That is to say there is a new release from New Zealand band The Bats which they launched last night at Al’s bar in Christchurch. More importantly, I was there. Yes, I’m in New Zealand and just attended my first ever gig outside Australia. It was fantastic to come over here and see one of the classic Flying Nun bands. I’d been pretty busy and, believe it or not, had not been thinking that much about music until early yesterday evening when I was at a conference dinner and the President of the New Zealand Maths Society got up to present some prizes and mentioned that he’d seen The Clean in the same room 26 years ago. At this I started to get pretty excited at the prospect of seeing The Bats (whose main songwriter was also a member of The Clean at times), and they didn’t dissapoint. Lots of classic guitar pop, including North By North, the intro of which was heard frequently on the ABC this year in promos for The Hollowmen. The new stuff sounded great as well, though I won’t be able to listen to the cd until I get access to a cd player.

Today is my last day in Christchurch, tomorrow I’ll be heading over the mountains on the Tranzalpine train, should be pretty spectacular (especially if the weather clears up a bit), and then on to (supposedly) sunny Nelson in a long day of travel (though not so long compared with the Adelaide-Toowoomba leg!). In Christchurch I’ve mostly been on the campus of the University of Canterbury, which is very nice. I have done a bit of sightseeing around town, in particular this afternoon I visited the Museum which was excellent. I also went up north to the Waipara Valley for some wine tasting.
Missing from my blogging is Brisbane, not that I didn’t enjoy it there, it’s just that I didn’t have email access (there must be an internet cafe somewhere but I didn’t find it). I’ll save writing about Brisbane now until I can get my photos up. Short version – more bats and lizards (or water dragons to be a bit more precise).