Christmas Visitors

Steve was a bit pre-emptive with the previous blog, mainly I think because he didn't want to reveal the truth - that he was personally responsible for the Christmas wellbeing of many small children.

Yes, dear readers, this year Steve was Santa!

At Steve's work their Xmas do this year was at Victoria Bowling Club. It involved a few ends of bowls, followed by some food and some more ends of bowls (apparently if you roll a good bowl you call "good green"). I went along for the food after work and was lucky enough to catch Santa in action on behalf of his company. His "Ho Ho Hos" were very authentic and I think the 2 year olds were completely taken in by the very poor outfit, quite impressive given that Steve is frankly, not Santa shaped.

Santa attempts to disguise the cushion down his suit

The cushion down the suit helped of course but Steve made a tactical error in not using a belt to keep the trousers up. Let's just say the suit was not designed for men of his girth.

One of the interesting things about being an ex-pat and living in an appealing and low stress place which I didn't appreciate until now, is that you become a target for all your friends and relatives back home who suddenly have a brilliant excuse for making that once-in-a lifetime (or annual in the case of my parents!) trip. Over the past three weeks we have hosted three different sets of guests. Most of the ex-pats we know over here are either hosting guests over Christmas or have gone back to the UK. One guy I know has his parents-in-law visiting for a full five months.

Someone commented to me the other day that "as soon as you arrive everyone starts visiting. I use up half my leave each year showing people around". Apparently the guest volume settles down once visitors realise you're not leaving and anyway I imagine our guests will all start having children of their own soon so that will put the kybosh on most trips. It's great to see people though it has made for a very hectic couple of weeks!

Mum and Dad are in NZ at the moment but doing some travelling of their own. They stayed with us for a short while during which we did "Bike the Bays" in a howling gale. It is an annual group bike ride of 26km from the CBD to one of the nicest beaches in Wellington (Scorching Bay) and return. Half of the ride was easy, with a monster tailwind, the other half was challenging to say the least. Mum got blown right off the road at one point!

Mum, Dad and I at the half way point of the ride in Scorching Bay

During the same weekend we played a tennis tournament at our local club. Conditions were not ideal but Dad still managed to win the men's doubles with another "geriatric" as someone described the two of them!

We've now got Isabel and Paul visiting and we've managed to fit in quite a few activities, including a visit to Weta Workshop where we posed with an Uruk-hai.

Isabel, Lurtz and I

We also went to Kapiti Island which is a predator-free island about an hour north of Wellington. It is one of the few "open sanctuaries" you can visit in New Zealand and you can see many native species including some of the only 300 odd Takahe left in the world. The birdsong is incredible but it can be difficult to actually spot the birds making the sounds. I did spot bellbirds, saddlebacks, whiteheads, kereru, kaka, takahe, stitchbirds and weka though.

It was a misty day at the top of the hill after a very strenuous climb and this was the view we had!

Me, Paul and Isabel, the gorillas in the mist according to Paul

Right, we're off to see Avatar in 3D and I have to plan xmas dinner. Merry Christmas to all... Enjoy the festive season.

Jo and Steve

Christmas in Kiwiland

This time last year we were in Perth working at the grain depot, getting used to 28 degree days and driving hundreds of kms around WA on our days off. A year on and how things have changed! Now we have office jobs, 28 degrees would be highly unusual, and we're still trying to check out Wellington on our days off having been here 6 months. We're still looking for a house, the market is pretty bad here (i.e. there just isn't much of interest to us) and a place has to be extra special to warrant us transferring funds from the UK at a time of the strongest NZ Dollar for some years, so the search continues. One problem we've found is that in our preferred area (Newtown) most of the houses are small one or two bed cottages with no gardens, while we're after a three or four bed place with a garden. We have looked in other areas but Wellington is so hilly that a place that looks geographically close can turn out to be up a huge hill which would turn the hardiest cyclist's legs to jelly.

We've played a lot of tennis in October and November in some strange weather, and you can expect to see us playing the Pro tour soon ;) Steve is now the Kilbirnie TC club captain, the main gist of which seems to be knowing where all the club tennis balls are at any one time. Jo has really put in the hours with rowing and the rowing club have really valued her for her ability to ferry people around in our car! Actually Jo is gearing up for a novice regatta in February on Lake Karapiro (near Hamilton). The rowing training is up to 6 sessions a week including two early mornings!

Christmas in Wellington is a pretty low-key affair, although they do have the interesting tradition of Christmas parades in the lead up to Xmas. I'm not quite sure what the purpose of them is but they seem to be held in mid November which probably means the purpose is to get you Christmas shopping earlier. We don't feel very Christmassy and don't even have a Christmas tree at the moment but at least the weather is finally hotting up after what seems like months of rain and wind. Jo's parents are our next guests, arriving on Friday, so we will be having Christmas Day with them and doing a short trip to Wanganui while Jo does some rowing there after Christmas (the rowing never stops!)

November was an exciting time for New Zealand football, with a World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain which, should they win, would take them to the World Cup finals for the first time since 1982. The only thing I remember about World Cup 1982 was my Spain 82 t-shirt, which had a massive smiling orange with hands and legs, being 4 years old I probably didn't mind...

The Wellington public and some traffic cones glued to the All Whites World Cup match

We went to a big screen showing in the centre of Wellington, having failed to get any tickets. New Zealanders aren't interested in football generally, with the NZ club side that plays in the Australian league getting a pretty poor 5

000 people a match. But give them a sniff of glory and every man, woman and child is suddenly very interested. They're like the Manchester United of international football. So the tickets sold out in no time at all. The shops ran out of NZ football shirts, and there was the strange sight of buses full of people in white boiler suits bought from the plumbing store, white doctor's coats and dressing gowns. NZ were the underdogs but won 1-0, with Bahrain missing a penalty.

Jo's friend's next door neighbour's cat has had kittens. They were all very fluffy and different colours, and surrounded by 7 year olds begging their parents to let them take one home. We managed to resist.

The end of November saw a Hunter reunion on New Zealand soil. It was my sister Katy's first visit here and Jo's second visit, her first visit being a ski trip back in July. A week quickly passed during which time we did a road trip over to the South Island, had 3 days of glorious sunshine (I'm not sure how lucky they realised they were but then they had just come from Oz so maybe they think its normal), kayaked and walked a bit of the beautiful Abel Tasman coastal track and did a day going round the Marlborough vineyards, famous the world over for its whites and for the Hunter vineyard (unfortunately not a relative). And I got to ride on a mini steam train in Picton, hurrah!


Sister Katy coordinates the Great Britain kayaking team's Abel Tasman training camp



The walk north from Anchorage - where did all the water go?


Hurrah a vineyard just for Hunters.

So another Christmas is coming along, we anticipate this one will be pretty different from last year's drunken backpacker spectacular. But then again, we're not backpackers any more.

10 great things about NZ

OK less of the moaning about the lack of the Guardian Weekend and the poor insulation in the sheds Kiwis call houses. Let's celebrate 10 great things about NZ.

1) Almost no religious tension. Well it just doesn't get mentioned at all. I don't recall a single story about Islamic extremism over here in the time I've been here. Or any kind of religious tension for that matter. People are religious, but it doesn't seem to be anything newsworthy.

2) Very little crime. The posties just leave parcels on the doorstep because there is no crime to speak of. We asked where the dodgy bit of Wellington was and were told Newtown. This is where we live, by the way, and trust me, it's way less dodgy than Clifton in Bristol. People don't even lock bikes up round here.

3) On a clear day... On a clear day Wellington is quite simply, stunning. If you don't believe me... here's a view from the top of Colonial Knob, one of the lookouts above the city. You can see the South Island from up there too. Plus NZ has way more sunshine hours than the UK. Almost no boring grey overcast days. Just windy ones!


4) Cheap takeaways. It's almost not worth cooking they're that cheap. Perhaps not that healthy though. Average takeaway cost is about $10.50, that's about 4 pounds in UK money. And I can get a box of sushi for lunch for $6 (under 3 pounds!).

5) Beaches, beaches everywhere. In a long thin country like NZ there is coastline everywhere and Wellington has some really cracking beaches all on our doorstep. There are three all within a 10 minute drive. I can see some after work beach trips during the upcoming summer :-)

6) Supermarkets have sensible hours. I went to get some fizzy drink last night after a sporting victory and found our local suburban supermarket still open at 10.15 on a Sunday night. That's convenience.

7) Sport culture. You would find it awfully hard to be a couch potato round here. The sport just comes to find you and nobody thinks you're weird for being into it either. It's a really refreshing attitude and conducive to making friends and keeping fit. Our mixed indoor netball team just won the league incidentally... It's been a lot of fun playing netball and a lot more fun than it was when I was 11 and being bullied by other kids' parents! Sport is much better as an adult.


8) A bit less of the nanny state. Example - going for walks may involve a drive along an unsealed road followed by a river crossing in a place without a mobile phone signal. All within spitting distance of a major city. It makes you feel alive to take responsibility for yourself.

9) Chilled out flights. Today I took a flight to and from Nelson with work. It's a 30 minute flight. You don't need any ID to get on it. You can walk onto the flight with a bottle of coke and nobody bats an eyelid. And there are rubbish bins at the airports. Welcome to New Zealand.

10) Dressing up is de rigeur. No more weird looks when you want to have a fancy dress party. Everyone joins in over here! There is even a whole weekend of dressing up at the annual rugby sevens tournament when everyone really goes to town. We have a group of 9 going in February and are still looking for dress up ideas - if you have any, let me know...

Here is my team at the work Halloween quiz night.... See if you can tell which one I am...!

I'm badjelly the baddest witch in all the world!

It was my birthday yesterday and I worked half a day then met up with friends after work for some drink fuelled fun.

The weather was the worst Wellington has to offer, torrential non-stop rain alongside a cold southerly which means umbrellas are quickly destroyed. For some reason I chose harbourside pubs to celebrate in so we arrived in the second pub with hair plastered to faces. I had to stick my head under the hand drier, it was that wet.

Anyway that aside I had a great time, and some fun conversations including reliving our childhood memories of Badjelly the Witch, a comic fairy tale told in audio form by Spike Milligan.

I clearly remember down the years being terrified at the moment where the witch is coming up the stairs with a big sharp knife to eat the children with peanut butter. It is a really evocative childhood image.

I think Badjelly is a very kiwi thing despite Spike Milligan being British because it seems that an audio version of the story was regularly broadcast on NZ Radio when I was little. People of my generation who grew up in NZ (even if only briefly, like me) all seem to have a good memory of it although I think there's relatively little knowledge of the story in the UK. The next generation are getting it from their parents or teachers too - Emma from work's kids are well aware of the story so Badjelly's place in kiwiana will be perpetuated.

We are contemplating dressing up as characters from Badjelly the witch for Hallowe'en and/or Rugby Sevens. So many to choose from: Binklebonk the goblin, Dulboot the giant, Mudwiggle the worm, Dinglemouse or Jim the giant eagle. Or of course Badjelly herself.

I particularly love the bit where Tim and Rose ask Dinglemouse what he was before Badjelly the witch turned him into a mouse. "I was a banana" says Dinglemouse.

Classic.

A city bolthole

So we thought we'd have a little adventure as kind of an early birthday present for me and decided on a trip to one of the local Department of Conservation (DOC) huts. There are loads of these scattered around NZ and our local ones in the Rimutaka Forest Park are only 45 minutes' drive from Wellington - and bookable online so that you have the place to yourself.

The one we were interested in doesn't have any cooking facilities so we had to take a camping stove. For some reason I sold my trusty Trangia before I left the UK (don't ask me why, I don't know) - so had to buy another one. Turns out they are $200+ in NZ or 40 pounds from amazon.co.uk (i.e. half the price) so I bought one from amazon.co.uk. They wouldn't ship it to NZ for some reason so mum kindly mailed it on to me - and good old Royal Mail, it just arrived in time.

We left it a bit late booking so could only get the hut on the Friday night so we left work early to get there on time. Plans went a bit awry when one of our tame estate agents contacted me with a very interesting house which we arranged to see on Friday afternoon. Turns out it was almost exactly what we were looking for, but had a rival already making an offer on it so before we knew it we were down the estate agents making a competitive bid. We find out on Monday if we've got it.

Anyway that distraction meant we didn't leave Wellington before 4.30 and didn't get to the car park for the Rimutakas until 5.10. Sunset was 7.30 and it's a 2 hour walk to the hut so it was a race against time.

The Orongorongo Track is apparently one of NZ's most popular walks - probably due to the proximity to Wellington. Of itself it's a pleasant bush walk through jungly beech and rimu forest with various bridges to cross. We didn't see anyone along the way until we reached the Orongorongo River which is a wide braided pebbly river bed with several streams running through it. We were running ahead of time and according to the instructions our hut was just across the river.

It turns out there was no bridge across the river - this had not been made clear to us - so we had to wade through the channels to find it. We walked up and down a few times looking for a good place to cross but eventually realised we were going to have to get wet! Not having gaiters we rolled up our trousers and took our boots off. I insisted we had sticks to steady us (I've watched Ray Mears and Bear Grylls enough times) and we made it across ok.

By this time it was about 7pm and we still had to find the hut. The instructions were terrible and we doubled back several times and called for help from one of the neighbouring huts who kindly offered to let us sleep on their floor if necessary. But just as the light was fading I spotted it. It was dark inside so I failed to see the woodpile in the corner and we spent the evening trying to light a fire with damp wood. We finally succeeded then had to endure a smoky night as the damp wood burned and kept setting off the smoke alarm. But toasted marshmallows on an open fire will cure all ills :-)

In the morning we tidied up and headed back the way we came. We met Charlie on the way who walked back with us. He had spent the night in a different hut with his friends who were having a 20th birthday party. He had hiked out to the hut wearing plimsolls and carrying a rucksack full of beer but no food - and hadn't eaten anything for 24 hours so understandably was a bit the worse for wear.

The weather was great, it was a beautiful place even if we didn't spot any kiwi, but it's so close I think we may go back .

The end of the road?

I suppose we have been too busy living our lives to update this for a while. Looking for jobs while camping was incredibly stressful and an experience I have absolutely no wish to repeat. The alternative was staying in overpriced hostels while gap year students partied their hardest around us so I suppose camping was the best bet on the whole.

We managed to pull in a few favours and stayed with various people including Dad's old colleague Bethwen who lives in a remote village near Taumarunui, itself one of the most remote locations in the North Island. While there it was Steve's birthday and we hired kayaks for the day to do the first day of a five day trip down the Whanganui river. We went through loads of rapids without falling out, which the kayak hire place were a bit surprised about (apparently 1/3 of people fall out) - More luck than skill I think...! We also went for an impromptu dip in the freezing but beautifully clear stream on the Tongariro plateau. Our swimming costumes look a lot like underwear but don't be fooled.


















Anyway, we did finally get sorted and have settled (for a while) in Newtown, Wellington. People who know Bristol and Wellington tend to compare the two and they are oddly similar - similar size, port cities, same cool community feel, kind of alternative. And strangely Newtown would be the Wellington equivalent of Southville or Gloucester Road with lots of cafes, indian and chinese restaurants, pound shops and an excellent mediterranean cafe/shop (the only place we've found selling rioja) so I think we have landed in the right area in the right city almost completely by chance. The house is a round about 1900 built wooden cottage and is icy in cold weather with no insulation to speak of. You really can't imagine how miserable to live in a house you CAN'T get warm unless you've tried it. We have every intention of buying our own place and insulating it to the max!

My office is on the 8th floor of a building overlooking the harbour, with stunning views towards the other side of the harbour to distract me. There was snow on the hills this week. You can even see a beach from my desk, how's that for a good view. Speaking of the beach, tomorrow is the annual midwinter dip - it's a kind of compensation for xmas not being in winter here - go for a swim in the sea on midwinter instead! So that will be fun.














Meanwhile life is moving on for us, Steve is working in a cool company, the kind that provides free alcohol for staff on Friday nights and has a Nintendo Wii in the office. Can't say the same of my place, people are more interested in going home to their offspring than partying!

We are playing a bit of tennis and I have also taken up rowing and have entered a 10k run. This week we start netball - it's a mixed sport over here and we have a team with people from Steve's work. At the weekend we also saw our first All Blacks game which we got into the spirit of (a great experience, the best bits were the Haka and a fully dressed streaker being literally rugby tackled by a steward). Oh and the rugby was good too!

I don't really want to finish the blogging because then we will have finished the journey which was a wonderful experience. I'd heartily recommend it to those people out there thinking "oh, but it's too hard..." The beginning and end were absolutely awful (packing to leave and arriving in NZ looking for work and stressing about money) - but the journey itself had some wonderful elements. I may even write a blog about our highlights. I am sad we didn't manage to do the whole trip without flying but realistically I'm a very straight up and down person and it would have meant hanging around dockyards in Jakarta to find a boat to take us to Australia which was just too illegal sounding for my liking. Anyway we've made it and so far apart from the freezing houses everything is going pretty well. The best bit about Wellington and I guess NZ generally has to be the environment. We can walk to a surf beach from our house and were swimming in the sea in mid April (like swimming mid October in the UK). Vineyards and ski fields both less than 5 hours drive away. Come and visit us!

The Greville Smyth Reunion Tour

The past couple of weeks have been alternately dogged by bad weather and blessed by the occasional gorgeous day. Even the locals tell us February and March have been "disappointing".

I won't bore people with job hunting stories. Enough of that when we finally settle down (in about a week!) In the meantime, we've been mostly camping while we job hunt, interspersed with a few days staying in "cabins" when it's got too cold or wet to camp, a visit to Anna in Napier (from Greville Smyth tennis club in Bristol) and a couple of days in a nature reserve. We are currently staying in a homestay in Wainuiomata near Wellington (I've just been interrupted to be asked by the 9 year old son if I'm having dinner with the family).

This is the family's house in Wainuiomata, 10 acres backed by native bush about 5km from the nearest shops. Were staying in the "sleepout" which is a separate dwelling and chopping wood and painting for our keep.

Bushy Park near Wanganui. This is the predator proof fence around the park, to keep out possums, cats, deer, stoats, ferrets, weasels, rats, hedgehogs, pigs - basically anything introduced by humans. Inside is a wildlife sanctuary where we spotted North Island Saddleback and some very tame robins who nearly ate out of my hand. We went up to the Park to stay for a weekend away and get a break from camping.

Rob, Chanel, Jessica (5 days old) and me. Old friends from Bristol days who're settled in Wellington now.

A beautiful day in Wellington. This is the view from the Colonial Knob viewpoint where you can also see the South Island as far south as the Kaikoura Ranges. We puffed our way up the steep path having to rest half way only to be overtaken by super fit people running up it!

Steve pinhead (tee hee) or the view from his feet

The Greville Smyth Reunion wine tour! Or Anna takes us around Hawke's Bay wineries. We swallowed, she spat. Needless to say we were very drunk by the end of the day.

It was so cold one night in the "cabin" on the campsite that Steve had to sit in a sleeping bag. A couple of nights later we woke to the sound of sirens. A guy living on site permanently had died overnight in one of these cabins - he was 61 with diabetes and a heart condition. A bit of a shocker first thing in the morning...

The world famous Weta Cave in Wellington (visitor centre for Weta Workshop, who did the special effects for Lord of the Rings). Inside are lots of cool models, film clips etc. from Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Narnia and other films. We both decided in an alternative life, we'd work at Weta.

Looking for pipis (native New Zealand shellfish found living under the sand) on Hokio Beach on a rare sunny day north of Wellington. Didn't find many, but then again I didn't know where to look!

Literary humour - this sign was in the Wellington Central Library. If you can't read the second bit of graffiti, it reads: "protego!"

There and back again (Or to Stewart Island and Back)

Photos - in no particular order as I still haven't mastered Blogger formatting...

1. Steve and I on the "Round the Mountain" walk out of Akaroa, Banks Peninsula
2. Moeraki Boulders
3. Very friendly Stewart Island Robin
4. Oban, Stewart Island
5. On one of the Lost Gypsy creations - a bike-powered TV
6. Baldwin Street, Dunedin (aligned with street)
7. With Simon and Elizabeth at Te Mata peak, near Hastings
8. Anna and Rusty in Napier
   

Our gamble paid off in Christchurch, we found the car market vastly superior to Auckland – this must be partly because most backpackers fly into Auckland, buy cars there, then sell them in Christchurch before flying out again.Anyway after walking about 10ks up and down the main car sales street we managed to find a very sporty looking Subaru Impreza which we principally bought because of the very comfortable “bucket” - read racing – seats. But it is pretty speedy and I beat some boy racers off the lights. Steve said he was proud of me ;-)

Sorted out with a car we were off: we did a quick tour of the Banks Peninsula just outside Christchurch on one of the few clear days we were to see in South Island. It's a beautiful but weird place – a rugged volcanic outcrop bereft of trees after man got there set against the flat Canterbury Plains with two enormous and beautiful harbours carved out by volcanic eruptions. Along the way Steve had his favourite ice cream yet: berry mudslide – in Akaroa.

Heading south along Highway 1 the next major stop was Oamaru where we called in to witness the Yellow Eyed Penguin colony. These are the rarest penguins in the world which only nest in New Zealand and its offshore islands. Their progress up the beach in the late afternoon is pretty glacial and after two hours in which we'd seen two penguins stand around for about an hour each we decided enough was enough.

South of Oamaru is the famous Moeraki boulders, perfectly round rocks embedded in the sandy beach. They are formed due to some process “similar to the formation of a pearl in an oyster” - anyway they make for nice pictures! Sadly the whole place was a phenomenal tourist trap and the tour buses and campervans got overwhelming pretty quickly.

We raced through Southland to get to Bluff for the last ferry of the day to Stewart Island at 5pm and just made it. Traditionally the choices for reaching Stewart Island were 20 minutes of terror (flight in a small plane) or 2 hours of misery (on the ferry). Fortunately they've upgraded to fast catamarans, so it's now only a one hour crossing which is a good thing as the Foveaux Strait has a reputation for being very rough. This crossing was no exception, the first pitch up a 2 metre wave was great fun but after about 5 minutes the chuckles dried up and everyone was just hanging on for dear life and hoping to arrive soon.

Luckily the misery is worth it as Stewart Island is a gem. It's how all of New Zealand must have been before humans came along. Steve commented it felt a bit like being back in Sumatra with jungle encroaching onto Oban, the one and only village on the island. Birds you struggle to see on the mainland fly all around the village – within 10 minutes we'd seen Kereru (native pigeons) and Kaka (parrots) squawking overhead. We set up camp and had fish and chips for tea. In the morning we went for a walk around the village and tried in vain to get pictures of bird life. But after lunch we went on a guided tour of Ulva Island which is probably the best bird sanctuary in the whole of New Zealand with no introduced predators at all and virtually intact forest. There some birds are so unafraid of humans they hopped around our feet allowing for great photo opportunities. We saw South Island Saddlebacks, Stewart Island Weka, Stewart Island Robins, Bellbirds, South Island Fantails, Tuis, Grey Warblers, Brown Creepers and Blue (Little) Penguins.

In the evening we went to a concert in aid of Search and Rescue. This was very much a locals affair with all the local characters on stage singing, but upstaged by the “special guests” - tourists with guitars who they'd met at the pub quiz and roped into taking part! It was a special evening though and in a community of only 500 people even we recognised people there – the girl from the ferry and the lady from the fish and chip shop.

Stewart Island is a great place and one we'd love to go back to. There are some good walks there but with walking boots boxed up in Nottingham and rumours of thigh-deep mud it'll have to wait for next time.

The return ferry at 8am the next morning was much calmer and we stopped off in Bluff for the obligatory “Land's End” photos at the sign board – probably about as far from London as most people will ever get. Invercargill was ruled out of our possible places to live due to its failure to provide donuts. Very disappointing.

Our next stop was very special though. Curio Bay in the Catlins Forest Park is one of the few places in the world where dolphins live very close to the beach. These are Hector's Dolphins, one of the rarest dolphins in the world and the smallest too. We watched them frolicking in the surf not 5m from the beach, but unfortunately it was so cold and wet when we were there (only 12 degrees) neither of us felt like swimming – another reason to return. Also at Curio Bay is a Yellow Eyed penguin colony and a petrified forest so well worth a stop.

For sheer quirkiness you have to stop at the Lost Gypsy Gallery in Papatowai where the a guy who spurned fame and fortune in Auckland makes automata in a bus. A train triggers lights and sounds, a bike powers a tv, dolphins squirm as you wind a handle, a monster writhes in the bushes. Stop if you pass by – it's worth it.

Torrential rain in Dunedin curtailed our stop there, though it reminded us a bit of Bristol with the hills and the rain, and even Baldwin Street, the address of my old work is represented in the steepest street in the world – 1 in 2.86 at the steepest point. Photo 6 is me on Baldwin Street with the camera turned level with the street so you can see how much of an angle the house is built at to make it level.

We sped back up South Island as we had one last date to keep: meeting up with Simon and Elizabeth (my aunt and uncle) in Napier. By the time we'd made it back over the Cook Strait to Wellington and found a campsite we'd both had enough of driving so I set of alone on the very cheap bus (only $33 for a 5 hour journey) to Napier. Even in the sunniest part of New Zealand it was raining (February has been very bad weather over here, unluckily for us) but in the morning we joined a 2000 strong contingent from a floating city of a cruise ship to take photos from Te Mata peak overlooking the bay. Wonderful views and later I joined our friend Anna from Bristol who's leapfrogged us by leaving Bristol behind us and arriving and even finding work before we arrived! She and her very energetic puppy made for an entertaining stop before back to Wellington and the serious business of:

Do we really want to find work? Is there work available during a recession? Or should we just upsticks and back to Asia for more of an easy life?

The sheer boredom of car hunting

Photos:

1) Onemana Beach, Coromandel

2) With the Dowgrays: me, Antonia, Carol, Steve, Dorothy, John

3) In our "private" spa pool, Hot Water Beach, Coromandel

4) Welcome drink, Auckland Harbour

5) Steve in the campervan

6) Tongariro National Park

7) Shorts and T Shirt weather at Lake Taupo

8) The Taihape gumboot

9) "River Anduin" - actually Steve a bit terrified of the drop at the Bungee Jump on the Rangitikei

10) Ohau Point, north of Kaikoura - NZ fur seal

11) Motunau Beach - a diversion specifically to visit a circle on the map!

We always said we'd be buying a car to drive around New Zealand in when we arrived, and scout out possible places to live. We spent a couple of days acclimatising and doing stuff like opening a bank account before heading off for a weekend with family friends the Dowgrays who had kindly invited us to spend the long Waitangi Day weekend with them, daughter Antonia and her friend Carol in a beach house in the Coromandel. Waitangi Day is the anniversary of the signing of the treaty of Waitangi between Maori tribes and Europeans - in itself a not too unreasonable treaty, but it has been systematically ignored by governments, depriving Maori of their land rights. This means Waitangi Day often sees protests - this year we didn't hear of much but we did see a photo of a canoe race in which Maori warriors heroically paddled a war canoe while their European competitors sank (poetic justice perhaps?!)

At the Coromandel my old school friend Antonia (second from left) cooked us up feasts each evening, including seafood fritters from pipis and cockles gathered on the shore (something of an NZ tradition!) Steve and I ventured out to the famous Hot Water Beach where for the price of shovel hire you can create your own private (or not so private, on the busiest weekend of the year) spa pool filled by a natural hot water spring.

Back in Auckland we discovered buying a car was easier said than done as we were looking for a manual hatchback and at least 75% of cars over here are automatics (they're imported from Japan). We spent a miserable couple of days driving (the hire car) around Auckland's suburban car yards and getting a good look at areas we definitely DON'T want to live in. We found a couple of possible cars but with the dealers refusing to negotiate and nothing suitable coming out of private sales we were getting pretty annoyed. We just managed to have our welcome drink in the muggy Auckland evening before sweating it out in 100% humidity overnight and finally deciding that driving around suburbia probably wasn't the best way to spend our hard earned cash.

Just at this nadir of emotion we hit lucky with a campervan relocation deal - $1 a day to drive a luxury van from Auckland to Christchurch. We bit their hands off to take it and headed off down Highway 1 as fast as we could. You only get 4 days to complete the journey which doesn't allow much time for having fun (it's around 15 hours and 1000km), but we did manage to see some of the gushing Waikato River in Taupo, the lake itself, take a diversion to one of the locations for the Lord of the Rings (River Anduin - recognise it anyone behind Steve's terrified expression?)

In Wellington all I managed to do was lose my wallet on the bus. This is more stupid than it sounds since I'd actually lost it 3 days previously in Auckland and got it back when someone found it and handed it in. No such luck this time and I felt a fool though fortunately didn't lose much money.

From Wellington to Christchurch the weather was absolutely appalling. It had been very warm when we left Auckland (over 30) but got down to 12 degrees north of Christchurch with constant rain. We were very glad of the van to sleep in instead of having to be in a tent. We did manage to visit two places along the way - the seals at Ohau Point (very close to the place Mum circled on our NZ map!) and Motunau Beach which Alice Hindle circled. Both lovely but it was freezing when we were there.

Anyway we're now in Christchurch and back to the slog of car purchasing, possibly the most boring activity I can think of. We are not feeling very optimistic but hoping if the weather warms up we will feel a little better about it all.