Christmas Come Early!

Hi because we are travelling to the South Island for our summer holiday first thing on the 23rd, we celebrated our Christmas early. We opened all the lovely presents from family and friends and Santa on our deck. Karen was a good girl and got a gender-based present of a sowing machine. Ian was lucky and got lots of presents including a new leather wallet and a funny tea-towel!

Pictures include a very cute nativity set from fairtrade, thanks v. much mum and dad! Speak with you on Christmas.

lots of love and best Christmas greetings to everyone, Karen and Ian

The Welly Booters - Runners Up Division 5!

Dear blog,

I am a regular reader, and I write to you with great tidings!

I was most impressed with the mixed 5 aside football team - the Welly Booters. They managed to win every game apart from two during the season and as a result claimed 2nd prize in the grand Division 5 final. This, from a team that have never played together before. In fact, the only team sports the players had participated in so far, had occurred before closing time on a Friday night!

It was interesting to see how well males and females can play as a team, although I will never coin the phrase 'the fairer sex' ever again after some of the sprited play and inventive language used on the football field by certain players. Well lets look forward to another great season and a quick promotion to Division 3!

Yours faithfully,

blog reader and Welly Booters fan.

Birthday bash

Hi there

I had a great birthday bash recently (will not tell you how young I am!).

We had some friends over for a bbq, but it rained (it always does on my birthday!) so we had an indoor bbq - which actually just involved the oven. Some fantastic food was delivered by the beautiful host, and my friends went to town on the birthday decorations around our front-room (which I really wasn't expecting).

I particularly enjoyed the oragami heart-making workshop.

Thanks very much everyone!
Ian

Trip back to UK!

Hi there

we had a fantastic trip back to the UK, spending 4-5 weeks visiting friends and family. We saw lots of people and lots of things - certainly a busy holiday - but really appreciated catching up with everyone. We had mixed weather - but got some nice days too.

Here are some Binnie family photos of a trip we took up Conich hill beside Loch Lomond + a trip to Pollock House + a visit from Mums cousins Margaret, Jean and Robert

Coromandel again - in Prince Caspian Trailer!

Hi there

Just went to see the new Indiana Jones film - contrary to the reviews I thought it was quite a lot of fun! Anyway I saw a trailer for the latest CS Lewis adaption - Prince Caspian' and couldnt help but notice the very same Cathedral Cove as below (the post about our Easter hols in Coromandel) features within the first minute of the trailer. The entranceway to Narnia now seems to be in the Coromandel peninsula (north NZ).

See the trailer below - Cathedral Cove is on the otherside of the London Underground tracks. If I can access this portal then I could save a lot of money in air-fares back to the UK this summer!

Easter holiday in Coromandel

Hey here are some photos from our Easter holidays up north to the Coromandel peninsula. We went on a kayak trip to Cathedral Cove (you can see from the photo with Karen in that it is a huge cave through a rock, and the cave is shaped like a cathedral). On the other side of the Cove is a beautiful beach with a huge rock just off the sand called 'the boot'. We also went treking up in the mountains behind (to a mountain hut called 'Pinnacles' hut so called because of the strange rock formations behind it). Remnants of a major Kauri logging industry were all over the hills - the woodsmen must have been pretty tough to survive out in the sticks here.

We also saw a Kauri tree (huge thick trees that once dominated the landscape here - unfortunately the British Empire found out about them and cut most of them down to make masts for the British navy). The wood does not need to be treated and is solid and doesnt expand/contract making it ideal for ship-building. Some older Kiwi houses are also made out of Kauri wood.

At the end of the holiday we drove back down to Wellington via Masterton where we stopped in at a hot air balloon event (you can see them firing up! They produced quite a bit of heat you could feel even standing back 20 yards or so!).




Great Easter hols!

Cute sign in English and Maori

Hi saw this cute sign as I was walking along Breaker Bay the other day and thought I'd snap it on my camera phone. I've seen a few of these blue penguins about - they swim like torpedos underwater but look kind of silly when they try to walk!

Rab Burns night

Although we are far from home, we continue our traditions.

We had a Burns night and asked quite a few non-Scots along. Lots of fun was had watching the foreigners poking the haggis around their plate and being bemused by the Address to Haggis from the Ginger Headed Scotsman.

We finished the evening with some Cherry spitting contest (suggested by Helen in place of a proper Highland Games). I managed to land one in our neighbours garden and won the contest!

Ian

Wedding anniversary!

Wow the blog has been going strong since 2006, and so has our marriage! We had our second wedding anniversary in very pleasant surroundings.

Trying to keep the trip a secret from Karen was difficult, but it was worth it in the end as she was most pleased with what I had arranged! A long weekend near Abel Tasman national park. A short flight on an eight seater Cesna jumped us across the Cook Straight, and then we hired a car to drive up to Kimi Ora health resort at the northern tip of the South Island.

A beautiful resort run by two Germans, they have installed a variety of water treatments (such as a vibrating sauna and a steam grotto!). We spent most of the time by the pool, but also ventured out on a guided sea-kayak trip up the beach-lined coast of Abel Tasman. The guide took us and four others to Tonga Island (a seal sanctuary), where the seals played around by doing co-ordinated spins in front of our kayak!

Not far from one of the beaches was Split Apple rock (a large split-boulder peaking out of the sea). I swam out to this so that Karen could take my photo from the beach. She fell asleep - I shouted from the rock to wake her up but to no avail, I then had to make the 10 minute swim back to shore and wake her up, and then swim back out for the photo. So you can see pictured (very far away) a very tired Ian wedged between the two bits of boulder - the photo involved 40 minutes of swimming!

Lake Te Anau at sunfall

Here is a nice photo Karen took of an old pier on Lake Te Anau at New Year. The sky always looks interesting in Fjordland because of the constant changes in weather systems coming across at us from the Tasman!

Rob Roy walk photos

Rob Roy has his name all over places in Mount Aspiring national park where we went walking with friends at New Year - perhaps he tried some sheep rustling down here as well?!

At the top is a photo of Ian at Rob Roy's Glacier.

Then there are some photos a walk up Roy's Peak (beside Lake Wanaka). You can see views of the Lake with some of Fjordland (including Mount Aspiring) in the far distance. On the group photo (from left to right) we can see Dominic eating his lunch, Lawrence, Carloyn and Ian straining his neck to get in the photo.

It was sweltering and we needed to put on a lot of sun block to keep ourselves from changing ethnicity as we progressed on our walk.

Bell Binnies - we arent the first!

Here is a picture of Henry Bell Binnie of Falkirk! - so there we are Ian and I are not the first to enter into such a family union. I found this on a "Binnie" google search http://www.rhodesfamily.org.uk/binnie/index.html.... very interesting

A White Christmas!

Probably the most unusual Christmas I have experienced – but none-the-less very good!
Ian, Pete and I walked the Keplar track in the fjordland area of the south island for 4 days over Christmas. The walk started off in the sun along the lakeside and quickly turned into a vertical (well not totally), but steep climb up the mountain side. To our first hut which overlooked a big jagged mountain – promptly feel asleep on the deck outside and woke up with chicken wire molded into me. The following day we climbed more and ended up walking in a snow storm, which was all a bit of a surprise but very pretty once the snow settled on the mountain tops. That night we positively had a feast of beef, dehydrated potato and fried up veg followed by chocolate brownie and custard which did feel a bit decadent given some people had brought their pot noodle equivalents. Boxing day was nice and sunny and Ian had a swim in lake manipouri – I was chicken and didn’t!


Then it bucketed for the next 2 days.
We spent 2 weeks altogether in the south island which mostly consisted of more hill walking including the very pleasant Rob Roy walk under a glacier, a trip out to a hydro power station in the middle of a mountain and also lots of eating especially ice cream!

Heres the coldest loo on the planet - on a cliff edge: