Scratching Around

After a period with a severe lack of travel, this weekend will see us once again board the metallic pink Honda Accord EX and hit the road to Rangitikei. On the agenda is a cheeky bit of White water rafting followed by a leisurely round of golf. There is a group of 12 of us going up there, 10 ex pats an Argentinean and an Aussie. We are staying here http://www.bookabach.co.nz/cf_RentalSearch/dsp_listing.cfm?bachId=8064 . Looks stressful doesn’t it.

I am really looking forward to the golf. Here is the link to the golf courses website http://www.rangatiragolf.co.nz/rangatira-golf-course-info.php . You need to get a cable car from the 18th back up to the club house.

Good news, I smashed the old 5km PB this week by over a minute and it is now standing at 25.36.

So I am beginning to think that I am taking too much for granted! Since I last blogged we have been to another All Blacks game, attended a barbecue for ex pats in New Zealand and competed in the Karori Golf Club Championships (Knocked out in the first round – I just can’t get a break, the golfing gods seem to have it in for me!). However, none of the above compelled me enough to write a blog entry. This of course proves what I have known all along that I am lazy, but also that I am becoming blasé about some of the things which 6 months ago I would have gotten all excited about. This is just a note to myself that I am going to nip this in the bud and once again become completely giddy at the prospect of doing new and exciting things whilst here in New Zealand.

My main news is that I have begun participating in a weekly 5km race around the harbour. I have been running for 5 weeks and have set 4 personal bests, bang! Running for fun has never been my idea of well….fun! However I am enjoying this while it lasts, and you have an incentive of a free beer once you have completed the course which keeps you going. The run is organised by ‘The Welllington Scottish Athletics Club’ and the weekly results are posted on their website here http://www.scottishathletics.org.nz .This week’s results are here http://www.scottishathletics.org.nz/Brooks5k13Oct2009.html . As you can see I am by no means keeping up with the competitive runners, but I am not last either! The second week I showed up one of the other male competitors came up to me and said that he didn’t care what time he got as long as he beat me. Sounds like a challenge, doesn’t it! I haven’t beaten him yet but wait…just wait until I do. Wellington, with its winds isn’t ideal for running as you can imagine. Yesterday, it was particularly bad and at points it felt like you were treading water, so to notch another PB felt good and reward for my training last week which saw me notch up 22km. Still on track for 2012.

In other news, we are just about seeing off the end of winter and looking forward to the start of summer. However, last week it felt like it just wouldn’t stop raining and it is still raining as I am typing this blog entry. This is a pain as Rick Astley and I have recently purchased a couple of fishing rods and we are keen to enter a new ‘Hunter Gatherer’ period of our time here in New Zealand. I think Rick is hoping to move away from the comparisons with Rick Astley and become more like another famous ginger haired celebrity, Ray Mears. Speaking of ginger haired related stories, every morning I get the same bus into work. A couple of stops after I get on the bus a mother gets on with her 3 sons, all of varying ages and heights, nothing unusual there except for the fact that they all have ginger hair. Every day I find myself thinking ‘Well at least she hasn’t stopped trying to have a normal haired child!’ You have to admire that don’t you?

Moving on. Another highlight of my bus journey into work is when the bus passes the Wellington night shelter. Now, I understand that this is a refuge for people less fortunate than myself and I am by no means poking fun at them, I am merely painting a picture of the character of this city. You should understand however that unfortunately I still have the sense of humour of an immature 12 year old and still quite often make myself laugh by asking Shona to ‘pull my finger’, so I can’t help but find this stuff humorous. For instance, as the bus was passing last week a pot bellied chap was stood out the front of the shelter (located on a busy main thoroughfare) the with his legs shoulder width apart in just a shell suit top and a tight pair of Y-fronts saluting the rush hour traffic as it passed by him. On a separate occasion I saw a man stood outside the shelter wearing a pair of jeans, with a pair of pink novelty boxer shorts pulled over the top, he was obviously having an argument with his imaginary friend. His arms were flailing around wildly, and in my mind the argument went something like this (minus any swear words).

Man: ‘I am Super Man’.

Imaginary Friend: ‘I do protest! For I am Super Man’

Man: ‘Look! Now just look here! I am clearly Super Man, I have gone to the trouble to put my novelty underwear on the outside of my trousers, therefore man equals super vis a’ vie Super Man’

Methamphetamine has a lot to answer for!

Another character who always boards the bus at the night shelter stop is a rather large, threatening looking lady who has very few teeth remaining (a common sign of meth abuse). The kind of person who, if they board the bus and you have a spare seat next to you, makes you inevitably shift uncomfortably, hoping they won’t sit next to you as they are clearly intimidating. However, this lady has the honour of twice in one week lifting my spirits and reinforcing my own whole hearted faith in human kindness (What’s that Paul? You are just like an onion aren’t you….so many layers? Well let me tell you the story first, but of course you are damn right!). Anyway, the first time I remember noticing her on the bus was when she got on the bus and found a seat opposite a man with his very young son. She was holding a lunch for the day provided by the shelter which included a small bunch of grapes. The young boy who was clearly not as intimidated by the lady as everyone else on the bus, began pointing his finger at the bunch of grapes and with his finger aloft repeatedly said ‘Gwapes, gwapes, gwapes, gwapes’. You could sense the tension amongst the fellow commuters as they imagined what type of scene was about to be played out in front of them. ‘Was this lady going to snap and lift this child up and eat him, as she looked like the kind of woman who had used this punishment on other children who had dared to speak to her in the past? Or if not that drastic was she going to unleash a tirade of profanities at the poor defenceless child, as this is what is expected from such a menacing looking woman, isn’t it?’ There was an audible sigh of relief however when a toothless grin appeared on the woman’s face and she put her hand into her bag of grapes and said, ‘I’ll just take off a few for myself and then you can have the rest’ and she passed the grapes to the young boy.

I can’t remember the second incident but I do know it finished with another toothless grin. She still gets on the bus, and most days will have a very enjoyable, jovial conversation with herself. Although it isn’t with herself because I know I am listening.

Once again I apologise for the lack of activity on the Blog. October and November promise to be busy blogging months as we have trips to Martinborough, Christchurch and Rangitikei (White water rafting) planned. I am especially looking forward to the Martinborough trip as it is for a wine festival, see here .

Shona is fine by the way and just about to finish her busy season at work. It’s like my homie Jay-Z keeps telling me ‘I got 99 problems, but the ***** ain’t one’. True.

To finish I thought I would let you know that I have discovered that I have a new super power. Last Saturday I correctly predicted that we would be experiencing an earthquake in Wellington a full 5 seconds before a 4.8 magnitude quake hit the capital. This completely freaked out the friends we were with (Rick has come up with the name Vibrator Man!). However, I do now have to come up with a super hero costume for my new found powers. I am thinking of wearing novelty pink boxer shorts over the top of some jeans. I hear it is popular amongst other Wellingtonian super heroes.

Here are some photos from our stressful weekend. I have added a lightbox to the site, so click on any of the pictures to open the slide show.

Can you believe that smile is 30 years old!

This weekend saw Shona turn 30. Happy birthday Shona! To celebrate the two of us and a couple of our friends, Tom (Rick Astley) and Sarah hired a chalet in Ohakune and planned to do some skiing. Okahune is a small town 287km north of Wellington (about a 4 hour drive on a good day) and a regular stop for anyone wanting to ski on the impressive Mount Raupehu.

All four of us were insured on the rental car which meant we could all take it in turns to drive and break up the journey. The first leg of the journey was driven by Sarah, before I took over about 2hrs in. Thats when it struck again. What am I talking about? The Curse of Shona’s birthday, that’s what I am talking about! To understand I will take you back to 2006 on Highway 31 between Canberra and Sydney. We had planned to spend the weekend in Sydney to celebrate Shona’s birthday and on the way Shona was pulled over for speeding on a road wih no one on it.  Now 3 years on, the curse struck again only this time it was me. I was pulled over for going 70.21 mph in a 62.14 mph zone and the present I received was an $80 fine and 20 demerit points. I didn’t go as far as saying ‘it’s a fair cop guv’ner, just write the ticket and I shall be on my merry way’, but that was the jist of the conversation. The policeman in question did have a sense of humour though because as I gave my occupation as an Application Developer, he did say ‘Well you will know how to pay this online then’. Good one. Happy Birthday Shona.

Winner! We found a geocache.

Anyway, onwards with the journey. Our next stop was in Sanson where we stopped and had a coffee in the local Church. And it is here where I discovered Geocaching. I had been playing with Rick Astley’s iphone when I discovered an app called geocaching. I innocently asked what it was for. Rick looked at Sarah with a look of horror, and worryingly Sarah came out with ‘well you are going to have to tell them now’. Rick’s face started to blend in with his red hair and I began to wonder if I wanted to know the answer now. As Rick went on to explain, geocaching is (from website) Geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing) is a worldwide game of hiding and seeking treasure. A geocacher can place a geocache in the world, pinpoint its location using GPS technology and then share the geocache’s existence and location online. Anyone with a GPS device can then try to locate the geocache. Got it, good. Not that embarrassing, in fact part of it I think is pretty cool. It worries me that users of the website refer to the normal public as ‘Muggles’ but other than that it is a pretty neat secret thing to do. The fact that Rick regards at as his dirty little secret provided me with plenty of good banter for the weekend. In fact Rick took us to one geocache on the second day of our trip, it was near a large carrot.

Looking Good

So on to Ohakune. Ohakune is smack in the carrot growing centre of New Zealand and is basically a town set up to cater for people who want a place to stay when they are skiing. It is full of accommodation and restaurants. Our accommodation for the weekend was to be ‘Rocky Mountain Chalets’ see here . Really nice, reasonably priced. I find myself saying a lot of complimentary things about most accommodation in New Zealand. I have lost count of the times I use the sentence ‘Well the people are just not trying to rip you off here, are they?” This was another of those occasions. We didn’t really spend much time in Ohakune over the weekend but we did spend both evenings at the Clyde Street Bistro. The setting and food were superb and on the first night when the waitress asked if we would mind waiting 30 mins for our main course, we were happy to wait. However, this turned from 30 mins, to an hour, to an hour and a half. We were in good company though and keeping entertained…. one bottle of wine turned to two and it was at this point (with an early start to head to the ski fields) that food would have been a very welcome sight. Food arrived about an hour and three quarters after we sat down, and thankfully was excellent. So we were encouraged to return the following evening, in the hope the food would be a bit quicker arriving. It was, although the problem was on the drink side. Clearly concerned for our weekly alcohol unit intake, when bringing our bottle of wine to the table and the waitress was about to pore, Rick noticed there seemed to already be a third missing from it. The waitress was obviously in a bit of a daze and just brought us the bottle from the fridge used to pore glasses of wine. Unfortunately for her we were not the table to be scrimped on for alcohol content – this was Shona’s 30th after all.

View at the top

On the Saturday we woke early with sore heads and hit the road for our first experience of skiing. Destination: Whakapapa ski field. Only Rick had any skiing experience amongst us. We had kindly been lent some ski outfits by another couple who ski a lot more frequently. So we looked the part if nothing else. As we had no previous experience we had booked a 2 hour lesson when we arrived. Lesson one is stopping. I picked it up quite quickly but Shona had a few teething problems and was beginning to get embarrassed by not being able to stop. This was soon relieved when a tall chap in our group lesson disappeared off accelerating down the hill at a rate of knots and slowly disappeared into the low lying cloud. The instructor had no intention of going after him and simply shrugged his shoulders and continued with the lesson; he obviously prefers the ’sink or swim’ method of instructing. After the lesson, the most amusement came as we all looked on as Sarah careered off and headed straight for a rock face. None off the group saw this until we all looked up and saw Sarah laying on her back. In an act of chivalry (or so I thought) Rick skied over to her, but instead of helping her up, just pulled out his camera and started taking photos to send home. Our Ski pass included a chair lift ride to the top of Mount Raupehu. If you ever get the opportunity to go, do this. If not only for the view, but also for the hot chocolate served in the cafe at the top – it was absolutely magic! I loved skiing and will definitely be going back (even though my calf muscles are now killing me). I think I will manage to convince Shona to go as well.

The 'Special School' go horse riding.

On Sunday, after Shona had opened her presents (I got her a dSLR camera if you’re interested) we headed off on another first for me. Horse Trekking. I have never sat on a horse before. I have many reasons for this, the main one being that I would feel sorry for the horse carrying my weight. Our guides were ‘Lazy H’ – a very nice couple who ran the business from their home and we arrived as they were just finishing saddling up the horses. I will admit now that if it wasn’t Shona’s birthday, and there wasn’t another bloke present (damn ego!), I would have bottled out on sight of the horses. After sticking my hand up to the question ‘who is the least experienced’ I was mounted first onto my horse ‘Bronson’. Apparently he was the most gentle one. Once I was on the horse, the guide shouted ‘we ride Western Style here’. I replied “Do we! I ride any style this horse wants me too”. The trek took us over some classic New Zealand landscape i.e. hills, steep ones! The horses were fresh and wanted to canter at any given opportunity. I was, as they say, ‘bricking it’ and when just before the end of the ride Bronson decided he wanted to head down a sheer drop, I decided that was enough and asked to get off.

Happy Birthday

After the ride the other three had a conversation about how nice the views were at the top of the hills. I didn’t see them. The whole way round I was so busy concentrating just on holding on that I forgot to look at the views. I can’t see my self doing this again in a hurry.

All that’s left to tell you about are the Kebabs we had for Shona’s birthday meal. There is a kebab house in a place called Bulls which serves up some delicious Kebabs that are well known and a must stop for anyone travelling through. What a treat for Shona’s birthday, no one can say I didn’t treat her!

So the Ashes is finally over. Thank goodnes for that, I can finally turn up for work without looking like a Zombie. So in an effort to fill the massive gap left in my sport viewing life we headed off to the TSB Arena to watch some basketball. This was the first time I had ever been to watch a professional basketball game. The Tall Blacks were playing their local rivals Austrailia (also known by their nickname the ‘Boomers’) in the second part of the two match Oceania series. The Boomers had won the first game by 7 points, so for the Tall Blacks to take the series they would need to beat the Boomers by a greater margin.

After mustering all of my self control to refrain myself from standing up and singing Jerusalem during the Austrailian national anthem, the Tall Blacks treated us to a Haka (recently voted the number one pop culture icon in NZ, see here). Not quite as impressive as when the All Blacks performed it but still good to see.

Photo Courtesy of Rick Astley

As anyone who has read my blog before will know, I have now been to many sporting events during our time in New Zealand. The one thing I will never get used to is the selling of items of food which vendors have the audacity to call a hot dog but which is really deep fried pork on a lollipop stick with a layer of batter around the outside. This was the worst so far. In a classic Catherine Tate style, “Listen to this, it was a sausage! On a stick! With batter! And they had the audacity to call it a Hot Dog! A Hot Dog, well I said to Shona, the dirty b***ards.”

Anyway, what a sporting week the Australians have had. Not only did the Wallabies lose to the All Blacks at the weekend in the Rubgy, then the Baggy Greens lose the Ashes to the mighty England cricket team, but now they also lost here at the Basketball as well. This was all the more remarkable as it was not only by the highest ever margin (100 – 78) between the two teams, but the Tall Blacks hadn’t beaten them for the 7 years previous.

Let’s spare a thought for the Aussies.

Thoroughly enjoyed the game and would definitely do it again. Below is a small highlights package of the game (weirdly in Russian).

Here is an article featuring Shona at the Wellington Board Game society (the Paul mentioned in the article was me) . You can see the back of Shona’s head in the picture http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/the-girls-guide/2774475/Welly-round-up-and-CF5 .If you don’t follow the link at the bottom here is the video, very funny.

The ‘A’ league is upon us again, and local team The Wellington Phoenix have signed up a couple of Englishmen for their forward line. One of the new players, Chris Greenacre signed from Tranmere Rovers, scored on his debut this weekend. Here is how he described New Zealand in a recent interview, “it’s like England’s Lake District but better”. Thanks Chris!  In response to Chris’ naivety I will be interspersing this blog entry with ‘interesting’ facts about New Zealand. These will be in Italics.

The top of Te Mata

Well it is official we have now been residents of the southern hemisphere for over 6 months (see mum, I told you it would fly by!).  I know it is a cliché but it does feel like only yesterday that we boarded flight NZ38 to Auckland travelling via Hong Kong. I remember the questions buzzing around my head when we were flying over.  Are we doing the right thing? Why are we doing this, we haven’t even been to New Zealand? Will I get a job? Can we afford this? What is the beer like there?

From the beginning Shona fully immersed herself into the New Zealand way of life and began to enjoy the benefits of living in Wellington. For me, it has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Looking back to when we arrived (what you might call the honeymoon period) I remember thinking everything was brilliant. “Look at that mountain, brilliant!”, “Look at that tree, what a tree!”,  “Look at that field, I know there is nothing in it and it is just the same as every field in England, but it is brilliant isn’t it????”.  Then began a period of what I like to call the ‘let’s compare everything to England’.

“The world’s first commercial bungy (or bungee) jump took place in Queenstown, NZ in 1988.”

So, you can’t compare the beer. Beer in New Zealand is pretty rubbish. The brewers obviously try hard, but what they end up with is usually just something that is just fizzy and sweet.  When it comes to choosing a beer, all you have to choose from are beers which are either fizzier or sweeter than the one you chose before.  Saying that, you do feel a bit of an idiot when you complain about the state of beer in this country to a Kiwi. “Now listen, usually I like my beer served warm. You got that. Warm! Good. More than that – it has to be flat! None of that fizz. Got it? This cold fizzy stuff is shit”.

“Many of New Zealand’s stone fruit crops, such as peaches and apricots are grown in Central Otago.”

In my ‘let’s compare everything to England’ period,   I found myself getting quite down.  According to wikiAnswers,  3 out of the  6 most stressful things you can do in life are ‘Moving House’, ‘Changing Job’ and ‘loneliness’. I am not counting the last one, but I did not expect to feel the level of stress I felt over the other two. I became resentful towards Wellington, which was simply idiotic, I love it now! This is such a cool city. I could not recommend it highly enough. Every night that Shona works late, I find myself heading down to the harbour and looking out across the water. To my right are a load of sailing boats moored in the harbour, a little further is the stylish/fashionable Oriental bay and the impressive Mount Vic behind it. I can see Lower Hutt city and street lights from Petone  in the distance, across the other side of the harbour. To my left is Wellington CBD and the lights from the few office blocks which light up the hills behind them. Behind me is Mac’s brewery and then the faint noise that emanates from Courtney place (the home of lots of bars and restaurants).  I find myself spending hours taking it all in. It is pretty spectacular.

It's Teletubby Land!

This weekend saw Shona and I celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. The 5th wedding anniversary is of course known as the ‘Wooden Anniversary’ where traditionally partners give each other wood (please insert your own joke here, because I have been told that it would be too crude for me to actually write it down myself).

“The Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences locates about 10,000 to 15,000 earthquakes in New Zealand each year. Most are too small to be felt and we only know they occurred because they are recorded by seismographs. Each year New Zealand has about 100 to 150 quakes that are big enough to be felt.”

What better way to celebrate our anniversary than with a trip to Napier in the Hawkes Bay region of the North Island. Hawkes Bay is famous for its wines, in particular its Pinot Noir. Napier is famous for an earthquake which hit the region in 1931 and levelled most of the city centre.  The town centre was then rebuilt with Art Deco style architecture.  Shona had visited Napier before but this was my first trip.

“New Zealand’s largest lake is Lake Taupo, extending to 616 square kilometres (or 238 sq miles). This makes it almost identical in size to the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia and slightly smaller than Singapore. Lake Taupo formed in the crater left behind after a super volcano erupted 26,500 years ago.”

The weather over the weekend was superb. Well superb in this should still be winter. After deciding which one of the two possible routes we would take to Napier, we left Wellington on Friday morning and drove over the Rimutaka Range before stopping off at the White Swan hotel in Greytown for a spot of lunch. It was very nice. We sat out the front of the hotel basking in the glorious sunshine (wearing shorts and flip flops!) reading the papers and enjoying a lovely lunch. It could have been August in England.

“Name: New Zealand – Aotearoa. Aotearoa is the Maori name meaning ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’”.

Driving conditions were very pleasant. The roads are pretty much empty once you get out of Wellington and its surrounding areas. Constant reminders were played on the radio that today at 34 minutes past 12, the time/date will be 12:34:56 7/8/9. However the radio ‘highlight’ came when we were urged by a very softly spoken woman to e-mail in our problems so that we can be prayed for, or as the woman herself put it, “to download God”. Not sure I have got the bandwidth….

“Nearly all Wellington residents live within three kilometres of the coastline, and the city has 102 parks and playgrounds”

So on to Napier.  Napier was very quiet while we were there. We ventured out on both Friday and Saturday evenings and the town was largely empty. Saturday, I did get to hear a couple of fisherman berating the fact that the local rugby team were playing Wellington at home and thus the bait shop was closed so that its staff could go to the match. Definitely a highlight, I am sure you will agree! My favourite place in Napier was the bar of the local Cosmopolitan club. I ordered my chosen ale from the bar, “a pint of Speights, please” only to for the barman to say ‘certainly sir, if you would just care to go to the fridge around the corner and select yourself a glass, I will pour that for you’ …….”Lazy bastard, do you want me to wipe the bar down after you have poured it as well?”

“Population: 4,100,000 Humans – 40,000,000 Sheep – 9,000,000 Cattle. About 80% of the population lives in cities.”

London Pride - Makes you proud

If you do go to Napier, pay a visit to nearby Havelock North.  I really liked this little town, it had a village feel to it. You could tell the people that lived there had plenty of money and looked after their town. There is a nice little English pub in the centre where I managed to get a pint of London Pride (not proper London Pride – it had a fizz to it).  Havelock North is close to Te Mata peak which from the top you can see all over the Hawkes Bay region.  When we got to the top we saw a guy strap a parachute to his back and jump off.  Very much a New Zealand thing to do.

“New Zealand is part of what is known as ‘The Pacific Rim of Fire’ – it’s most active volcano is Mount Ruapehu in the central North Island.”

I don’t have much more to say about Napier. It is very quiet in winter and not all that much to see (I still liked it though). The town is very pretty to look at, but that is about it. If you do visit you will find yourself spending more time out of the town looking for things to do than you will be in it. Anyway, the next trip is to Mount Ruapehu at the end of the month for some skiing.

As it is six months here is a quick check of the old objectives. Remember these?

1) To be able to spend more time with Shona (’er in doors)

Shona has started to enter the busy period for her work now, so we don’t spend as much time together at the moment. Still on the plus side it gives me more time to spend practising on Tiger Woods Golf on the Nintendo Wii, as I write I am on the cusp of winning my first ‘virtual’ amateur tournament. I will keep you informed……

2) To visit every corner of New Zealand

Haven’t seen as much of the South Island as I would have liked but I still think we are winning this one.

3) Lose some weight (about time)

Next.

4) To slow down. (This is going to be hardest to try and quantify, but I’ll think of something)

I am keeping myself busy playing the Wii.

5) To go and watch as much live sport as I can.

Well I have seen the All Blacks now. Hopefully I will get to see them again in September in the Tri-Nations. I will try and get to see the Wellington Lions play and then I will have completed the set of big teams in Wellington along with The Hurricanes, and the Wellington Phoenix.

6) To play more golf! (may conflict with point 1)

Well I have played enough to get my New Zealand Handicap. Entered my first competition at the club and finished 3rd last. I am blaming excess the night before. This had nothing to do with ability you understand that right? Don’t you?

Just like the Lake District - Only better.

Huka Falls. The most visited attraction in NZ

Last Thursday Shona and I returned home from an evening out at a local Mexican restaurant to find our bathroom and bedroom had both been converted into swimming pools. The pipe which leads to the cold tap in the basin had sheared off from the tap and was filling both rooms up nicely. After much kerfuffle we contacted a 24hr plumber and asked him to tell us where we would find the mains supply – ‘There will be one by your garden hose tap in the garden’. If there was one I couldn’t find it – ‘well if you can’t find it there, there will be one on the pavement, just before the start of your property’. Anyway, I ended up turning off my neighbours’ mains supply which meant our bedroom was still filling up but I now also had a concerned neighbour asking if our water supply was cut off as well.

As I write we still have an industrial heater and dehumidifier drying out our rooms. Hopefully things will be back to normal by the end of this week, and we will have a carpet back in our bedroom.

On Saturday we fancied  taking a drive out of Wellington. We entered our metallic pink vehicle at 11am for a quick trip out of town and ended up spending the night 371 Kilometres away in Taupo. I don’t know why, I just kept driving and we were both enjoying it. We left grey clouds in Wellington, and when we saw some blue sky and sunshine I guess we just wanted to stay with them. I enjoy driving in New Zealand – you are never bored with the scenery.

One factor that makes driving in New Zealand so enjoyable is when you stumble across one of the obscure radio stations that broadcast in this country. The first gem we struck upon was a station that was broadcasting a very prim and proper elderly lady who was just reading out listeners recipes. What was so funny was that she spent the whole time criticising their recipes. ‘No, No! That will not do. Not Vanilla essence, do not be so silly’……’Not frozen berries’…….’Don’t roll your sponge when you take it out of the oven. Roll it after it has been in the fridge’. She had male co-presenter but he couldn’t get a word in.

The other highlight was listening to a woman who was just reading out a copy of the Dominion Post (Wellington based national newspaper) very, very slowly. She must be providing a valuable service to someone.

Desert Road

Anyway, on our journey we passed snow topped mountains, small industrial towns, fast flowing streams and then eventually found ourselves at the magnificent Lake Taupo (which we last visited back in January on our third day in New Zealand). We found a hotel and, as we had no luggage, headed out to get a cheap change of clothes before heading to the local British Themed pub. Its slogan was ‘Where the Bacon meets the Butty’.

I Iooked up and down the bar to see what British beers they actually kept on tap. The only one I could find was Tennants lager – I thought I’d better have one while I was there. As I ordered a Kiwi chap who was sitting at the bar merrily quipped ‘That is a lovely drop that is’. I stopped myself from replying ‘Really, I have lived in Glasgow and when I had used to drink it there it pretty much tasted like piss’. I just nodded instead and thanked him for his advice. I needn’t say anymore about this guy other than his missus was drinking Kronenburg 1664 and he was drinking Tennants. Anyway, I took a sip of the Tennants and sure enough it tasted like piss.

After that we headed back to the hotel and sat in front of their roaring fire and toasted marshmallows on sticks … lovely end to an unexpected day.

We woke in the morning to find I had left the car lights on all night and the battery was flat. It wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t do something like this. Thankfully we have AA membership (with a car like ours it is a requirement) and they had us on the road within the hour.

After a quick trip to Huka Falls (the most visited tourist attraction in New Zealand apparently) and another go on the hole in one competition (as mentioned in a previous post) we headed back to Wellington. On the radio on the way home a radio announcer reading the sport headlines said ‘and the game kicks off in half an hour, New Zealand time’. In my book that’s half an hour in any time zone….

Paul should not have shown me how to use the blog….enjoy, Shona.