The Home of CP16

Congratulations!

Congratulations go to Nik who passed his New Zealand PPL Skills Test today!

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Well that's us safely down in Hamilton and so far we have all been impressed, particularly the members of CP16 (who shall remain nameless) that decided to try out some of the local liquors. We are not sure if there was an accent problem or they deliberately asked for the 'Jalapeno' version of 'chartreuse' -quite possibly the hottest, most vile drink that has ever had the misfortune of being discovered. Recovery was slow, painful and involved around 8 gallons of water.

The town itself has pretty much everything we could hope for along with the advantage that we stay 15 minutes (sober) walk from the town centre so gone are the days of haggling with taxi drivers. We are not sure though what the locals will be thinking with 50 or so Brits, and an Irishman, being dumped on their door step but so far so good. There are 45000 students in Hamilton so we reckon we will fit in just nicely!!

The infamous Henry the cat was allowed to join us down here on one condition... he get's neutered. As we type this, the poor little cretin is on a vet's table somewhere getting his bits removed. Ouch!!

On a completely different note, well done to John, Tony and Phil who all passed their New Zealand Private Pilot's Licences in the past week or so. Hopefully it won't be long before the Long Course Legends do the same.

Look out for some new photos of Hamilton in the next week or so.

The Move to Hamilton

The day many of us had been dreading finally came and it was time to pack our bags, take down our cool posters and clean the chalets. With the hard work out of the way, a final BK was shared by the Scots and Legends around the coffee table before Nik, Phil, Andy and Tony set off on the epic journey South. Morgan and John remained behind because they had eaten far too many pies and couldn't fit in the cars, so two trips were necessary.

The reception at Hamilton was surprisingly good - Billie had arranged emergency rations and the rooms were large, clean and well-equipped. Phil and Nik got their rooms and unpacked, while Tony and Andy were told they 'may get their rooms at some point tonight'. Tony was given a temporary room and offered Andy some floorspace....a schoolboy error he will never repeat, since he was kept awake all night by Andy's tuneful growling. Meanwhile, Morgan and John were enjoying a 5-hour stint of utter boredom exacerbated by the munchies as they had no car, no food, no t.v., no internet...nothing. One of the instructors had promised to drop the car back at Takanini for John and Morgan, but took the the other instructors for a 2-hr coffee break in town before heading North to collect our deprived duo...they were a tad upset.

With the CP reunited, the allocation of TVs, Wireless Network cards and the astonishing appearance of two 50" Widescreen Rear Projection TVs, the day after the move was rather rosier then we could have imagined. CP16 were upbeat as we headed into town to the place where 'everyone gets a bargain', with many other CPs in hot pursuit. CTC cadets overran the peaceful settlement of Hamilton within minutes and chaos was destined to follow. In true form the Admiral and the Commodore (Ric and Ed from CP11) hosted the festivities with first class food and drinks for all....and by all I mean every Tom, Dick and Harry at every bar frequented by the admiralty that night. Credit card receipts indicate that NZ$1500 was spent between them in one night alone. Ouch! The Admiral's power naps gave him remarkable stamina, but it all caught up with him in the end... he was so severely incapacitated that the Commodore has to assume command for a full 24hrs.

CP16 are settling in well and will keep you posted on our latest adventures....

Last Days at Ardmore

The last day at Ardmore ended with an excellent barbeque New Zealand style. The backdrop for our BBQ was, of course, the house that burnt down behind us... The chef for the evening was 'handy Andy' who served up burgers and sausages and the charred, blackened remains of what appeared to be chickens. The only thing missing was some marshmallows!

After the BBQ we headed into Auckland for our last stand and our first and last visit to Coyote Ugly. The girls there are well worth a visit, they even take your pets dancing if you ask nicely! And after a certain incident with toilet paper, we 'routed' to Globe and spent the rest of the night charming the plain people of Auckland.

The next morning we paid dearly for our late night partying - we lost the position of the cleanest CP and with it any chance of another banana cake courtesy of Marz...