A couple of nights in Dunedin proved to me that you can find English weather wherever you go. In spite of being 11000 miles from home, it still managed to feel like we were going to watch England in any town in the UK thanks to the continual rain that showered the city on Saturday, which did little to lift the mood following a fairly huge night out on Friday night that left me feeling like if anyone even showed me a beer I might fall over. Put simply, starting a night out with an informative 90 minute brewery tour, complete with 30mins of a completely free bar is a great way to ensure you hit the pubs already half cut.

 The whole Friday night was not aided by the continuous flow of free Canadian Club whiskey from a load of blokes dressed as Mounties who seemed to put up only minor resistance to our attempts to get multiple cans of their beverage out of them. I wouldn’t mind; but the damn stuff just tasted like slightly weak ginger ale and merely acted as a gateway to a night of slightly more solid spirits. Remember kids, if a man in a Mountie uniform offers to introduce you to the cool, refreshing taste of Canadian Club and Ginger Ale, you say no and run away. Far far away.

As for the rugby, finally getting to a World Cup game was a feat in and of itself as it started to feel like we’d just flown to the other side of the world to watch it at a slightly more convenient time on TV. But sure enough we made it to the Otago Stadium and actually saw a fairly impressive performance out of the boys and I took enough blurry photos to secure my place as a front runner for Sports Photographer of the year.

Leaving my Dunedin friends behind we moved onward to Nelson on the Monday, where the sun actually shines and there’s plentiful scenery. Our first night here saw us drink in a converted church full of local ales, warm fires and the Sky Sports commentary team of Stuart Barnes and Miles Harrison. Marv, unfortunately, couldn’t be persuaded to give Stuart a flying hug and we moved on to badly play some pool and indulge in ACTUAL Skittles Vodka. I can neither confirm nor deny that it’s better than a skittle bomb as we insisted the bar lady mix all 5 flavours together to produce something that looks like you can clean an engine with it.

After fighting through the haze of that this morning I decided that a trip to climb the hill that leads to the centre of New Zealand might be best to get yet more stunning scenery shots. The one thing I seem to have in abundance right now is scenery shots. Damn this beautiful country.

And now for some Italy vs USA action. USA! USA! USA!