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:

Tramping in the Tauraruas

Excitement this weekend was an overnighter at Powell hut in the Taurarua Mountains just 1.5 hours north of Wellington. Ian and I headed up Saturday after lunch and although its only 3 and a half hours to the hut it feels pretty much up most of the way (1300m). Great hut though - perched on the side of the mountain with excellent views from the balcony - though the wind really did howl through the gaps at night time.
So after about 5 hours sleep we took the river route back and had a bit of a paddle in the swimming pool along with the other biting creatures, but it was gorgeous and sunny so it didnt matter. On returning to car, Karen fell promptly asleep zzzz....
but woke in time to play Munchkin with friends on Sunday night.

Karen x

Thailand and Laos photos

Being on the slow down to Christmas I have finally got round to uploading photos from the Thailand and Laos trip earlier this year. Just follow this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13841202@N05/
(PS these are photos I was showing to my photos club - hence there arent any people ones - but hope you like them anyway as its such a pretty country.)

Karen

Flying Fish and DIY Christmas Trees

...long time no write. Well its all been relatively normal over the last few weeks. Been walking down the hill to work in the mornings., going to the office, walking along the harbour front at lunch times and if Im still feeling healthy walking back up again. Been trying to get fit for our big walk over Christmas - the Keplar track which is a ridge walk over 4 days. We will be in hut 2 for Christmas day - unfortunately that means carrying our dinner up the hill on day 1, but it will be well appreciated. We just bought new cooking pots for our gormet pasta and sauce or hopefully something a bit more festive! Also been going to pilates for those abs of steel so hopefully I wont crumple under the weight of the rucksack....and a wee bit something different which leads me to....

Ian and Karens most amazing day...

On the weekend just past it has to be admitted that we were having a bit of a social tumble weed moment and were missing friends and family.... Then Ian (being a total gem) suggested on Sunday we go for a kayak in Welly harbour. So we just hired the double kayak for an hour and paddled around oriental parade including through the big fountain in the sea. This was entirely Ians fault as he wouldnt stop paddling, though he did say he did slow down eventually - like when I was under the fountain getting soaked! So I soaked him with my paddle (ahh sweet revenge!).
So we were pottering around the harbour for an other while when we heard a scream and Ian shouted "karen. Dolphins. Lots of them. Paddle fast!) Wow there were loads of them - my guess is 100 or so. They were swimming really fast in a big circle
round the harbour hunting fish and ...playing! They were jumping and twisting and riding just below the front of the kayak. They were all around us and the other 10 or so kayakers who were out. One even came up and squirted Ian in the face - I really like seeing them race in and out of the water, jumping and flicking their tails in the air. So for an hour we paddled like mad to keep up with them. It was great!
Apparently about half a dozen times a year the dolphins corner shoals of fish in the harbour and go on a mad feeding frenzy. So we joined in and had fish and chips for dinner. I actually did dream about dolphins that night - I dont think I will
forget that experience.

Christmas...

We got a tree up last week yippee! - and its really cool as Ive never had one before (Ian had a Christmas weed once with some flatmates). Ive included a few photos of what is quite possibly the ugliest tree in the southern hemisphere - though we did cut off a random branch and tied it to the big gap on the trunk of the tree. I think northern hemisphere trees are definately a better shape for hanging the baubles on. Saying that there arent going to be too many trees in the southern hemisphere
with a knitted santa claus! (I actually knit these first in primary school - Jen actually still had the pattern - must be a museum piece by now).

So its 7 working days to go and counting - cant wait!

Karen x

David Beckham visits Wellington

Very excited about this weekend because all-star footballer David Bechham is playing against our local Wellington Phoenix. He probably could beat Phoenix on his own but he also has the rest of the LA Galaxy with him. Its a friendly match on the Saturday. David has signed up that he must play at least 55 minutes of the match (the local council who are subsidising the game stipulated this!).

What he won't realise is that although the Wellington Phoenix are near the bottom of the Australian league (the A-league) and hence a bit rubbish.. the fans are totally bananas, and known to be the loudest in the A-league! The fan club (the Yellow Fever) organise a different song for the terraces each week. They are organised by a highly loyal bunch of ex-pats from the UK - but in total around 10,000 yellow-and-black Phoenix fans turn up each week and are known to have a lot more energy than the rugby fans. It is very funny to hear all the British accents and the chants that come straight from the Premier League, e.g. when Adelaide came to play in their red and white strips, they were politely told that 'they're red, they're white, they're full of f***in sh**e' as they came on to the field. The players were a bit stunned because soccer is a completely family sport in Australia - not the case here!

Already some songs have been prepared by the Yellow Fever:
Loos, Loos, Rebecca Loos, Loos, Loose, Rebecca Loos.

Beckham's come to Welly, his knees have turned to jelly, Come on Phoenix, come on Phoenix!

Oh dear!

Tramping in the Tararuas!

Hi Blog

sorry its been so long!


Some folk at my office decided to become more 'manly' by going on a tramping trip. This is what they call 'walking' in New Zealand. We decided to head up to around 4,000 ft and stay in a mountain hut overnight. This meant carrying our food and clothes on our backs up a steep climb from a place called Otaki Forks.

We climbed up through podocarp forests with Punga trees (Fern Trees) everywhere. It was a very typical Kiwi scene, totally green with thick vegetation until you got to around 2,500 ft. high. Quite a few vines hanging down to practice my Tarzan swing on. Karen was very tough and managed to the top without me having to carry any of her stuff, I'm impressed.

We got to the top and the scenery opened up to reveal more of a 'Scottish' type of vista. Continual hill peaks that stretched to the horizon in the north and east. The blue Tasman Sea lay on the West, with Kapiti Island appearing to float in the sky as clouds gathered around its base. in the distance to the South we could just about make out Wellington with the Inter-Island ferry making its way into port.

Stayed overnight in the oldest mountain hut in the mountain range, made in the 1920s - it had old photos of when mountain-walking first became a hobby and the hut and tracks were built in pretty inhospitable conditions, very interesting link here:

http://www.doc.govt.nz/templates/page.aspx?id=34146

It had an old fashioned wood burner to keep us warm at night - which was a challenge given there was light snow falling around us. We had to collect firewood and chop it with an axe - there was something wonderfully primal about that - Karen seemed particularly adept with the axe as you can see above!

New video clip of Oz

Look at the old posting (a few pages back) on 'Ian off to Oz' to find a short video clip of Mark, Stefan and Ian at the pub in Melbourne. Ian is introduced to Australian culture, their liking of VB beer (no other will do), and the way they say 'cheers' in Australia (avoiding all eye contact). As well as this the boys get violent on a leaf.

Click here to go to the video

Out to Red Rocks to see the Seals

For some time now we have been meaning to walk beyond the city outskirts and along the rocky south-coast. Wellington's last bay before wilderness sets in, is Ohiro Bay. A few eccentrics live out here and they don’t seem to mind the constant wild winds and salt water which eats away at their funny looking houses. One guy has built his house in the shape of a light-house, another has an up-turned boat as his balcony.

The Red Rocks Coastal walk takes you from Ohiro Bay car park along the rocky shore line where the edge of Wellington meets the Cook Strait. On a good day you can clearly see the Kaikoura mountain ranges of the South Island. Today was not a good day! We pushed ourselves against the wind and cold, plus occasional icy shower. The destination was the seal colony, about 1.5 hours walk.

We thought we had missed it entirely, until we noticed one seal fast asleep only metres from us – its oily grey and brown skin was the colour of the rocks. In fact it was using a spiky rock as a pillow. Looking around, we suddenly realised there were dozens of seals everywhere – they were all lying on rocks, all well hidden because they were motionless and the same colour as rock. Each seal looked like it had just finished a hard night on the drink and wanted nothing else to do apart from recline on a nice wet rock! Luckily, some of them started to wake up and move around a bit shortly after we arrived. I captured a few lazing around and a couple even made a vague attempt at fighting! Have a look below.

R2D2 bird

Hello all

my first attempted vid clip on the blog! I have just filmed a Tui bird that always wakes us up each morning with its crazy bird song. It is a New Zealand native, and has a bizzare looking pair of fluffy ping pong balls attached to its throat!

It is the only bird that can continually talk to itself all day, whats more it does it in an R2 D2 crazy-talk manner. See the clip!

Ian

TURN UP THE VOLUME ON YOUR COMPUTER TO HEAR IT PROPERLY!

New Megalithic car

Dear all

With tidings of great joy, and a little bit of materialistic glee, I can tell you we are now the proud owners of a Nissan Cefiro grey station wagon (ok don’t all jump and down with excitement!). This is actually the first car I have ever bought and so I am totally excited, and currently giggling like a little boy!

The car was bought from Turner's car auctions (everyone from our taxi driver, to our church elder had recommended this as the place to get great discounts).

So with great trepidation I ventured to Turners. I was overwhelmed with the large number of cars, mainly all Japanese imports. With Karen staying at home and praying for me, I did my ‘Binnie basics’ mechanical inspection and test drive. You can only test drive it around the car park, so that meant getting up to around 35-40 mph in a space of about 60 metres. Just as well the brakes worked!

I then started bidding with a racing heart, I managed to hold off against an evil car dealer guy who went up to around 1800 quid. He couldn’t reach my bid and the car was mine!


Becuase it was a Japanese import, we found some weird Japanese videos and a pair of chopsticks in the car.

Only thing is I realise that I have bought a megalithic car. It’s a huge – between 2.5-3 metres long – a massive American style size wagon. Driving this huge chunk of metal will be a real challenge around the tiny streets of Wellington. I’ve worked out it will take around a nine point turn to get the thing into our garage!

Still it will be great for getting out and seeing some of the NZ countryside (we've used it for a trip to the Rimutuka forest park already!)

Here are a couple of pictures – one shows you the size of an adult male in comparison with the car.

Photos around our town

Hi all - want to see some photos of where we live? READ BELOW!

I have created photo albumns on Flikr (thanks for your suggestion Simon!). The first photos set are from around Wellington.

Karen took some of these to show:
her walk to work
the Botanic Gardens
the Harbour front of Wellington
our house and around it.



The second set of photos are of our trip to Napier - sun, sea, sand and lots of 1930s art deco buildings!! (described in our previous post).


Happy Flikering. Please see the link (either on the side bar to the right, or right below this).

Wellington photos

Trip to Napier

We recently took a trip up the East Coast to a town called Napier. The town was completely destroyed in an earthquake in 1930 and so they had to rebuild it quickly. Because the trend at the time, all the architecture is art-deco = lots of pastel colour, sun-bursts, and go-faster stripes!

Although it was quite cold, we headed to the beach. The beaches on the East Coast are beautiful - miles and miles of yellow sand, very wild looking becuase there is not much civilisation. ALso wild because it faces the Southern Ocean so the winds get quite fierce and its sometimes dangerous to go swimming. So I headed down the beach with my full artic gear on!

You can see photos but you have to sign up to Bebo (dont worry Bebo is not a dodgey web page, its a really useful way of keeping in touch with folk! I have lots of Bebo friends!)

http://www.bebo.com/invite/2056647a8607986b229