We're taking on the All Blacks tomorrow

Well, three of them anyway!

The boys we'll be tackling include Steven Luatua and Charlie Piatau, both of whom can be seen in this video

The third is Aaron Smith, who's a hairdresser by trade would you believe!


Photos will obviously follow!

Shake, rattle and roll

Well it's been a shaky few days in the capital. But we wanted to let you know that the three of us are OK
Things kicked off on Friday morning with a 5.7 magnitude quake just after 9am. It was enough to make Annalie "Drop, Cover and Hold" as her 9th floor office swayed with the movement. Ian was blissfully unaware as he slept through the whole thing!
As did Maddy. Who said animals had heightened senses to these things?
Thankfully there was no damage, but it was the start of a series of shocks that continued through the weekend.
On Sunday morning, just after 7am, we were woken be another long, juddering quake. It wasn't enough to have us sprinting for the dinner table, but it was significant att 5.7. Our house normally doesn't feel much, but that one sure did.
This sparked several aftershocks that we could feel, both at home and as we ventured into Wellington for some brunch. But we thought they were subsiding throughout the day.
We had planned a night out as it was Ian's first night off work from his new job. So Annalie had organised dinner at Big Dogs on Blair, before heading to the movies to see The World's End.
We'd only been sat down for 10 minutes when the biggest quake we've felt hit the town. At 6.5 it was roughly the same size as the second major quake that crippled Christchurch over two years ago. And it rattled.
Because we were out, we asked our friends to check on Maddy, slightly concerned that she might be freaking out on her own. They duly checked on her and let her calm down, before returning her to her crate with some tasty snacks. Their commitment was that they would go back and get her if there were any more quakes.
We felt a few minor aftershocks but continued about our evening, not wanting to let the quakes ruin things.
Not long after the film started, at just after 7pm, we heard and felt the next big aftershock, at which point Annalie got a text to say our friends were off to get Maddy. This was always going to be an interesting exercise as they have two cats! As you can see from this photo, we think that Maddy was probably more scared of them than they were of her! But apparently she wasn't interested in them and was just happy to me around people (usual story for her really!).

There were a couple more shakes during the evening, but nothing major, however the 6.5 quakes appears to have sparked in excess of 100 aftershocks, of varying magnitudes, throughout the course of the night. We had shoes beside the bed just in case, but we never felt a thing. Friends and colleagues weren't so fortunate it seems.
Here's where all the action has been centred.

Here's a video overview of the seismic activity of the last three or four days. But this doesn't include all the 100+ aftershocks that have occured since the 6.5 "big one".


As we've said, we're all OK and just hoping that we're coming to the end of the trail.