.g.

Hi folks,

arrived at Wanaka last night (Thursday) and met Dad's cousin Mary. She showed us to the extremely nice holiday home she'd booked for us, and we all went straight to bed! (ish)

Today we were at the first day of "Warbirds Over Wanaka". No official displays, but lots of practising (where they apparently show off more). ;-) They certainly didn't seem so worried about flying straight at the crowd!

The pic is of an F111 doing it's trademark "dump & burn". No curry jokes please Rob. That's what happens when you dump fuel and turn on re-heat (after-burners for those whose aircraft knowledge comes from Top-Gun!).


;-)

Probably many more plane pics in the next few days! Thats all for now...

Tom & the Gibbos

p.s. Dad's phone is now fully operational - hurrah (at last!)

And That Forms A Glacier

snowfun,
originally uploaded by thomas.g.

As promised, here we are on top of the Franz Josef glacier. Not the best pic to appreciate the scenery, but you can look at that on Wikipedia! ;-) Mum was taking the photos (hence me being in one for a change!), and the only other person up there was Dave the helicopter pilot. The flight was fantastic, lots of swooping around mountain tops and ridges!

More soon,

the Gibbos

Franz Josef

Dad Franz Josef
Originally uploaded by ange.j.

Well we've arrived in Franz Josef..

We were going to put something nice about Westport, where we stayed last night, but well ummm at least it's got a better name than Cape Foulwind which is just around the corner!!!

Another day's travelling in the tour bus has brought us to Franz Josef which is beautiful - a big improvement on the last stop...

This is Dad in the main (only) street but you can't see the Glacier on this pic, we should have some great pictures tomorrow as we are booked on a helicopter flight to see both the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers!!!!!!! We will have about a half an hour trip and get to land on a glacier, unless it's raining.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed for good weather!!!

Tara Bay

Me again...

After a very windy/winedy drive we found this little piece of paradise,where Cecilia, Alastair and Charlie live.

We spent an idyllic day out on Ceewitch traversing the Marlborough Sound - even Tom had a go at being Captain! I don't know, we've got Dad flying planes and Tom sailing boats! I might be allowed a go at something soon!!

It was a very relaxing 2 days and went too quickly. We left on Tuesday lunchtime to continue our journey south and stopped off at Havelock - the Mussel capital of the world apparently - guess what we had for lunch...

Planning on stopping at Westport Tuesday night and off to Franz Josef on Weds...

I will be your Captain for today's flight....

Hi!

This is us flying over to South Island with an extremely dodgy co-pilot!!!! Guess who was running when the Pilot said 'someone can go up front...'!!!

Anyway flight was ok but a little bumpy! We had to divert to Woodburne at Blenheim as the grass runway at Picton was too wet! We landed on the grass anyway at Woodburne which was quite disconcerting when you could see the tarmac and that we weren't heading for it!!!!

Anyway after a bit of confusion in Picton finally got the hire car and set off for Tara Bay....

Dinner in Wellington

Shed5
Originally uploaded by spgibson.

Here we are after 2 bottles of "Boyszone" wine. Guess who chose that one! Wellington is a fabulous city but somewhat windy. We visited the Botanical Gardens, via cable car, and while the girls went looking at the rose garden, Tom(UK) and I went to the Observeratory to look though the telescope at some Sun spots.
Just off to the airport to fly south now and a thunder storm has sprung up so it should be an interesting flight.

(Message to TechSas - I've found a great place for the southern hemisphere office!)

My state-of-the-art 3G phone doesn't work in any country other than the UK although the 3 help desk say it does. Luckily everyone elses Pay-as-you-Go Orange phones do, so don't call me....

Regards to all Simon & Co.