Didn’t get to swim with the dolphins after all but had an amazing day nonetheless. We were on a big jet boat tour and, although we found a couple of “pods” of dolphins, we couldn’t swim with them because there were baby dolphins in both and swimming with juveniles isn’t allowed. All the same Sue, Amy and I got to lie on the bow of the boat as the little scamps jumped out of the water at you, showing off, doing little jumps and spraying water at us. Apparantly they love it when you talk or...
The last thing the locals are prepared for in Paihia, the sub-tropical capital of the Bay Of Islands, is rain. There’s absolutely bugger-all to do here that doesn’t depend on sun and lots of it. So when we arrived on Saturday to be greeted by monsoon-like rains and winds it put an obvious dampener (arf) on things. Amy, Sue, Helen (who’d come up for her last few days in New Zealand) and I decided to press on regardless with our plan for a Bay cruise up to “The Hole in the Rock” despite the...
Sue and I have now moved back to the hostel we stayed in when we first came to Auckland. We’re even back on the same floor and it all feels very much like home. Only here until Saturday but we can now stay out late in the City without worrying about catching ferries home and walking up the Steepest Hill In The World. Probably. Helen’s also staying there and, with Joanna just up the road, most of the old Ponsonby gang are back in town.
Had a good last day at work: couple of drinks with everyone...
Not sure how regularly I’ll be able to update this beast in the future: finishing work tomorrow and so bang goes my 8-hours-a-day free Internet connection. Will of course endeavour to seek out Internet cafes wherever I am and keep updating but it won’t be quite so, erm, regular. Hopefully, though, this will mean I’ll get back to writing a “Travelblog” of things that happen as we actually travel, rather than what happens as we stay put in one place for five months…
Sue’s sister, Amy, arrives in...
I’m being temped out tomorrow afternoon by my consultant to North Shore hospital to “fix a website that’s been written in JavaScript rather than HTML”(?) Didn’t think it was worth correcting Barbara (an English ex-pat who in typical northern fashion calls a spade a spade) and it means I get to save the day and be a Web Hero ™ for an afternoon!
The parents have now left the country after their whirlwind ten-day visit. Sue and I took them for a bit of culture to Auckland Museum and to see Nurse...
Long time since I’ve written but it’s been a busy week. My parents flew in from home on a whirlwind holiday that includes Singapore and Australia. Sue and I have been full-time tour guides and trip planners since they arrived but it’s been fun showing them around “our” city. Had a couple of days off work and took them to Waiheke and Rangitoto by ferry and up the Sky Tower. They’ve hired a campervan and are staying on nearby Takapuna Beach (playground of the rich, apparantly) and have taken...
Sue and I have now packed up and moved just across the Hauraki Gulf to Devonport. We’re already missing our little “family” and it was really quite sad waving Helen off on her coach to Wellington on Saturday. Joanna’s living in a swanky appartment with a dishwasher and Dan’s somewhere in the North Island. Now I’ve only got Sue to torment!
Had a fun last Friday night together watching the Auckland Blues beat the Christchurch Crusaders at Eden Park before going to the Rose and Crown and the...
Nearly had a nightmare hair-cut last night. I had a feeling something was wrong when I walked into the same barbers I’d been going to for months and none of the usual male barbers were there. An eastern-european woman motioned for me to sit down and then proceeded to take five minutes doing up the hairdressing gown thing, dropping her scissors and combs. Wasn’t sure if she was on something or just odd. She began to painfully slowly cut my hair, or rather picking at it, leaving huge clumps,...
First of all I must underline how much we’re all missing our Richard. Poor Big Rich is feeling alone and neglected travelling on his own and has pointed out to me that I’m a bastard for not missing him in a written form. Fair point. So, Richard, if you’re reading this, start pulling some of the 18 year old totty on your bus and stop being such a big girl’s blouse.
Secondly, Sue and I are no longer homeless! We’re moving into the cool bedsitty flat in Devonport we visited yesterday downstairs...
Sue and I are currently facing homelessness as of Saturday. We’d arranged with Fringe Ben to move into his 12-bedroom house at the end of February. We weren’t overly concerned when he announced that because he was leaving Auckland he was handing the responsibility of the house onto his housemate, Conor. We should’ve been concerned, though, as since then Conor has also left town and the current incumbents have just let out the last room in the house, unaware of what had gone on before. ...
It was the big Hero Festival in Auckland on Saturday night, the New Zealand Mardi Gras equivalent, principally for the gay and lesbian communities. Standing at the end of our road outside One Red Dog on Ponsonby Road we had the perfect view of a multitude of naked arses, dykes on bikes, fire-breathing transvestites and all sorts. Top entertainment. My personal favourite was the naked dancing woman on top of a big float, her modesty saved only by a coat of gold paint. But that’s because I’m a...
The new tenants for our house are a group of young Kiwi students, fresh out of school and moving out of their parental homes. We met four of them last night, all 18 years old, bright eyed, eager and full of life. Us haggard, creaking British twentysomethings suddenly looked and felt very old as we contemplated cooking dinner, watching Shortland Street and the ironing that needed doing. Oh to be young again! (he says with all of his 22 world-wise years…)
The weather’s unbearable at the moment in...
Damn that Anna Kournikova to Hell! Have now seen the back of her… well, not literally… that would actually be quite nice. And, while I’m linking, I knew it would only be a matter of time before there was a serious accident while someone was text messaging. The amount of times I’ve almost walked under a bus while walking down the street trying to compose a text message…
Can’t have escaped your attention that it was Valentine’s Day yesterday but is it my imagination or is it getting even more...
Why do I even bother? Had a massive email crisis at work today. Firstly I was great in diagnosing a new virus, disinfecting everyone’s computers within minutes and helping infectees over the country sort themselves out. Then it turns out that in fixing things, our email server’s buggered and no-one can receive external emails. Passing the buck to the engineer: can’t understand why the stoopid pooter doesn’t work! Think it’s about time I gave up on the blasted things anyway.
Advertised our...
Sue and I had an extremely pleasant and sophisticated Saturday at the Devonport Food and Wine Festival. We sipped Chardonnays, Rieslings and Sauvignon Blancs from around the country, basking in the sunshine and relaxing to the jazz. Pity 25,000 other Aucklanders had the same idea but it wasn’t too crowded and we had a fantastic ferry ride there and back.
Killed a mouse last night. I’d assumed that putting mouse traps out would mean a quick, sharp death for the poor little bastards. But, no, I...
It was Waitangi Day yesterday here in New Zealand and therefore a public holiday. The day is supposed to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of New Zealand, in 1840 between the native Maori chiefs and the British Crown. Shamefully (being British) some of the early settlers weren’t exactly honest, stealing land from tribes and to this day disputes still plague New Zealand society. The Pakeha (the whites) simply spend another day at the beach while Maoris...
Looking out of my window (on the 25th floor of the third largest builiding in New Zealand, I might add) I can see right into the penthouse suite of the Auckland Centra Hotel. Guests sometimes forget that, despite being so high up, they’re not completely invisible to the outside world and, apparantly, oblivious undressers often expose more than they’re aware.
On Friday, however, one group of people went a rather gruesome step further: a naked, fat, middle-aged woman (why are they never...
There’s now 13 more photos for you to enjoy, mostly from our trip to Great Barrier Island but there’s also some from Piha and Muriwai beaches. Just wish the scans could do justice to how blue the water was and how green the trees were - far cry from Essex!
Talking of back home, I’m missing a big Warwick Boar reunion in London. The Boar was the student newspaper at Warwick and I grew quite attached to the old thing and those who worked on it, so “hi” to any ex-Boar members reading this and have...
