kiwiwinter

Cycling NZ Coast to Coast from Greymouth to Christchurch (well Redcliffs) - 160 miles or so

2004-11-28T21:16:00.000+13:00

I'm writing this 2 years after my little cycling adventure to say goodbye to New Zealand. Sometimes I like to cycle around a place to really get the feel of it so I decided to get the train to Greymouth from Christchurch and cycle back across the country and through Arthur's Pass in the Southern Alps to Redcliffs (a suburb of Christchurch), where I had lived for several months.

The most memorable thing about the train ride apart from the beautiful scenery was just how long it took. This really began to reinforce the magnitude of my task in cycling back. The other memorable thing was sitting in a carriage with 4 nice Aussies. It seemed they had been placed in the back of the train away from the Kiwis (there is some funny animosity between kiwis and Aussies). Anyhow, these 4 were super and shared their food with me. Great fun.

I don't recall much to recommend Greymouth apart from Jade stores but I made my way to the sea to dip my foot in the water and was then on my way.

The road across the country, highway 73, was ok for cycling. Not too much traffic and safe enough. The only dodgey part was when things got steep and the road became a steep viaduct. It was pretty wide but I was very consious of how slow I was, which concerned me a bit.

My overnight stop was at Otira which I think was historically a railway town. It was pretty tired and old when I found it and the accommodation fairly basic.

The next day was uphill to Arthur's Pass and a much anticipated cafe stop. One thing about this trip and NZ as a whole is that the distance between places can be further than the cycle touring Brit has come to expect from back home.

Whilst enjoying lunch I was somewhat unsettled about my bike outside. Apparently the Kias (the famous, beautiful and extremely intelligent mountain parrots) that frequent the cafe vicinity have been known to eat bicycle seats. They famously eat the rubber from around car windscreens so munching on a bike saddle seemed pretty believable. I didn't fancy riding another 50 miles without a saddle. Fortunately, that day the Kias were busy trying to figure out how to open the garbage bins, which involved lifting the lid and somehow grabbing stuff from inside (funny to watch).

Leaving Arthur's Pass (where they were soon to start filming the Narnia Movie) I headed in the direction of Christchurch. Not for the first time I had mistakenly had the notion of 'downhill all the way now'. So, after a LOT of up and down I kept hoping that the very next Mountain Pass would be the last. There were quite a few passes before the last one came into view, I even cycled past Cheeseman ski area which in the past had seemed like quite a long drive from Christchurch. So, after cycling for a good long while and coming across nothing I needed a rest so just pulled over to the side of the road and slept in a grassy carpark, perhaps some deserted hiking trailhead. This was not the civilised tea stop I would normally find at least every 20 miles in the UK (even in the North of Scotland).

After a while I came upon the plains and farmland of Christchurch. Long, straight roads for miles, perhaps 50 miles. This was not the most exciting part of the journey but I was tickled to come upon Springfield (home of The Simpsons). Not seeing Homer, nor anything much else, I continued on. At least the flat roads let me get a little speed up after all the mountain passes.

Dolphins prevent NZ shark attack

2004-11-24T11:16:00.000+13:00

BBC NEWS - Dolphins prevent NZ shark attack - well, there you go, those Great Whites are out there around this coastline! Apparently quite close to shore near the South West of the South Island too, due to some warm current there.

However, there have only been about 7 shark attacks in NZ over the last 100 years of something, so not something to be hugely concerned about.

Mind you, I do wonder why these attacks arent more common, given how helpless we are in water by comparison!

Amazing save by the dolphins though, quite incredible how they will protect humans in the water. Perhaps we should stop killing them in our fishing nets.

Earthquake and headache weather

2004-11-23T14:05:00.000+13:00

News: An earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale struck off the coast of the South Island today

Yes it was true, we did get an earthquake today. I felt the house rock a bit for a few seconds, a little less severe than when the bus drives past my house in cambridge. It was a 7.2 on the Richter Scale, I wonder what the number 5 bus in Cambridge is then? Perhaps a 10!

No big deal. Far worse were the North Westerly Winds which brought heavy cloud and gave me a bad headache and nausea all day. Thank goodness it has rained now.

Pat Farr Cup - Christchurch Interclub Swim Meet

2004-11-21T22:04:00.000+13:00

Today was the fourth and final Meet of the newly formed annual "Pat Farr Cup" championships, which is held between all the Christchurch Masters Swim Clubs: QE2, JASI, Kaiapoi and Wharenui. The final standing after four meets was:

1st Wharenui; 2nd JASI; 3rd QE2; 4th Kaiapoi

Pat Farr (71), a keen competitor herself, conceived the interclub competition after noticing that there were probably enough Christchurch Masters Swimmers now to hold such an event. Considerable enthusiasm from a few key people in each club got the thing off the ground, much to the enjoyment of the 80 or so competitors who entered each of the events and attended the social events which followed each.

Pat Farr presents cup to Wharenui Swimming Club (click to see a bigger picture)

Even as an newcomer, it did not escape my notice that a lot of those competiting had some considerable history of friendly rivalry going back a LOT of years. Stories of surf life-saving victories of the past combined with in the pool action, to settle old scores! A very entertaining and inclusive event with participants diverse in age, size, shape and ability and much fun.

One of the teams even managed to produce an ex-olympic swimmer. In the 100m Individual Medally, she showed her stuff by taking the unusual step of competing against the men. Unsurprisingly, but impressively, she blitzed them with a very cruisy swim. Very impressive to watch such class.

As a Brit. who has swum with the QE2 squad for 6 months or so, I was very impressed to see the spirit of friendly and inclusive masters swimming alive and well in New Zealand.

The coveted and brand new Pat Farr Cup (click to see a bigger picture)

Thanks Pat Farr and the others who made this event happen. I feel sure the momentum and fun generated by the event will see many more Pat Farr Interclub Championships in Christchurch over the years to come. QE2 certainly have a few more surprises up their sleeve for next year - watch out Wharenui!

Leaving too at the Dream Garden - a culinary experience

2004-10-19T13:15:00.000+13:00

It seems odd to think we're having a leaving do already. Can't quite face the prospect of leaving here to return to a grey UK winter.

Anyhow, we went out with Bianca, Myles, John, Laura and Helen tonight. The Dream Garden is an excellent Taiwanese restaurant at 62 Kendal Avenue (near the airport). The food is all vegetarian or vegan but is named things like: Hedgehog, codfish, black pepper steak, etc. This does rather mean that you dont much know what you are going to get - which adds to the fun, or the heartache, depending on your perspective.

The meal started with some bubble tea. Our first round was without any bubbes - we didnt realise you needed to order them separately! John eventually sorted it all out, as you can see.

Bubble teas

Following the tea we went for the main course, which was interesting and generally ok. Though there was speculation that there was fish oil in the cod as it tasted too authentic, and Laura remained unconvinced throughout the whole meal that she wasnt REALLY eating a hedgehog, "how do we know this is really vegetarian?". The only answer we could give was that we were introduced to the place by the christchurch vegetarian society.

Following an interval, where we perused some presumably Taiwanese magazines, we decided we couldn't miss out on the dessert - labelled 'breads'. There were 6 on the menu so we had one of each, and the owner brought us an extra one for free too: Milk, Peanut, Coconut, Chocolate (disappeared fast), Jasmin Tea (unusual but nice), Salt, and one other I dont remember! Interesting stuff, big inch thick slices of bread with nice toppings.

Bread for dessert (nice)

Overall I think everyone enjoyed the unique culinary experience - the service was very friendly too, despite a few language barriers.

Still can't believe it was a leaving do - we cant be leaving already surely!

A nice cycle ride up the port hills / white squall

2004-10-17T23:32:00.000+13:00

Went for a nice ride up the port hills, this time taking the shorter but far steeper route up Moncks Spur. We were aiming for 'The Sign of the Kiwi' Cafe some 12km away along the summit road but by the time we reached the summit rd the weather came in. Cold rain soon turned to hailstones. So, we cycled back. It was downhill all the way to sumner so we took that longer route rather than just go back the way we came up. We soon regretted the decision as the rapid descent in the very cold air made our eyeballs freeze solid, we were afraid to blink in case they shattered...

...in the end we got a shower and played Lord of the Rings RISK. Which, playing 'Evil' this time, won easily! Humph - AM's previous victories must've been from playing the Evil side. We decided that the game is quite unbalanced so played using standard RISK rules, and I won that too, well, as good as, we ran out of time a bit.

Great Movie - Touching the Void

2004-10-16T15:36:00.000+13:00

Went to see Touching the Void on Saturday - what a great film/documentary about a legendary climbing accident. This is one very special film that portrays the story quite differently than the book, like an almost totally fresh perspective.

I think anyone who has ever climbed anything with axes and crampons, particularly 'moving together', will be particularly in awe of the climbing achievement but the story is much much more impressive than just being about climbing. Following the famous accident where Joe is presumed dead, his survival story is amazing. The goal setting techniques he used to progress down the mountain are a marvel, as was his statement which went something like, "you have just got to keep making decisions, or you are dead". Stuck a long way up in a crevace he opted to lower himself further into it (with a very badly broken leg) to try and find a way out. The full horror of this decision is made clear as they show the actor recreating this descent into darkness.

I've been lucky enough to attend a talk given by Simon Yates - if you get the chance, he is well worth meeting too. I remember thinking Simon remarkable because he comes across as just a normal bloke and didn't seek to elevate himself from his awesome achievements on mountains.

Joe and Simon and even Richard are amazingly frank in the film about life, death, grim decisions and survival. This kind of honesty is rare.

What an amazing film. Highly recommended. Read the book too, it's awesome.

SPIDER IN MY HOME OFFICE!!

2004-10-14T23:33:00.000+13:00

On the phone to B tonight when a big spide crawled up the wall in my office. She said, "Has it got a white tail?". "Yis" I replied. "Kill it!", she said. "Even my Mum kills them, they're a pest imported from Australia".

Not liking Spiders much, even the ones without a nasty bite like this one has, I asked Ann-Marie's help with the required disposal of said beast. Having spent too much time in dodgey tropical parts she was not too bothered and refused to help me kill the monster (2 cm long, with a white tipex blob on it's tail). Eventually, after much encouragement Ann-Marie aided in the removal process. The beast was caught, after only one failed attempt due to a blood curdling scream from one of us (un-named).

Nastly blighters have a bite worse than a bee sting and can lead to some ulceration, vomiting, headaches (and ridiculous screaming from just walking about).

The beast was set free at the house across the road (number 19). We dont like them much over there, they seem to spend the whole time far too interested in everybody else's affairs - recommend they buy a TV, or concentrate on spider spotting.

Living in an old, creaky wooden house, built on a nice airy platform provides an unthinkably large spider kingdom under the house, and these white tails like to eat other spiders so there is plenty of prey nearby. Discovering that these Ozzie white tailed spiders like to live in clothes dropped on the floor, and in the bedsheets, did not lead to a good nights sleep last night but has lead to considerably more tidiness around the house.

Just when I thought NZ didnt have any nasty creatures (apart from the maligned Great White Shark) it's disappointing to discover such a nasty spider.

New Arrival for Gerald and Tresna - Timothy

2004-10-11T23:42:00.000+13:00

Many congratulations to Gerald and Tresna on the birth of their son Timothy.

Timothy has started life in the limelight on the front page of the national press. He is the first baby born in Auckland City Hospital's new birthing complex.

Here's Timothy in the papers

And here is a picture of the first baby born in the National Women's Hospital in 1964 - does this mean Timothy's photo will be wheeled out in the papers for ever more?!

Ann-Marie in her first triathlon

2004-10-10T18:22:00.000+13:00

Ann-Marie did her first ever triathon today with the Contours group. Quite a big deal now with 100 more entries than they could accomodate. This is a women's triathlon designed for people who have not done such things before.

The swim was a bit crazy with swimmers started in waves of 4-6 people side-by-side in the same lane. At the end of the first length they had to go under the lane ropes and back down the next length. Not a great way to swim a 100m. I timed the first group out and they seemed to take 1:40 or so, which is quite slow for 100m.

Exiting the swim (100m)

Finishing the bike (11k)

Second lap of the run (3.5k)

AM was 174th overall and 76th in her agegroup, which she wasnt very happy with but I thought it was pretty good!

Overall the event was great fun, despite a little rain on the day, and lots of people had a good time.

As usual on such occasions the prize giving was a drawn out affair with a similarly drawn out pot luck prize giving at the end. AM's friend Sarah's initial "woohoo" at winning, was soon quelled by her winning a duvet set - quite an odd triathlon prize. Another friend won some tea mugs! I would have thought a few Iron Man videos would've been a bit more appropriate!!!

Akaroa - Swimming with Dolphins - Airport

2004-10-09T23:14:00.000+13:00

Awoke early and got down to the Dolphin Experience shop an embarassing 15 minutes early (how will I live with the shame of arriving so early?).

Pretty soon the wetsuits (7mm) were forthcoming, along with booties, gloves, neoprene hood, mask, snorkel and flippers. We were feeling distinctly dubious about jumping in the ocean at this point, as it seemed a cold prospect.

Finally jumped on board the small boat and within 20 minutes were at the head of the harbour area where the dolphins hang out. Found a couple quite quickly but they weren't deemed sufficiently curious for our purposes. We also saw some Penguins (blue?) swimming about too.

Got all the gear (still a bit cold in there though)

Eventually we found another pod of 3 playmates who decided to stick around, so we were encouraged into the water. Uncharacteristically I went in first. I expected the first rush of cold water but anticipated I would soon feel warm. In the event it took quite some minutes before feeling warm. Gasping because of the cold is not a great way to relearn how a snorkel works but I got it eventually, as did Doug and Ann-Marie.

We were told the dolphins like noise so Ann-Marie was given a bike bell and we were all told to sing. It's quite difficult to come up with one's complete repetoir for the curious dolphin whilst gasping from cold and with a snorkel in your mouth but we each gave it a good go.

I thought Ann-Marie was making particularly impressive noises only later to discover it was instead Doug that was making all the noise. So much noise that a few more dolphins were required to inspect him (very impressed our ship captain, Chris, was too).

The visibility in the water was pretty poor, so as I got into my singing I was more than a bit alarmed when a dolphin came close to have an investigation. These Hector Dolphins are only little but are still the colour of killer whales and in their own domain! (killer whales recently spotted in the harbour, as is, we were unreliably informed, a great white!). Actually the wonders of the world wide web reveal that the shark thing was not as unreliable information as we thought, there is one that comes into the harbour at times.

Oh good, it was true about the shark thing then (we were reliability informed that in 100 years only 7 people have been attacked by sharks in NZ)

Glad we didnt see a great white whilst dressed in a seal costume

Actually the marine research centre we went to in Otago did explain quite clearly that Sharks are often close to the shore on the East Coast of new zealand as there is a warm water current near the coast coming across from Oz.

After making noises for curious dolphins for a while, for some reason I started singing the Jaws theme tune. This had the effect of scaring me witless, reinforced by bobbing up to the surface near the boat in a scene reminisant of the movie (in my crazed mind anyway). Dolphins seemed much less impressed with the tune but primarly because my brother was displaying all the features of a one-man band to keep them all entertained.

Starting to feel the cold, having swallowed lots of water (and plankton no doubt), and having scared myself silly with the jaws tune, I wasnt sure I wanted any more sudden close encouters with Orca coloured dolphins so i headed for home, content with having had a couple of decent looks.

Was pretty happy we missed out on the Orcas too (they like seals, I've seen the documentary where this was clearly conveyed)

What we did see were the world's smallest and rarest dolphins - Hector's dolphins!!

Likely to be a shot of Doug making all kinds of noises from his 'one-man band' gig attracting all kinds of interest from passing marine life

Image shamelessly nicked from the web but it gives an idea what we swam with!

Phew! Got back to port for about 11 to a hot shower (having consumed hot chocolate en route and narrowly avoided being sick - struggle a bit with sea legs).

Then we dashed back to Christchurch for Doug to pack, then dashed to the airport to put him on the plane home - just 5 minutes free for a long promised game or air hockey (Doug beat Ann-Marie) before saying our goodbyes.

Great trip! Think we packed quite a lot into the time we had in the end!

Oamaru - Cheese Factory - Timaru (AWFUL) - Ash Vegas - Akaroa Harbour

2004-10-08T23:17:00.000+13:00

We were happy to rediscover the sign for the Whitestone Cheese Factory and cafe first thing. We were even more impressed to hear the muffins were just coming out of the oven and to taste some cheese whilst we waited. Excellent service, very good cheese. What a great start to the day. As usual, Ann-Marie wasn't too keen to partake of the breakfast until the sound of the plate hitting the table sparked her appetite and the realisation struck that I would have to now share :-( !!!!

We headed up to Timaru for lunch and a game of 3 person pool, which is excellent. So glad Cheryl from our Calgary office taught me that! Sadly the pub we elected to play pool at was the least welcoming pub I've ever been in. In fact, the whole of the town of Timaru seemed cursed with some miserableness. We lingered too long and were glad to leave.

Further cursed by proximity with Timaru our attempts to book a dolphin swim in Akaroa on the Bank's Pennisula seemed elusive and we got a lot of unhelpfulness from one of the companys down there (the big one on the jetty!). In the end, Ann-Marie got lucky and booked us on a trip with a smaller operator called Dolphin Experience which worked out well for us. An 8.30 start the same day Doug was heading home - what a way to spend your last day in NZ!

On our way to the Banks Pennisula we couldn't help but visit the MacDonalds in Ashburton (known locally as Ash Vegas). This store is becoming famous for a potential marketing blunder through the proud display of a costume once worn by a visiting Ronald MacDonald. The size of the costume needed to house the veritable Ronald seems to give further weight to the recent outcry about the unhealthiness of MacDonalds food.

Keep eating that food and YOU TOO could become the next Ronald MacDonald!

As we began across the Banks Penninsula our thoughts were with the rumoured excellent Cafe at Little River (AM had been there before with B) which also houses the
Little River Gallery. Great place to stop.

Found a great motel by the harbour quite near the excellent Ma Maison restaurant. This restaurant was the only one willing to serve us after 9pm and were very friendly and the food great!

Before we ate (and the reason we were so late to dinner) was that we decided to go for a little run (a bit risky given Doug's marathon pedigree). Fun trot around the harbour with some interval and hill training thrown in for good measure (which I think we were supposed to be grateful for!).

Overall we really enjoyed the feel of the somewhat french Akaroa!

Dunedin - Marine Research Station - Moeraki Boulders - Oamaru - Penguins!

2004-10-07T21:41:00.000+13:00

Up quite early and headed for the 10.30 tour at the Marine Research Lab and Aquarium on the Otago Pennisula.

Interesting tour, saw a few sea-horses (some courting), phyto plankton under the microscope and realised we probably swallow these when we swim in the sea (YUK), sea cucumbers, native fish, small sharks and that sort of thing. Interesting tour which ended with a play in the "touch tank" where we got to poke star fish and sea cucumbers and velvety molluscs.

We then headed over to the Albatross Colony, only to find lots of construction work going on and the Albatross viewing closed for the courting period. Cafe was fortunately opened and is still very good! A quick stroll down to the seal beach and time for another arty photo...

Self portrait!

Not to mention another odd brothers shot

Once again, note differences in height, hair and style

Then we jumped in the car and wended our way off the peninsula and up the coast to the Moeraki Boulders, which transpired to be another excuse for a photo opportunity.

AM on funny rocks

Doug jumps from driftwood!

Three wise monkeys

Hatching photo (I bet nobody thought of that before!)

After so much silliness we headed further up the coast to see some penguins in Oamaru. Early in the evening, the Yellow-eyed penguin colony comes ashore in one sheltered bay (they then climb up the hillside and hide amongst the trees. We didnt have to wait long to see the first of the penguins waddle ashore. Always impressed by these!

Yellow-eyed penguins

Then we drove 5 minutes to the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony for an impressive display. The colony's habitat is managed to protect the penguins and at the same time allow tourist to see them. The Penguins come ashore after dusk, sometimes followed by a Hooker sealion, and unfortunately a couple of domestic cats the night we were there. The penguins waddle in from the sea in groups, whilst waiting penguins wander out to meet them. Much noise follows as they reacquaint themselves and throughout the night we are told.

This eco-tourism is closely monitored and this colony in particular is a useful control group, which is demonstrating greater breeding success than other groups without this kind of human contact so it seems the tourism is not damaging at a basic level. Sure was a good show though!

Blue penguins coming home for the night

Driving out of the colony we had to be careful to watch for penguins on the road, as you can see.

After that spectacular we were a bit chilly and hungry so headed back into town for a curry. We were lucky to find them open at this late hour (after 9) - the staff there were amazed to hear tell of Indian Restaurants open for business at 11pm at night in the UK!!! Again, another night in a decent motel followed.

Milford Sound - Kayaking Around - Drove to Dunedin

2004-10-06T23:49:00.000+13:00

Awoke fairly early in time for our pick-up at the lodge at 8.30 by a super jolly guide (Will) from Fiordland Wilderness Experience. We awoke early mindful of our previous trip with FWE where we managed a super faff about 6am outside Bill and Daphne's house in preparation for our multi-day Doubtful Sound trip.

Geared up and ready to go. Yet another example that one brother has style (even in rented clothing) and one seems sadly lacking

Gear for the Milford Trip was a little less comprehensive than what we got for the previous trip to Doubtful Sound. We were only issued 2 hats instead of three(!), and got a wetsuit vest rather than long john suit, and the boats were plastic instead of fibre glass. Overall though, we have been extremely impressed with the gear and general organisation of the FWE tours on both this trip and the Doubtful Sounds trip.

Ann-Marie at the rudder end

What a spot for a lunch break!

Will supplied hot drinks but was rather taken aback that only one of us Brits wanted Tea!! We took the lunch opportunity to look at the map and were quite surprised that we'd seen penguins swimming near "penguin tree" on the map, and a seal on a rock at about "seal rock". This made us begin to suspect that this was some kind of elaborate robot show and checked the map again in case we'd missed "Dolphin Corner".

After lunch the kayaking got a bit more strenuous as we got into a more exposed part of the sound before we rafted up the kayaks. Actually, this was quite a performance as the kayaks needed to raft up altogether to make sure they were all still facing the same way before the current turned the raft around. One crazy girl on the rudder of my brothers boat managed to crash into everyone and continually zig zag making rafting up in rather large waves quite tricky and tiring. We eventually got it sorted and stuck a sail up to head back to base.

The sail proved less effective than we'd seen in Doubtful Sound. Perhaps due to the wind, or the plastic boats, or bigger raft - still fun though. Dodging the shipping lane was also quite entertaining. Will was trying to tell a Maori legend but kept getting distracted by our sailing troubles and shipping lane. It was quite a long story!

AM, Doug and me in Sandfly Point (sure enough, Sandflies in evidence)

Overall we had an EXCELLENT trip for a very good price, with a great guide. Wouldn't hesisitate to recommend these FWE folks to anyone, they really know what they're doing and their guides are excellent (well, Adrian and Will are anyway).

At the end of a long day we opted for a long drive to Dunedin to continue our trip. Doug did loads of the driving tonight, the first time he has easily stayed awake into the night.

A little way out of the tunnel from Milford Sound we came upon quite a number of Kea and stopped to say hello, and to give them the chance to tear our car apart.

Kea Patrol

Kea up close and personal (Whose idea was it to open the door?)

We hastily left, just about unscathed and just about free from extra passengers. For wild animals, Kea are very tame.

Had a reasonable feed at the "Howl at the Moon" in Gore. Managed to catch Doug out a bit with the specials board, which we had earlier deduced was exactly the same as the menu. It went like this, "don't forget to check out the specials board". "OK, hey, that Blue Cod is on the menu as well". The whole specials board was on the menu too, very odd decoration. Happy to leave that place and get to Dunedin for 11.30pm to a pretty decent motel.

Wanaka - Queenstown - Te Anau - Milford Sound

2004-10-05T17:10:00.000+13:00

Awoke to discover the ski roads were closed because of the wind. It was a fairly marginal call but rather than wait around to see if they eventually opened, we headed further south.

Having never been to Queenstown we swung by for a look and some breakfast. After somewhat surly service at Vu Du cafe (pretty ok food though) we did a bit of wandering around the shops only to return to our car, parked in a free car park, proudly displaying a parking ticket (where are those pesky Alpine parrots when you need them to attach loose bits of your car). So, stroppily paid up the $60. Pretty pathetic parking offence if you ask me, not exactly in anybody's way and parked way out of the town centre!

Began the long journey south to Te Anau and arranged a kayaking trip on Milford Sound for the next day with Fiordland Wilderness Experience - an excellent kayaking company we had used for our previous trip to Doubtful Sound.

There is only one place to stay in Milford Sound, the Lodge - very nice backpackers style accomodation - so we booked this too.

As we arrived in Te Anau we headed for a bird sanctuary run by the Department of Conservation (DOC) on the Road to lake Manapouri. Surprised we missed this last time round since this place has a live Takahe (a native flightless bird) to take a look at (though she's quite old).

Prehistoric looking and very rare Takahe

Quite a bit bigger than a Pukeko!

Pukeko for comparison - you see these all over the place. They seem to be thriving, perhaps because they can fly.

Following our bird observations (we also saw a Kaka and a number of other interesting bits and bobs), we headed to Te Anu for a coffee and a bit of shopping in preparation for our big kayaking adventure (and to buy some dinner to cook later).

Doug and AM soon figured out how to make my new taste for the Chai Latte seem a bit weak - look at the size of their coffees!

The drive up to Milford Sound was pretty impressive and yet 2 more hours from Te Anau. Amazing scenery ending in a small hole cut-out in the rock, which road signs reliably informed us was a "tunnel". This tunnel was hewn from the rock using hand tools and looked like it too. We drove in, flicked our lights on and expected ours eyes to adjust to the dark. They didn't. The tunnel was not lit. Eventually the road surface revealed it's potholes too. Gratefully emerging the other side we were greeted by more signs saying "NO STOPPING AVALANCHE ZONE" and you could believe it. We popped out of the tunnel into a HUGE rock bowl with extremely steep sides covered with the remnants of Spring snow (big remnants!). After about 5km we were allowed to stop, according to the road signs.

Finally got to the Lodge, checked in and showed Doug where the kitchen was (he's good at stuff like that). I took charge of mixing the ingredients for the world's most expensive trail mix, for lunch the next day.

A game of Yahtzee in the communal lounge was all we had time for before the generator was switched off for the night and the lights went out (11pm).

Rainforest Motel - Fox Glacier - Salmon Farm - Haast (DESPERATE) - Wanaka (phew)

2004-10-04T16:36:00.000+13:00

Doug was away early for a run to have a look at the Fox Glacier. We then got in the car and left our nice motel (lots of these motels have 2 bedrooms so are a bargain for multiple occupants!).

Pretty miserable day so we aimed to drive a lot. Our first stop was in Paringa at a salmon farm.

Salmon farm where you can feed the fish, and then go and eat some. Very nice cafe.

Next stop, was a 3km hike through some woods to a beach which is home to a fiordland crested penguin colony. Great walk through the woods, but they were indeed SHY penguins as we saw none (probably wrong time of day too, Penguins seem to come ashore at dusk).

Forest walk

Iconic new fern, also tasty bush tucker in this form (quite nutty) - perhaps why it is of importance to the Maori culture symbolising new beginnings, growth and harmony

AM on the beach

The shy penguins we didn't see

Art (by Doug) amongst driftwood a little further down the coast

More art (by Doug)

Silly picture (by Doug)

The low point of the day was looking for food in Haast. What a dump. If you are heading down this way I recommend you plan to avoid Haast and prepare yourselves for the long drive to Wanaka.

Finally arrived in Wanaka! Missed out on the wacky cinema because we were running a bit late but had an amazing feed and great service, and fantastic beer at the Kai Whakapai Café - highly recommended. Great veggie food especially, and did I mention the beer? This was recommended by the motel which we stayed at, which was also pretty good, the Brookvale motel (we have previously had some pretty awful motels in Wanaka).

News from the motel also suggested that the skiing was still great at the local resorts here such as Cardrona and Treble Cone.

Hokitika - Franz Josef Glacier - Fox Glacier - Cafe Neve

2004-10-03T21:06:00.000+13:00

Went shopping in Hokitika first thing, nice place to look at Jade and suchlike.

Then headed off to the Franz Josef Glacier for a trip out there. Had a great time messing around in the glacier where claustrophobia seemed somewhat more of a problem than fear of heights, which worked well for me but less well for Ann-Marie!

Our guides split us into 2 groups, with Shane taking the more adventurous group. We nearly hestitated too long on that one because adventurous for a Kiwi is usually pretty exceptional, but this was all done by tourist standards so we were ok.

I'm just realising the differences between me and Doug are not limited to me being tall and dark and him being short and fair. There are differences in COOL too.

Doug in crevace

AM in crevace (less happy about it)

Carl in crevace, oddly ecstatic about it

Doug and AM on the glacier

Carl, once again happily getting soaked in an ice hole photo

Doug and AM making good their escape

We have to admitt that Shame was an EXCELLENT GUIDE. The guides talk to each other about which routes are accessible and which are filled with water as they wend through the glacier. Listening to the radio it was quite funny to hear Shane's colleagues recommend him avoid certain crevaces which were "filled with water" with his, "should be 'right" attitude. Several times he had to explain that the next few steps were a bit under the water line. One time the pond was so deep he braced himself across it and pushed us past him so we couldnt fall in. Very entertaining!!!

As we got off the ice we jumped in the car and headed a bit further south and ended up in the town associated with Fox Glacier. The place was pretty deserted so we were a bit miffed about the high rates being charged by motels which were clearly totally deserted with tumble weed blowing through the forecourt. So I suggest AM and Doug work hard to get a deal at the next one, which they duely did (though i never heard the last of it). Of course I couldnt drive a deal myself looking like I had been in a brawl (chin split open from skiing).

We managed to get a table at what we'd be told was the best cafe on the west coast, Cafe Neve. Really nice food and great service. The entertainment improved somewhat as we heard one chillean waitress say to the other in Spanish that she quite liked the German guy who just left. We timed well our comment "De donde eres?" (where are you from) and she screamed, and later explained that not many people speak spanish around there!

Christchurch - Castle Hill Rocks - Cheeseman Skiing - Arthurs Pass - Hokitika - Glow Worm Dell

2004-10-02T15:36:00.000+12:00

This is the first day of our holiday. We set off rather late due to a bit of a faff with gear, which is probably mostly my fault for not being ready.

However, after about an hour we arrived in Castle Hill a rock climber's bouldering heaven and generally nice place to muck about.

Carl on Castle Hill rocks

Competition for best artistic interpretation of tree amid rocks

Doug - "the karate kid" (on rocks)

Someone (Doug) said this looked like the sort of scenary used for dodgey photo shoots, this is dodgey photo shoot picture number 1

This is dodgey photo shoot picture number 2 (nude foot)

More civilised rock shot!

Next we decided to head towards Mt Cheeseman for a spot of spring skiing at one of the club fields. We discovered that Cheeseman is not very easy for beginners. This is mainly due to the cat tracks which are essentially the only ways down the bottom part of the runs - quite tricky. Didn't much like the lack of friendliness of the club scene here either but perhaps they were a bit off as it was the last day of skiing. Certainly prefered the Lyford club ski field more.

Cheeseman not good for beginners - the evidence

Injuries didn't prevent us messing about

Next we headed off through Arthurs Pass to Hokitika to a nice motel we'd stayed at before called the Jade Court Motel.

At the motel we enquired about the local Glow Worm Dell. The girl there said she hadnt noticed any glowworms there last time she went, but she admitted there were other things on her mind at that time (hmm).

We had more luck and saw lots of glow worms down there, very interesting.

Doug played a pretty good stunt on us and really caught Ann-Marie with it (we could tell because she punched us quite hard). The glowworms were quite hard to see and were fenced off. Doug showed us one on the path but saying we could get a better look at it. This one glowed pink not green though - it was in fact the glow keyring on our car keys!

This was actually the second time today we'd caught AM out. Doug has some crazy sausage shaped sandbags filled with silicone to put in smelly boots to remove the moisture. I managed to convince AM they were a training aid for running that you wear on your running top to work the arms. OUCH, i got punched for that one too!

Overall a fun day. We nearly missed out on food but found something willing to serve after 8.30 (I kid you not). This was a place called the filling station on account of it being an old garage.

nice breakfast & bike spill

2004-10-01T21:29:00.000+12:00

Doug seems to be losing his flu now after a good deal of retail therapy yesterday. This morning we all headed up to a great cafe on Dyers Road, which would have had a great view had it been a clear day. Great food!

I cycled back along the summit Road to get on with work, whilst Doug went to town for more shopping. Unfortunately i seemed to fall off the bike and graze my knee. Embarassment led to quick recovery and continuing home!

Lord of the Rings RISK

2004-10-01T21:17:00.000+12:00

For some reason we decided that playing Lord of the Rings RISK would be a good start to our holiday.

Here's how the board looked by the time we decided to pack it in and fall asleep.

Doug - Yellow (but really playing Evil), Ann-Marie - Red (clearly playing Evil), Carl - Green (playing Good, and already losing).

One day, we vowed, we'd finish this battle!

Kiwi resourcefulness noticeable through towbars!

2004-10-01T13:23:00.001+12:00

Lots of cars have towbars here, perhaps 50%. Think this is a clear indication of kiwi resourcefulness.

Maori cultural show and Kiwi bird santuary - Willowbank

2004-09-30T13:35:00.000+12:00

Went to willowbank wildlife santuary to show Doug the Kiwi birds, and some Maori cultural show, which included more audience participation than we would have liked. In fact, the audience was smaller than the group of performers, which led to a bit more awkwardness. Overall a good night though, but had to rush back for a meeting at work at 22:00pm which was just as well, Doug's jetlag catches up with him a bit at night!

Here's Bob

You should see this blogger entry, which i sent by email!

2004-09-29T15:40:00.000+12:00

Blogger allows you to post blog entries by email. So this is an example, I hope, from me testing it out!

Could be cool!

Warmer today, cold wind, snow in the mountains

2004-09-29T15:08:00.000+12:00

All the rain yesterday fell as snow in the mountains, so mount hutt had a 30cm and needs chains on from the bottom of the road to get up there. Sounds like excellent conditions today as it is very sunny now, though the wind is cold.

North-Westerly tomorrow is forecast so the roads to the ski fields could be shut.

COLD (and wet)

2004-09-28T16:49:00.000+12:00

Awoke to rain. Also very cold. Where'd the warm weather go?! My brother Doug arrives today, AM said at least he will believe how cold it is here at times! Actually it's not really that cold per se, just that the house has no central heating and no effective insulation!

WARM AGAIN (snow forecast)

2004-09-27T16:49:00.000+12:00

Although it has been lovely and warm for the second day running, Ann-Marie tells me we have snow coming :-(

WARM ALL DAY

2004-09-26T16:46:00.000+12:00

For the first day today it has been very warm indeed all day - too hot to sit out in the sun. Seems to be like that here on clear days but hasnt stayed this hot all day so far. Nice to have warm hands (typing hard with cold hands).

Botanical Gardens Spring Walk (and big freeze)

2004-09-19T21:43:00.000+12:00

Went for a great spring walk with the friends of the botanical gardens, most in their 60s and 70s. As usual, the walk was led by Max, a very nice and knowledgeable old guy (who hates roses!).

Max showed us lots of Magnolias, cherries, and all manner of nice trees. It really is a nice garden.

During the walk though, the wind changed to a southery and the temperature plumetted and we once again needed to seek shelter from the cold!

The plumetting temperature was particularly odd given how hot it was at the start of the day - we went out wearing sun hats and sun cream!

Casino Breakfast with swimming club

2004-09-19T11:36:00.000+12:00

The QE2 swimming club under Quentin's friendly leadership, went to the casino for a big slap up breakfast. Because more than 40 of us showed up, it cost $10 each (£4) for a big slap up buffet. Quentin is a bit of a hero organising something like that!

After a long breakfast we wandered into the casino itself and the slot machines. Neville was playing the slots so I pulled up a seat at the next machine, just to be sociable. I put in $2, not knowing that Neville was somehow feeding in $20 notes! On the first go, Neville explained how to choose my win lines, and that I should choose 9 lines. Ann-Marie hit 'go' and we won! Well, we didnt just win, we won again and again, our win score just kept accumulating! We had to gamble a couple of times, which we won too. In the end, for my first $1 bet we won $76!

So,
breakfast $20 ($10 each)
gambling $2
Winnings $76

Total $54 (£20) CREDIT and a free breakfast!!!

Mexican Independence Day Dance - Salsa

2004-09-18T13:40:00.000+12:00

Went to the Mexican Independence Day celebration. Actually not that many mexicans there but quite a lot of south americans and local salsa clubs showing off on the dance floor.

My knowledge of salsa is extremely poor. You can only do the basic steps for so many dances, amid people spinning around all over the place. I tried to tire Ann-Marie out by spinning her lots and lots but I couldnt persuade her off the dance floor.

Salsa is hard work! Would much rather sit around and play risk! Or air hockey!!!

Arrived back in chilly christchurch

2004-09-15T23:35:00.000+12:00

Chilly again here!

St Kilda

2004-09-12T21:30:00.000+12:00

Not much time left today so we headed to St Kilda for brunch. This place seems to be a cross between southend on sea, with amusement park and a very nice beach (unlike southend) and camden town. Lots of arty alternative types. We werent hungry enough to eat everywhere that looked interesting but we managed to get to 'lentil as anything', a hippy veggie restaurant where the customer decides how much to pay for what they eat.

During our earlier brunch we saw people outside walking down the middle of the road, amongst the traffic, in wetsuits and wiggling large fish (recently dead), followed by a camera crew. Oddly enough, we met the group at the next thing that caught our eye - the eco-house. Actually it was a good time to visit the eco-house since they were having an open day and we could talk with the architect, though he lost interest when he realised we were not potential new business! We did rather like their port hole lights, shining direct light from the roof to the downstairs rooms! Nice light!

Healesville Animal Sanctuary!!! (and the snakeman)

2004-09-11T21:15:00.000+12:00

Finally made it to the Animal Sanctuary at Healesville, thanks to Noel lending me his car again. Well, what an amazing place. Very nice to see koalas up close but the kangaroos were the nicest, so friendly! (tame!). Lots of interesting birds too.

friendly roos

active koala (rare - must've been the rain and cold!)

normal koala

tasmanian devil

A highlight was a meet the keeper do with the Snake man. He had a very clear message, 'snakes are much maligned and are not agressive'. He delivered a pretty good speech to that effect, whilst a tiger snake (4th deadlist venomus snake!) was making its way across the floor towards his feet. He lovingly picked it up (with a metal snake rod thing in one hand to keep the head away from him) and unstressed, played around with the snake, which also seemed relaxed.

He explained that if you get bitten by a snake in Oz, which 3000 people a year do (though only 3 die), you should not clean the wound but just wrap a bandage around it, with the kind of pressure you would put on a sprained ankle. You dont clean the wound because hospitals will scrape around it to get traces of venom to put in their venom kit to find out how to treat you. The snake man said you are in safe hands with a snake bite in Oz, and you dont need to kill the snake and take it with you to hospital - mainly because a lot of hospital staff will never have seen a snake and will not be able to identify it! Cooper Heads in particular are hard to identify.

At the end of the talk we waited around to ask a few more questions. I explained that in Costa Rica I was told that if bitten by a snake, you must kill the snake, so they know how to treat you. Snake man said that may be true there.

We got talking about the fact that snakes we perceive dangerous, like cobras, actually have no reason to bite a person. Their venom is not fast acting enough to save the snakes life if they bite someone, so he reasoned, they really don't want to bite something big because it does them no good, though they might bluff.

We got on to kinds of snakes who DO have man as prey. There are apparently 4, the reticulated pythons, which can reach 40ft in size, and the Anaconda is also a possible man eater. The snake man said that you have to be really careful with reticulated pythons in captivity. You never go in their cage alone - they are treated with the same respect as a Tiger. Apparently these snakes can launch themselves at you and drag you back into their coils very quickly indeed. Within a minute you would not be breathing.

What the snakeman had not noticed during his pouring forth on man eating snakes, was that other visitors were walking past as he was talking. His message of, 'Australian snakes arent dangerous' was a bit lost on passers by who heard him enthusiastically explaining how a reticulated python snatches you in its mount and drags you into its coils. He looked up once and quickly reiterated his standard message.

Quite funny!

Sadly Melbourne got extremely cold very quickly during out visit to the santuary leading us to take santuary in the cafe, which was very good, before heading back to town.

saw a magpie too - nice looking things down this way!

Ann-Marie returns to Oz - now at the Park Hyatt

2004-09-10T21:11:00.000+12:00

Ann-Marie had to go back to NZ for a week to work but I had to stay on longer than expected in Oz, so she returned for the weekend. This time we stayed at the Park Hyatt and Art Deco hotel done out like a ship. A very nice hotel and nice to get some Hyatt slippers (my Gran's name is Hyatt!).

You see parrots all over the place, here's one we saw in the botanical gardens...

Melbourne Zoo

2004-09-05T21:56:00.000+12:00

We had hoped to drive up to Healesville animal sanctuary but ran out of time and instead made for the city zoo. Am always in 2 minds about zoos but these days they at least seem actively involved in educational programmes and genetic custodianship for endangered species.

At this zoo things mostly seemed ok but the ape pit seemed very limited and the tiger enclosure quite small for such an impressive beast.

Ann-Marie asked if we could join a tour of the zoo. I'm not sure how we managed it but we got our own tour guide (free) from the friends of the zoo. Just a volunteer but a well informed one and very enthusiastic.

The Great Ocean Road - "A Very Long Way"

2004-09-04T21:38:00.000+12:00

Noel from our office in Melbourne arranged my trip. He went out of his way to make us feel welcome and was generally a superstar, he even loaned us his car - for 2 weekends!

The Great Ocean Road is THE drive to make from Melbourne but it's quite a long way, even though it doesnt look far on the map because the road is quite a twisty tourist road. When the second person explained to us, "go through Geelong, which isnt far, wait, you're english, well it's a Long Way to Geelong then". It seems Aussies realise Brits dont share the same concept of driving distances! Actually I think it's quite a big problem that Aussies routinely drive quite long distances given the number of roadsigns out there reminding you to take a break and not fall asleep at the wheel (or "zone out").

The news about the twisty roads was quite funny too. On the great ocean road, the road is quite wide, it has crash barriers and no rocks in the road - after New Zealand ski roads (and normal roads), it was a nice relaxing drive.

The Great Ocean Road is however a really nice drive, over stretches roadsigns warn things like 'kangaroos 7km'; 'koalas 5km'; 'echidnea 3km' etc. At one stage Ann-Marie said, "stop" and we pulled over to take a look at some parrots in the trees by the road (Victoria seems full of parrots). On another occasion she claimed to see a koala but there was nowhere to pull over then (and koalas arent exactly circus performers - they mostly sit like a big ball asleep (drunk!) in the trees).

We eventually got to the 12 apostles towards the end of the day. These are rock stacks left by and erroding cliff face along the beach. Very impressive. From there we headed to the next town for a cup of tea and far too much cake!

We headed back in-land in the pitch dark. Quite exciting really not really knowing the kind of bush or forest we were driving through and not knowing what was out there, apart from miscellaneous marsupials, snakes, etc!

We returned, and navigated back to the hotel through a tram crammed city, very grateful to Noel for the loan of the car.

Dinner - Shakahari. Saw Possums just chilling out on the way

2004-09-03T15:29:00.000+12:00

Found a nice veggie restaurant for dinner in Melbourne. People seem to dine out late here, unlike in NZ where people seem to dine early and go to bed early!

Was odd to see possums in a park on the way to the restaurant. Odd because in NZ you never really see Possums just sitting around, half tame, on the grass in a park. Oh no! Possums are a MAJOR PEST in NZ and EVERYBODY knows it. Your most pacificist, vegetarian, nice person kiwi becomes a desperate killer when confronted with a Possum and must do all they can to extinguish it's life. I'm not joking either. The Aussies seemed a bit shocked when I told them that! I wouldnt be surprised if NZ introduced a law requiring visitors to exit the country with a Possum Pelt tax to show they have killed their quota! Kiwi's arent naturally savage! It's just that the possum is such a big pest here that balance needs to be restored. Possums eat eggs of ground dwelling birds, well, in fact possums do all kinds of other damage too, like to the trees.

Got a tram back to the hotel - interesting tram system, makes it quite hard to drive around. There's even a special turn manoeuve for cars to stay out of the way of trams called a 'hook right' turn.

Arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

2004-09-02T21:23:00.000+12:00

Arrived in Melbourne today. Went to the Smallworld Office in town to say hello and hot desk.

Immediately noticed that Melbourne is quite warm compared with christchurch, though is a little more humid, even at this time of year.

Melbonians (how close does that sound to Elbonians of Dilbert fame?!) are very nice but are a smart suit wearing people. Don't sound as much like Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee as I expected, in fact their accents are much much softer than kiwi accents!

Royce hotel, a five star hotel we got on a last minute deal, is ok, but is not really what you'd expect from a five star hotel. Actually it used to be a car show room, for posh cars presumably! One thing that was nice though, was that although we turned up with rucksacks, nobody got sniffy about it at the front desk!

impressed with the drive through bottle shop

Transfer money to New Zealand - easily and cheaply

2004-08-31T18:04:00.000+12:00

Just wanted to write this somewhere since it's such a good thing. If you ask a UK bank to send money to a NZ bank account you will be looking at around £70 charge for that. All avenues seemed expensive until I discovered www.tranzfers.com who can transfer your money for you for just £7.

How it works:
1. sign up for an account with www.tranzfers.com
2. set up a transfer with tranzfers, detail what bank you want the money to go in to, the amount, and where you want the money to come from
3. tranzfers send you a confirmation email telling you they are ready to go with the transfer but you must send them the money first
4. using a UK internet bank 'bill payment' (I use Smile), which is free, you transfer the funds to the tranzfers UK bank account.
5. money appears in NZ account a few days later

When i first tried this I was a little worried about the whole thing but it works really well - I've done it 3 times now. Tranzfers always keep you in the loop about what is going on with emails.

An extra neat feature you elect to use, if you transfer more than £5000, is to hold the money on suspense, and pick the day you want the transfer to go through - this allows you to wait until the exchange rate is optimal before shifting the cash.

Big run, little bike

2004-08-28T18:39:00.000+12:00

Mary and her local friend Jo, are in training for the Coast to Coast Multisport Race in February (Mary is doing the bike and kayak, and Jo is doing the running). This weekend they wanted a run so we suggested Captain Thomas, out to Godley Head, down into Taylor's Mistake and then up and over again into Sumner.

It took them about 1:45 and they looked pretty fresh at the end of it. We intended to stay ahead of them on the bikes but what with steep climbs and thick mud and our lack of fitness they pretty much stayed ahead of us most of the way!

I reckon that is a pretty awesome run so I'm keen to have a crack at it one day soon.

Visiting Dentist

2004-08-28T18:26:00.000+12:00

Mary's a friend of AM's who's been visiting for a few days as she attends the dental conference in Christchurch.

We went to meet Mary from the conference today. Quite spooky to walk around the conference exhibition stands as they were packing up all kinds of dodgey looking dental apparatus. Surprising to see how much cake and chocolate was around the place though!

After the conference we had a nice cuppa in Strawberry Fair before heading to town to play 3-person rules Pool* and silly games like air hockey, basketball and Southpark Pinball at the local amusements. Finally came home and got loads of food from Indian Sumner (fantastic) and drank lots of the wine Mary showed up with.

*3-person Pool rules are great. Cheryl Sherwood from our Canadian office showed me how to play this. Each player has 5 balls and the object of the game is for them to keep their balls on the table and pot everyone else's balls. After the first person pots their first ball, they nominate which set of 5 balls they want. So, if someone pots ball number 13, they would choose either balls 1-5 or 6-10 as theirs. When the second person pots something, they choose their set of 5. Other pool rules pretty much as normal.

Ironside House Cafe - Tai

2004-08-27T18:35:00.000+12:00

Had some nice Tai food at the Ironside House Cafe on the corner of Montreal and Salisbury with Mary's friends Jane and Dean. Nice grub!

Auckland: Smallworld NZ User Group

2004-08-25T18:12:00.000+12:00

Great to be invited to Auckland to talk at the Smallworld NZ User Group meeting about Goal-Directed Design. Exceptionally good to find so many of our customers interested in design and usability and the process we adopt to achieve it.

Great to catch up with Suzanne and Greg too.

Auckland was nice and warm too - a nice change!

Japanese festival: Sushi Demo

2004-08-23T21:50:00.000+12:00

We thought we were going to be able to try our hand at making Sushi in a posh Japanese restaurant but alas it was just a demo, but we got a piece to eat in the end.

Am thinking I quite like Sushi! Healthy too!

Too many lemons

2004-08-22T21:48:00.000+12:00

What are we going to do with all these lemons? Our lemon tree is going bananas despite the snow!

Ann-Marie idea #2 - pancakes

Japanese festival: ikebana

2004-08-22T21:06:00.000+12:00

Went to see an ikebana display. Quite interesting but at the end of the day, flower arranging is not really my bag!

This is the kind of thing we saw!

Yoga

2004-08-21T21:54:00.000+12:00

Did a proper Yoga session this morning to start the weekend. 1.5 hours of pain. Amazing workout, we are learning not to underestimate yoga sessions! Mind you, found chanting the mantra a bit much so stuck with the 'Uuummmmmmmm'!

Film: Plots with a View

2004-08-21T21:41:00.000+12:00

Finally got to see a good film! We went out to see I Robot but it was on at stupid times so we saw Plots with a View instead. Very funny and original plot! We had a nice feed of sushi just before the film too, very nice.

We saw 'Mrs Caldicot's cabbage war' on DVD recently too, and it was quite good. And 'The Whale Rider', a Maori story was very good. Actually, American Splendor, about a real life comic book hero called Harvey Pekar was very good too.

However, we've mostly seen lots of unoriginal or just rubbish films or DVDs recently including:
- Rats (rubbish)
- 28 Days Later (unoriginal - like the 1971 Charlton Heston film 'the omega man')
- The Navigators (dull film about workers affected by British Rail privatisation)

Intellectual pursuits

2004-08-20T21:46:00.000+12:00

Not having a TV leads us to not only miss the Olypics but also develop more intellectual pursuits, like playing board games.

Mancala is also a big favourite!

Princess Margaret Norovirus

2004-08-19T21:08:00.000+12:00

The Press - Norovirus closes Christchurch hospital wards - Ann-Marie's job has changed a bit recently with a norovirus hitting the hospital where she works. Pretty nasty stuff requiring staff and visitors to wear gloves, gowns and masks for a lot of the day, and undertake pretty intensive cleaning duties, and handle infection security issues to isolate infected wards.

As the newspaper article explains, one ward was intensively cleaned only to be reinfected shortly afterwards.

Japanese Festival in Christchurch: Taiko Drum and Choir Performance

2004-08-16T21:06:00.000+12:00

Fantastic performance from both choir and drummers - many members of the group in both the choir and drum section.

Excellent show. Great piano, especially the way the grand piano was adapted to sound like a Japanese instrument by placing a magazine on the strings! Quite amusing that during a later piece the pianist forgot it was there!

More Antics at Mt Hutt

2004-08-15T21:44:00.000+12:00

After staying the night in Methven, albeit without toothbrushes or spares of any description, we decided we may as well head back up Mount Hutt today for some more skiing. The snow report suggested that hats and googles would be essential today - we later realised this was probably a disguised warning to stay away.

As we hit the road it quickly became apparent that we would need chains on our car right from the start of the 14km ride up the main part of the track. Duely fitted we cruised over snow and ice, dodging recent rock falls, right to the top. Pretty soon we couldn't help noticing the whiteout conditions caused by a combination of low cloud and wind distribution of recent snow. Not knowing much about skiing we didnt know what the ski fields would be like to ski on, so we carried on.

On arrival we paid up and had a go at skiing. Quite tricky! The heavy overnight snow had changed the slopes considerably and combined with the whiteout conditions made things quite tricky. Well, that's to say the least of it - a couple of times I shot over shelves which had not been there yesterday to discover what ski jumping is all about, at least in concept.

Towards the afternoon we both played around on the novice slopes a lot though I later found that because these are right next to a steep bank of snow, the whiteout conditions were worse there and you really couldnt see much.

By about 3pm the tow lifts shut, an hour early! The lifties explained that the road was once again shut and they needed to get people down. With the recent memory of being stuck up the mountain we got our act together to line up for our descent. In the event things were not too bad. The road crew ensured chains were on all vehicles, that everyone stayed spaced out a lot, and we started out 16km back to the main road (in first gear - the poor car!).

Things seemed in control until we passed the first 4x4 in the ditch at the side of the road (you really dont want to fall off the other side of the road!!). Soon after we were further delayed, which at first was helpful as it gave use chance to try and do something with our frozen wipers (unhelpful in snowing & whiteout conditions when descending on ice and snow with a sheer drop to one side).

It turned out that another 4x4 had turned sideways around the corner and the next car had run into it. At this point we started to doubt our little 2 wheeled drive toyota. Nearer the bottom of the mountain the ice got worse - a fact which became clear as we saw our 4th crashed car.

Eventually making it back to the tarmac road we had to continue for a while with the chains on so deep was the snow.

Getting the chains off was not the ordeal it has been, since we're getting quite practiced now but it still involves laying in the road under the car, so it's quite messy.

Driving back we were keen to get a cup of tea or something as the driving, with deep snow all around and the roads only gritted, not salted, was quite tough. We had previously written off Darfield as a tea stop opportunity but this time we came up trumps. As we headed out of town, disappointment already setting in, we came upon a 'pub and cafe' sign, for a place which I think is the Terrace Pub & Cafe. We were very surprised to get a really very good homemade pizza there and to sit on the sofas by the fire to eat it. Really nice spot which we will revisit I'm sure.

Stranded at Mount Hutt with 500 others

2004-08-14T21:00:00.000+12:00

Awoke early to check the snow report. Slopes were reportedly windy but open so we headed up there. We didnt pass all that much ski traffic on the way up there so we expected it to be quiet - in the event it was busy enough but not overly so. Nice that we didnt need chains for the 14km drive up the side of the mountain.

Early on the wind wasnt too much of a problem but by lunchtime the chairlift was staying shut and by early afternoon the T-bar finally gave up. The skiing wasnt too bad but the wind was blowing the snow around a lot making it a bit hard to see. In fact the North Easterly wind has blown a lot of snow right off the mountain with many more exposed rocks than last weekend.

I had another lesson with Squatty, a senior instructor from Colorado. I think I've reached the stage with my skiing where further improvement is elusive. Trying to switch from turning too sharply and braking on every turn to making smoother carving turns is very hard. I'm falling over much more now than I ever have!

We headed off the slopes around 3.30 to get home early for Miranda's 30th birthday party. We were taken aback to find out the road down the mountain was closed due to the high winds. Everyone was hurried to their cars to try and get them off the mountain.

Sitting in the carpark was pretty unpleasant with the wind rocking the car strongly. Although the carpark is big, it ends in a sheer drop (which they bungee jump off, of course). So being the nearest car to the edge, although 30ft away, wasnt a whole lot of fun. After a while the road crews decided all cars needed chains on and set about helping everyone sort themselves out. The girl who helped us was as surprised as we were when the car blew 8 inches sideways as she was trying to fit the chains. We finally got it done but by then the wind was even stronger and the road crews started organising the cars to be, once again, parked up in an organised fashion. So, after an hour we headed back to the cafe with everyone else.

The staff, about 40 in all, were trapped at Hutt with around 500 people. No whinging though - they soon got teas and coffee on the go and got some chips cooking. About an hour in and the main man gave us a briefing which explained we probably wouldn't get off the mountain until 2am (by now it was around 6pm). Apparently, getting trapped at Mt Hutt is something that happens every couple of years and we were just lucky!

It was nice to see people staying in very good spirits throughout the confinement. AM and I played Mancala (Ethiopian rules) on an improvised set. Quite good fun.

Around 8pm we get another briefing which told us the wind had dropped but the road now had more snow on it. They told us they were going to try and get the first line of cars down in convoy. By this time people were excited about leaving but had to hold off their celebrations a bit as we were told, with these convoys it would probably take 3 or 4 more hours to get us all down.

In the event the first convoy went very smoothly, so the next convoy was essentially just everyone else. Road crews were position to take chains off vehicles 4km down the road, and were parked up on the most dangerous corners. Road crews did a tremendous job remaining cheery after having been out in the blizzard, laying on the road under cars and buses to fit and remove chains for hours.

We were a little daunted in our 2 wheeled drive Toyota compared with most others in their big 4x4s but it seemed safer driving down the mountain than it usually did, because everyone was driving slowly (1st gear for 14km). Normally most of the danger on the road comes from impatient lunatics attempting to overtake so they can get on or off the ski field 5 minutes faster than everyone else.

Finally back to the road we made our way to Methven for the night. Phoning hostels at 10.30pm we were surprised to get such a friendly welcome from Francis at the Mount Hutt Bunkhouse, who found us a couple of beds. Francis offered to cook us dinner, since we'd been stuck up the mountain, and was generally very nice indeed. She made us cups of tea and got us some breakfast the next day - very good service considering we paid $20 each for the beds and you normally self cater in such situations. The only downside were the largey noisey young kiwis who were staying in the same building as us, boozing and making a huge rack late into the night and early morning. Luckily we shared with three young Americans from Maine who were very nice indeed. The bunkhouse is also a favourite with Asians who return year after year and whose generally good and considerate behaviour has made them popular with the hosts.

We even made the papers - see this Star Times article for example.

Christchurch Usability Professionals Association Chapter

2004-08-10T21:52:00.000+12:00

Met with the new CHCH UPA Chapter tonight. Interesting bunch of people. It seems usability is in its early stages of being recognised around here, and perhaps in NZ as a whole.

Someone pointed out that one aspect of Kiwi attitudes is set against usability work. Kiwis have a very much do-it-yourself, and fix-it-yourself attitude. So, why would they pay someone to design a user interface when they can just do it themselves cheaper? I think there is perhaps something in this observation. It seems that similar attitudes dominate certain aspects of advertising - why pay someone to produce a radio advert when you can do it yourself. I may be reading this wrong though, many radio ads are so bad it's quite funny - perhaps it's the humour that is the intention!

Interesting night, meeting up in Mainstreet Cafe and eating there later. Food is all veggie though it is not quite perfect - can't quite put my finger on it.

Skiing at Mt Hutt

2004-08-08T22:52:00.000+12:00

Awoke early today to get the snow report for Mt Hutt (known localled as Mt Shut due to poor conditions shutting the resort one day in five). Had been snowing for 2 days up there and they'd had a 42cm dump saturday. Cool!

Got in the car and got up there for just after 9am, after some faffing with snow chains and getting very muddy just trying to get started putting them off before finally realising the fitting service was a good idea for $5. The "nice route" recommended by a mate from swimming club was indeed a nice drive, through Hororata (which means 'drooping rata' in Maori - I think rata is a plant!). Well, it would have been an easy, fearless drive, in a V6 4x4 but confronted with a Kiwi style "ford" we nearly turned back. It was quite a torent gushing over the road of uncertain depth. Fortunately we were able to watch an old jaguar make its way across before judging whether our little toyota would make it.

Skiing was pretty good and lessons of usual high standard, though our progress seems to be more gradual now. I always seem to goof up the first run, where the instructors assess your skill and put you in an appropriate group. This time I overshot the destination and after what was anyway a considerably wobbly and unstable decent, I had to take the skis off and hike in knee deep snow to the right point. Needless to say I was graded low again but by the end of the day did this slope with relative ease.

After a quick lunch we got out on the slopes again but this time the snow was blowing about, a Southerly coming in, and visibility poor. Add to that the moguls started getting bad. So, often you would hit a bump you didnt see and get thrown off balance. I managed a couple of falls, only one felt spectacular but I was ok. AM had no falls to report this time.

Given the conditions we decided to stay on the lower beginner slopes but after what seemed like hours of jostling and queuing I gave up with that and went up the quad lift to the top again. I was rewarded with clearing weather and few people. A fantastic end to the day skiing on my own straight back to the bottom and getting on the lift for one last ride (twice) before going home. Though my legs probably only had enough left for one last run, I couldn't let the opportunity of a people-free slope pass me by.

We're tempted to try the Porter Heights club field next - slightly closer.

South Island Masters Long Course Championships 2004

2004-08-07T16:42:00.000+12:00

Swam 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle at the Long Course Championships organised by the QEII Masters club I train with. Conditions were just about perfect - I was swimming in a pool I train at twice a week, my diving seems ok, my start was actually not as slow as usual and there was no turn to do on the 50m. These were ideal conditions to beat 30 seconds but I failed fairly dismally with a 31.77 for the 50m and 1:16.19 for the 100m. I must conclude I'm a bit unfit at the moment!

Oh well, the dinner was nice afterwards! Actually as the only competitor from the UK I got a special prize of a QE2 t-shirt for taking part. Needless to say the masters swimming scene out here is just as friendly as the scene in the UK! Mind you, they were amused at my use of the word 'Gala' to describe the event - they told me a gala is a fair! NZ swim meets are called "carnivals" (no hint of 'fair' there then).

The competition overall was very well run with typical kiwi style pitching in to sort out food for the judges and all that stuff. Excellent fun, which we agreed was the main thing.

NZ Film festival - Citizen King & Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion

2004-08-06T21:12:00.000+12:00

Watched a couple of excellent films this week at the NZ Film Festival.

The first, entitled Citizen King was about the life of Dr Martin Luther King from 1963 up until his murder in 1968. An amazing story on a number of levels. Amazing that one man can do so much and make so much change. Amazing that, once again, a total devotion to the idea of non-violent protest can achieve this much, and that a majority of wronged and angry people can largely be persuaded to adopt peaceful means under strong leadership like this. Amazing that I was born the same year he was killed and yet learned nothing about any of this in school.

The second film we saw was entitled Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion about Tibet and what has happened there since China invaded and destroyed most of it. The Tibetan people are incredible and the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso's leadership in peaceful protest is again astounding. Though, the many years of non-violent protest seem to have achieved little to date, the Tibetan Government in Exile's policy of peaceful protest seems resolute. Although much world opinion is on the side of Tibet, trade with China is such a potential money spinner that the governments of countries like the US focus more on that than on China's human rights abuses in Tibet - described in the film as genocide.

Various websites about Tibet include: Free Tibet Campaign; Tibet Online; International Campaign for Tibet

Ann-Marie wins prize at work - most caring person

2004-08-02T17:36:00.000+12:00

This is really a post for the parents and since AM never looks at this secret diary I'm sure she wont be embarassed.

Yes, AM was voted by her colleagues at the Princes Margaret Hospital as the most caring person for the month and walked home with a big bunch of flowers. She's keeping it quiet, so it's a good job nobody looks at the internet.

Kaiapoi Masters Meet

2004-08-01T21:06:00.000+12:00

As a warm up to the South Island Masters meet next weekend, the 4 Christchurch swimming clubs had a little meet at Kaiapoi. Not able to find my goggles (hopeless!) I had to buy some new ones at the event. My first event, 50m freestyle, showed how effective the goggles were - they made a good necklace!

Second event for me was 50m backstroke. I was only a bit put off by the 6ft 5 bloke swimming for Jelly who used to be number 3 in NZ and top backstroker in the south island! We were both swimming down an agegroup too, 20-29, because we were a bit short of people in some agegroups. Attempting an open turn I fumbled badly with the slippery wall and resolved to attempt proper backstroke turns for the 100m. I don't know how badly I did but I was clearly very last.

The 100m back was better. In my own agegroup this time, I kept on terms with the guy next to me until the 3rd turn, at which i missed the wall (a common occurence for me!) but finished a slightly more respectable last place. I was actually quite pleased to have done 2 good backstroke turns - they're quite tricky!

Finally I got to lead off the relay with 50 freestyle. Once again the goggles came off and I clouted the wall quite badly through not seeing it properly. Not a great swim! We were winning the relay in the middle of the race but the other clubs had some pretty quick swimmers on the last legs so they pulled back :-(

After returning my new goggles for a refund we had a bit of a do. Typical Masters style, down the pub with food laid on.

Fortunately I found my lucky goggles when I got home!

Kaikoura - Whales, Seals, Birds, Mountains

2004-07-31T22:58:00.000+12:00

Had and amazing day in Kaikoura starting with a whale watching tour. This slick Maori run operation is a very impressive setup with several modern boats equiped with huge screens to give you some well presented background information about the whales, in the form of computer graphic animation, as you await the actual sightings. The guides were extremely good, even able to tell you when the whales were about to dive so you could get a tail photo. The only downside was the sea sickness inducing movement of these boats - quite a number of whale watchers lost their breakfasts.

Sightings of sperm whales are almost guaranteed due to the pod which lives near the coast at Kaikoura. Just off the coast the ocean quickly becomes very deep, more than 1000m. There is also a deep channel here where cold Antartic water and warmer water from the north mix, creating a situation of abundant wildlife.

In all, pretty impressive for a day out only 2 hours from Christchurch. An Hislop's organic cafe is a real treat for food in Kaikoura too!

Sperm Whale Tail

Sperm Whale - Identifiable by 45 degree blow hole

AM and Nadine - Whale Watching Tea Shop

Interesting rock formations on the beach

AM likes this picture of Kaikoura

White faced heron

Variable Oystercatchers

NZ Fur Seals (seal colony was a big hit!)

Not too bothered by people hanging around but a Seal's bite is 20 times more powerful than a dogs - another reason not to get too close!

Kaikoura Bates Motel

2004-07-30T21:39:00.000+12:00

Drove up to Kaikoura for the night to be ready for the whale watching trip the next morning.

AM discovered that the hospital has a nurses' residence at a hospital in Kaikoura which health workers can stay at very cheaply, even just for the night.

What we discovered on our arrival was not the anicipated nurses residence filled with millions of nurses and their outrageous antics, no, we were confronted with an old detatched building, totally dark and empty, not unlike the Bates Motel. Surprisingly, it was at least warm, though too spooky for some. As we sat down for a cup of tea and switched on the huge an ancient TV set we were amused (and some were afraid) to see a vintage Frankenstein film as the only viewing option.

We offered to let Nadine sleep in our room but she said she was ok but slept with the light on all night just the same!

This is the actual Bates motel - i think the place we stayed was modelled on it.

Bubble tea! - Dream Garden, 62 Kendal Ave, Asian Veggie restaurant

2004-07-29T21:43:00.000+12:00

Had a great meal with a couple of really interesting folks from the local vegetarian society, john and adrienne. They suggested an asian place (Taiwanese) which, despite having menu items called such things as hedgehog, beef, and fish, is all vegetarian and is in fact, mostly vegan.

The food was excellent, especially for people who like fake meat based on wheat gluton or soya but the bubble teas were fantastic. Definately very keen to go again!

Winter birthday do - Alva Rados in christchurch

2004-07-27T21:08:00.000+12:00

Had an excellent birthday do with our Kiwi pals, B, Myles, John, Laura, Helen, Miranda, Sally and Vic. The Sullivan contingent came up with some great presents, which was a nice surprise, and their Mum Diane gave me a present the week before too. Younger Sullivans still know the importance of toys which make groovy noises, science toys which bounce everywhere in extreme fashion, chocolate fudge (from my favourite chch shop) and magic dust. Their Mum mainly knows the importance of chocolate!

Drove to Wanaka on my birthday

2004-07-23T21:08:00.000+12:00

After work we headed down to Wanaka (near Queenstown) for the weekend to meet up with Nadine again. It's more than a 5 hour drive down there but although the road was quite icy in places, the low traffic volume makes it easier. I think we only came across 20 cars all the way back.

Spent the weekend at Cardrona which is a great ski resort with a road up which is not too bad!

Cardrona has loads to do for the beginner and intermediate skier and the lessons we high standard too.

AM has not done much skiing but it didnt stop her tagging along behind quite an advanced class of skiers in the afternoon as the plunged over the edge of a steep bowl to come up the other side. It went fine until she was right at the top of the other side of the bowl, when she just gently plopped over! I think my skiing came on quite well this weekend, since I was happy enough to play around in these steep bowls all the way down the slope on the second day!

Great fun weekend!

AM seems quite taken with skiing

Unlike the poor car, which is often hounded up the ski roads (mostly scree and ice), clanking its chains, only to be surrounded at the top!

Apres Ski - one of these people is an extreme snowboarder and another is a Giraffe, which is which?
(Carl, Isabell, Nadine)

cello - steven isserlis - NZ Symphony

2004-07-22T21:03:00.000+12:00

Went to the symphony orchestra playing cello stuff featuring Steven Isserlis. Pretty good!

Also ate in Mainstreet cafe first, with B, John, Laura, Diane, AM and others!

Casino - hospital do

2004-07-20T14:49:00.000+12:00

Following careful dress-code instructions not to wear jeans or sneakers I was a bit surprised to see quiet a sight in shorts as I showed up! Apparently shorts are ok in the dress-code stakes!

The Casino is quite a nice place to eat as it has lots of room and an extensive buffet, and for groups is quite cheap!

After the food, and failing to be allowed to take a group photograph (must be dodgey these hospital types), AM and I rationed ourselves to $10 each (>£4) and hit the tables.

After making a little win on roulette AM turned her attention to blackjack.

Well, that's not strictly true since AM didn't know what Blackjack was but her friend pushed her in that direction. Needless to say beginners luck showed its face and AM was dealt an Ace and a Picture Card first time; and second time pretty similar. That was it, AM beaming with her winnings led us off in search of further entertainment.

A fruit machine gave us 40 goes for $2 but we never really understood how that worked. I lost my money on blackjack - 2 hands and that was it.

We left with AM standing at more than 100% profit up and me having lost my $10. Good fun and not too much risk of gambling addiction but I picked up a leaflet just in case.

Mainstreet Cafe again !

2004-07-19T21:46:00.000+12:00

AM's friend Nadine is over from Oz so we went to the fantastic Mainstreet cafe again. Service a little slow but my patience paid off. Waitress even gave me some extra food (destined for the bin) for my lunch the next day! Neat!

Nice to eat somewhere totally veggie!

Mid Winter Christmas at Hamner Springs

2004-07-18T21:23:00.000+12:00

Miranda and Scott invited us to the Hamner batch for a mid-winter christmas weekend! Great fun!

It seems that whilst it is great fun to have real christmas on the beach, it's not quite the same as a European white christmas, particularly with respect to FOOD and DRINK and SNOW. So, an ever more popular idea here is the concept of a July Christmas. By all accounts I think it should be an idea more widely promoted but not commercialised!

Hamner Batch

Christmas silliness

Christmas seriousness (dinner)

White Christmas!

During this action packed weekend we:
- ate brandy snaps;
- mountain-biked around Hamner (Jollies Pass). Impressive singletrack (muddy); impressive climb (long, just graded, loose, steep, difficult, muddy, icy/snowy at the top). Great rideout, Scott politely suggesting we walk some sections of the climb for my benefit, well, until we met some female twins on their way down who explained that although they had walked a bit, they started walking later than we had!
- relaxed in Hamner hot springs;
- ate food until near explosion (GREAT);
- chilled out, played silly games (mainly with the lazy boy chairs) and opened presents;
- went skiing at Lydford - Jen coached usa very well and was very positive and encouraging but the conditions were very icy, which was tough. Road up to Lydford was ok but learned that our little toyota doesnt have much ground clearance as I carefully lined up the wheels to go over a rock, but instead crushed it (sump survived that one thankfully). Later needed to learn how to use snow chains to get us to the top of the road, but Scott and Andy helped us with that - it's a little tricky!

Lemons in Winter

2004-07-16T21:14:00.000+12:00

Quite a culture shock to have a fully laden Lemon tree in your garden in the middle of winter. Perhaps this is just another clear indication of the difference in sunlight you get in a Kiwi Winter compared with a Pommie Winter.

Our tree!

Global warming: The imperatives for action from the science of climate change - Science & Technology: Latest Science News and Developments from BritainUSA

2004-07-15T13:35:00.000+12:00

Global warming: The imperatives for action from the science of climate change - Science & Technology: Latest Science News and Developments from BritainUSA

Great talk and PowerPoint on Global Warming.

BBC News report of David King's warning that London and New York could be the "first cities to go" when the polar ice caps melt (which they are already doing at an alarming rate).

Odd that this was such a small piece on the news.

Kakapo Deaths - Mystery infection kills three kakapo (very rare flightless parrot)

2004-07-13T15:18:00.000+12:00

Very sad News today that a wildlife recovery programme here is struggling, with three recent bird deaths.

These very rare parrots are flightless and there are less than 100 left.

Very sad to lose 3 of these.

Kiwi conservation efforts aimed at flightless birds are a big thing here. People are aware that Possums, Stoats, Dogs and Cats and a whole host of introduced predators have all but extinguished the indigenous flightless bird populations, that evolved in an environment without such predators. The only mamals indigenous to New Zealand are a couple of bats about the size of your thumb.

Great Curry! - Tandoori Palace, 56 Cathedral Square

2004-07-11T21:46:00.000+12:00

Haven't been all that impressed with Indian food here until last night. We had a great curry last night at the Tandoori Palace with AM's friend Tracy and her friend's Mark and Rich and Mark's parents.

Great food - perhaps a good spot for my birthday meal!

Mainstreet Cafe

2004-07-10T14:59:00.000+12:00

Had a great Dragon Pie (Adzuki beans etc) at the vegetarian Mainstreet Cafe. Being a veggie is normally a convenient way to narrow down your food choice when eating out. Being suddenly confronted with a veggie restaurant counter always stumps me a bit! Dragon pie was a good choice but I may try the tortilla stack next time, which looked a bit like a layered cake made filled with beans!

An odd optional sprinkling of brewers yeast was available for the food. This looked like the remains of a chewed up pencil but tasted really nice, a bit like marmite in fact.

Another possible birthday meal choice!

Mountain Biking in the Port Hills - Castle Rock Reserve to the Bridle Path is ok

2004-07-09T17:05:00.000+12:00

I still struggle on these Port Hills cycle tracks. Because they often contour around the hills, very often it would be a very bad idea to fall off to one side in particular and this totally ruins my concentration. This skittishness is not helped much by being on a new bike. Nor is any comfort gained from the quality of the single track, which whilst nice enough, it's narrow and dug-out enough to cause your pedals to catch now and then.

So, I cycled from the QE2 Hospital, up Hackthorne Rd to Victoria Park. I then got quite lost amongst the "Mountain Biking Tracks" in the park, which have grades of from blue (quite nice but challenging enough), black diamond (difficult/national standard) to double diamond (insane drop-offs).

Eventually struggling to the top of Victoria Park I headed along the single track parallel to the summit, which was ok. Then got a bit tired and took to the Summit Rd. I was persuaded back on the single track parallel with the road at the Castle Rock Reserve sign. From there the path gently descends to the bridle path. This is actually a very nice section of singletrack with enough gradual gradient that you can just stand on the pedals and coast down there hardly pedalling at all.

When you reach the bridle path, it is quite steep and you need to hang on the brakes all the way down pretty much, so not that much fun really. The path is in good condition though so it's not a big deal to get down it. The path comes out in Ferry Meade - quite handy for Redcliffs!

Perhaps I need to write a guide to the Port Hills for mountain bikers more used to trails than stunts!

Dinner with Don Norman and Mark Billinghurst

2004-07-08T21:51:00.000+12:00

Don's New Zealand tour brought him to Christchurch today to do a public lecture and spend some time with the guys at the hitlabNZ. Mark Billinghurst invited me along to the hitlab early so we could take a look around.

I was most impressed with the projects they are doing there. The lab seems to have a strong track record of turning out commercial projects in fast timescales and for low cost. Even more impressive is the robustness of their augmented reality exhibts which are destined for high volume public usage, such as in museums. Very impressive stuff.

Having been a fan of Don's for 10 years or more it was great to have the opportunity to hear him talk again, and nice that he varied his talk a bit from the one he gave at APCHI last week - even managing to mention number 8 wire! After the talk we asked if they had dinner plans and managed to go eat with them. Fantastic. Don was happy to autograph my copy of POET, perhaps his most famous book, which he apparently wrote in about a month during his sabbatical in Cambridge (UK), his wife and editor, Julie explained. A really nice and memorable evening.

Turning Kiwi - Waiangitup

2004-07-07T21:17:00.000+12:00

I'm sure I heard a confused and flustered maori exclamation this morning as AM rushed around trying to find her work clothes, it sounded like 'Waiangitup', which I think means, 'Why, there it is, hanging up'. Or similar.

In other news, Carl was heard to say 'Yis'. Perhaps we are going native!

Sumner Yoga

2004-07-07T09:01:00.000+12:00

We checked out a yoga class in Sumner to get a good stretch! Quite a good class - lots of interesting variations on moves like the bridge and such.

Mind you, think we'll try Govinda's another time, for the same price their Yoga classes involve food, and those folks know how to cook veggie!

Kokako

2004-07-03T09:50:00.000+12:00

After the conference I spent the weekend up near a lake in Rotorua in the North Island (a place which Kiwi’s seem to call Rotovegas for no really good reason – after Las Vegas! I think perhaps Rotorua has a casino or something.).

After living in the Novotel in town for almost a week, with accommodation, conference, meals and entertainment all there at the hotel, it was nice to get out.

On Friday afternoon I headed back to the airport to meet Bianca and Miles and Laura (Bianca’s sister in law). Laura has been staying at a “batch” up at a lake near Rotorua for nearly 4 months studying the behaviour of the endangered Kokako bird. Her research equipment needs a lot of carting about through the forest so field assistants are always useful – hence the presence of Miles and Bianca! I just tagged along.

This was the first batch I had stayed at and it was very nice. I get the impression that a lot of Kiwis own a second home, affectionately referred to as a 'batch'. These are often older houses in really nice outdoorsy locations with basic facilities. The batch Laura had hired was really great, with an excellent view of the lakeside with loads of birds around. Facilities included: an old stove like an Arga, which was the main source of heat and with enough wood burning in there could boil a kettle; an electric hotplate and a pan with integrated heat element in it; a shower but not much fuel left for the hot water so we didn’t use that at all; a couple of axes for chopping wood; bunk beds; basic kitchen; running water (when the somewhat noisy pump was running) Well, quite basic really, a little cold, but with great woodwork, an excellent position and great access to the outdoors.

The Kokako birds are quite unusual in that they sing a duet, with the male singing one half of the song and the female another part. This is what Laura is studying. We went out Saturday afternoon to have a listen. Laura played some of the song back and after a while a pair of Kokako came to investigate and entertained us with their singing. Pretty cool!

Kokako is very likely to be a Maori name for the bird. Maori names are often chosen to sound like the noise an animal makes, and indeed this seems to be true with the Kokako.

Whilst at the batch I also got the chance to see several Pukeko – a far more common bird but one I had only until then seen on Roadsigns. Pretty impressive almost chicken-like bird and more shy than a lot of NZ birds and much harder to photograph than some.

Also saw Tui', Pigeons and Bellbirds up at the batch!

APCHI2004 Conference - The Big Day - My Desire Lines presentation

2004-07-02T09:26:00.000+12:00

Worked late after the conference reception the night before to finish my presentation on Desire Lines.

As I made my way early to my session I'm approached by one of the organisers who tell me Don Norman is looking for me! Don is the keynote for conference and has been a fan of mine since he wrote The Psychology of Everyday Things (or POET for short) - later renamed, The Design of Everyday Things. Well, to discover 5 minutes before my talk track is to start that Don is looking for me is a bit like being told Mick Jagger would like to see you right now, as you step up on the way to a Best Man's speech. Oh well, Don told me he liked my paper but couldn't make the talk. He then told me he'd brought me a copy of his Voyager CD, which he'd promised me by email several months before. I was really impressed he'd remembered, he must get a whole lot of email!

Anyhow, I finally got to the talk with my number 8 wire fashioned USB device for transfering data to another laptop. William Wong was very gracious about my lateness and got everything set up nicely for my talk. I was third in line to talk so was somewhat concerned at the fantastic nature of the warm-up acts. Michael Verhaart and John Jamieson (from Eastern Institute of Technology/Massey University, New Zealand) and then Wally Smith's (University of Melbourne, Austrailia) talk about the Misrepresentation of Use in Technology Demonstrations. Oddly enough, not only was Wally's talk very well presented (like the preceeding talk) but the topic was perhaps the closest to my own PhD than I have ever seen. Most distracting given that I had to stand up and talk about something completely different straight afterwards!

Well, I finally poured forth about Desire Lines, and it seemed to go down quite well. A lot of my inspiration came from Don's early work, and though he has moved on to new areas (like Emotional Design) I have not. So perhaps the material was perhaps more reminiscent of Don's earlier work than his own later stuff. Who knows, it was actually a lot of fun to stand up to present and say, 'I'm paying for myself to attend and I've written this paper because I can't leave it alone' and 'for fun', rather than being there to represent my employer!

I overran a little, partly because my brain switches off a bit when I'm presenting. I saw William's various signs (10 minutes left) and some others, and then a curious sign saying 'STOP NOW!' So, I only managed the one minute for questions instead of the prescribed five minutes.

Several people asked for copies of my Desire Lines Presentation Slides so they're on my website now.

Very pleased to get that out of the way I was happy to later kick-off and enjoy the formal conference dinner; Maori dancing; etc.

Didn't see a whole lot of Rotorua (which is known as RotoVegas in NZ) but had a great time meeting lots of people who have a similar job to mine.

Kiwi Culture - "Number 8 Wire" and "Tall Poppies"

2004-07-01T09:16:00.000+12:00

Two aspects of Kiwi culture emerged during conference discussions, Number 8 Wire culture and tall poppy syndrome.

Last first, the idea with tall poppies is that nobody wants to be a tall poppy, which is synonymous with being a high achiever, because tall poppies are the ones that get cut down. This is perhaps another dimension of our perseption that Kiwi's are pretty big on understatement.

Number 8 Wire is in fact fencing wire often used on farms. You can use it to fix just about anything. And, given that Kiwi's seem to be able to fix just about anything for themselves, sometimes it seems to be referred to as Number 8 Wire culture. Or a number 8 wire thing. You really do see a lot of very old cars on the road here, which in the UK people would be unlikely to have gone to the trouble of fixing up. Kiwi's also seem to often make things for themselves that others wouldn't, like welding themselves up a bike carrier to secure to the towbar of their car, or indeed the towbar itself!

And of course, Duck Tape (or Duct Tape) is called Bear Tape in New Zealand, a fact which seemed to have been missed by quite a few speakers - I wonder if people knew what they meant?

APCHI2004 Conference & the Susan Dray Tutorial

2004-06-30T09:04:00.000+12:00

The first Human-Computer Interaction Conference I've attended for 10 years! The last was HCI'94 in Glasgow.

First day was a full day tutorial from one of the conference keynote speakers, Susan Dray, entitled, "Understanding Users' work in context: Practical Observation Skills". Lots of practical stuff on ethnography and how to do it. Lots to write up for work here!

Other folks at the conference itself were very interesting indeed with research areas involving eye tracking, augmented reality, collaborative working, multi-layer displays, game research. All good stuff.

Had a curry with some folks from Auckland - Blake, Tracey, Miriam, etc. And then went back to the conference for a practitioner discussion on the newly formed NZ UPA Chapter. Very interesting, followed with some drinks and pool!

Slipped away early in the evening to do some work and prepare my presentation material!

Too windy to ski but weather fine in ChCh

2004-06-27T21:18:00.000+12:00

No wind to speak of in ChCh so as planned we spent Sunday on our mountain bikes. Headed into Sumner, climbed onto the Summit Rd up Evan's Pass (avoiding the treacherous Captain Thomas "mountain bike track"). Once on the Summit Rd, we were greeted with the usual fantastic views of Sumner, Redcliffs, the sea and eventually, all of ChCh. We were also greeted with a bit more climbing on the Road - I guess we probably climbed around 500m in all, up the Port Hills, down a bit, up a bit more. Very nice though!

Odd sky!

We eventually descended on Rapaki Track, which is a really nice way up or down the Port Hills. AM is a bit new to mountain biking and Rapaki is quite a nice introduction to riding down quite a tricky surface.

We were tempted to cut off early down the deceptively easy sounding "bridle way" but Kiwi mates and guidebooks advise that it is steep, and rutted ("you could disappear up to your shoulders in those ruts"). Given the Kiwi propensity for understatement we left that alone this time!

Overall around a 22km rideout, 500m climb, with a great descent!

Cabbage Tree

2004-06-27T21:00:00.000+12:00

On the way back from Mt Hutt we came upon a particularly nice example of a cabbage tree - a native NZ plant! The Maori used to eat the fleshy inner root of the cabbage tree and the young leafy bud (as with ferns).

Skiing! (at Mount Hutt)

2004-06-26T21:42:00.000+12:00

Drove up to Mount Hutt this weekend to try our hand at some skiing. AM had never skied before and I'd only done about 5 days around 6 years ago.

The drive up to Mt Hutt from Chch is a little under 2 hours and is oddly flat most of the way. This is adequately compensated for by the last 14km up a typically surfaced Kiwi backroad. The road surface was mainly compacted scree and the drive up to the top of the mountain stayed on compacted scree all the way up. Sheer drops either side and impatient Kiwi skiers overtaking on what is only a 2 way road in name. Quite a horrendous drive. Mt Hutt has not had it's first big dump of snow yet this year but when it does we'll need to learn how to put our snow chains on before slip slidding our way up this scree road with vertical drop-offs down thousands of feet, sometimes on either side at once. Not the best start to the day.

Preparations for skiing soon dulled the driving experience as we were fitted with all the gear and much shorter skis than I expected - new technology with different shape skis I'm told. Seemed to work ok!

Mt Hutt is the most consistent area for skiing in NZ, and apart from the road, is very well set up, very well organised, reasonably priced, good cafe, friendly - generally excellent. A one day starter pak cost NZ$80 (£27) including skis, boots, lift pass and 2 classes.

We both had excellent instruction in the classes. AM learned loads and seems to have taken to skiing very quickly. My refresher classes helped a bit to get me going again. Ultimately though, getting a bit fed up with the intensive queueing on the lowest learner slopes persuaded me to go up to the next slope. Things got a bit steeper up there which I think helped me remember how to turn a bit more clearly. When faced with a steep slope I couldnt afford to keep "having a bit of trouble with my left turns" and had to make the turn or fall off.

Overall we had a great day and a great introduction/re-introduction to skiing. We stayed the night in Methven at a great place called Alpenhorn Chalet (kind of a privately run hostel/b&b) and nursed our aching limbs in The Lodge in town whilst watching Oz beat the Pomms in the Rugby test.

At the moment Mt Hutt is quite quiet because they are still awaiting their first big dump, and I guess things are a little icy on the slopes. Good snow reports and snow cams are available on their website though.

We hauled ourselves out of bed early for our planned next day of skiing only to see a weather report at the hostel telling us the road up to Mt Hutt and the ski runs were closed due to high North Westerlies (they once lost a camper van over the side of the "road" in high winds). So, we just headed back to ChCh for some mountain biking.

Cycling around New Zealand

2004-06-24T23:11:00.000+12:00

New Zealand seems like an excellent place to cycle around, Just found an amazing website about a couple who did a World Tour on bicycles and covered New Zealand extensively.

Very tempting.

Mid-winter christmas

2004-06-24T12:47:00.000+12:00

There's something funny about Christmas here. Kiwi's don't seem to get a proper feel for a normal christmas in December because it's the middle of summer. So, whilst they still celebrate in December they don't normally have a full Christmas dinner. Instead, around this time in June they have what's called 'mid-winter Christmas'. Mainly I think this is used as an excuse for a work meal out but as you might guess, the whole thing is spreading and now some people seem to buy presents - there was even a Santa at our local supermarket yesterday but when we turned up for a photo he'd fled. Or perhaps, when we turned up for a photo he fled!

Oh well, I'm now on a quest for a christmas dinner and santa claus sighting!

Hailstones and solid fuel delivery

2004-06-22T12:34:00.000+12:00

All the severe weather warnings and locals telling us it was warmer last week, which means the temperature will soon plummet, persuaded us to get our next wood delivery sorted out and the chimney swept (wood stove is our only form of heat - luckily the ceiling fan makes this quite effective despite the hopeless insulation).

Anyhow, as the wood is delivered (the day after the shortest day!), we end up with a hailstorm!

The day of the wood delivery - a mixture of bluegum (1m^3), oregon(2m^3), pine offcuts(1m^3), hail(1ltr) and rain(10ltrs)!

Bottle Lake (Burwood Forest) Mountain Biking

2004-06-20T20:04:00.000+12:00

Did a gentle 17km around the mountain biking tracks in the Bottle Lake Forest Park. Our guidebook graded this 2, on its 6 level scale.

A very nice purpose built mountain biking track in a working forest (which had just got FSC accreditation). Quite easy cycling through the woods but pretty nice. Done at speed the circuit would be challenging enough. It's recently become a very popular spot for night riding - I can see why, nice tracks and no big drop-offs to worry about. Perhaps need to think about getting some lights!

Taking a quick break and enjoying the view!

Rapaki Track - Mountain Biking

2004-06-19T21:13:00.000+12:00

Bianca and Miles took me up Rapaki Track, as a nice way up to the Port Hills summit. From there, we rode from Rapaki Rock Car Park to Mount Vernon Car Park on some nice singletrack. This was technical enough with lots of pedal scraping on rocks and quite a muddy path. In general not too bad for drop-offs but I couldnt help feeling that you would easily fall 20 feet if you fell off the wrong side. Bianca reckons I just need to do the route another 10 times then I'll be alright (I wonder).

Finally, headed down the fast stoney Huntsbury Track, which now has around 4 gates across it at intervals. Glad I did this track with locals as I'm not sure I would've stopped on sight of the first gate even with disk brakes!

Excellent trip out, with about 330m of fairly gradual ascent!

Reckon I need to head further west along the summit road next - perhaps to The Sign of The Kiwi (Teashop).

Rugby - Working Men's Club

2004-06-19T21:05:00.000+12:00

Watched the latest leg of the test in the Lyttleton Working Men's Club. Quite different from similar clubs in the UK - it had windows!

Anyhow, great choice of venue because it was fairly quiet and had a couple of pool tables. Our Kiwi friends politely pointed out to us during the game about the English's reputation for playing dirty, which, as the game unfolded became fairly apparent with quite a bit of stamping early on.

Still, overall a much better game than the last one (to an untrained eye). Shame about so much dirty play.

Maori New Year - Matariki

2004-06-19T20:44:00.000+12:00

We went along to the Maori New Year celebrations in the middle of Christchurch this weekend but were a little surprised by the lack of people there.

Ann-Marie struggles through the crowd!

The NZ Herald reports,

Just a few years ago Matariki was an event that most New Zealanders and even Maori had never heard of. NZ Herald Article - 17th June 2004

Well in Christchurch it seems this is still quite an unheard of celebration! Very little going on. Some poor guy on stage had to just wing it, making up the words as he went, because the Maori cultural band were off playing sport somewhere. "That is good", he graciously said, "as Maori like playing sport".

Still not sure of the state of Maori/European integration here. When we arrived in New Zealand we expected to see a model integration, full of mutual respect and understanding. The reality is respectful of culture but not without certain undercurrents, which would be nice to understand a bit better.

Shag Flight

2004-06-18T20:42:00.000+12:00

I can't remember where we heard it said that the Shag (Cormorant) is a quite easily identifiable in flight because it has all the grace of a flying brick. It may have been at the Albatross Centre on the Otago Peninsula where we first heard the Shag's flying abilities denounced.

I watched one take off from a rock at the water's edge tonight and couldn't help but smile at its launch into the air, first belly floppying twice into the sea. Perhaps the Shag's flying ability and resemblance to a penguin spell a flightless future in evolutionary terms!

The Redcliffs Estuary is home to loads of other birds too, some of which you can see on the Warbirdsovernewzealand.com website. We also saw a white faced heron tonight.

Ann-Marie also told me about the Godwit. This is a migratory bird which the Kiwi's (people!) make a big fuss about. Their migratory journey is so rough and involves 7 days without food, that the Kiwi's are careful to leave them alone at their feeding grounds so they can fatten up for the trip. Kiwi's apparently have Godwit welcome parties and Godwit leaving parties!

Disoriented in New Zealand - perhaps another reason - magnetism

2004-06-17T12:18:00.000+12:00

We just found out that our compass from the UK doesn't work here. It seems that due to magnetic variations, the earth is divided up into 5 magnetic zones and most compasses are only designed to work in particular zones.

Perhaps these magnetic variations also cause people to feel a bit disoriented. After all, lots of animals are thought to migrate using the earth's magnetic field for guidance.

More understatement! - in mountain bike guide to Port Hills

2004-06-16T08:39:00.000+12:00

How naive of me to expect that the following passage described a nice bit of singletrack for a first ride on my new bike.

"The Captain Thomas Multi-use trail on an easy gradient from Sumner to Evans pass."
(The Port Hills by Mark Pickering, ISBN 958328919 and available from East Books)

Somehow this did not conjure up an exposed (20-50ft drop off the side of the trail) and technically difficult descent into Sumner. Not quite what I had in mind as a nice gentle ride out on my new bike; nor indeed, a first experience of mountain biking for Ann-Marie. Am glad I took Max's advice and scouted ahead!

One great feature of the ride though was discovering how great it is to have wind down forks! On a steep ascent on a mountain bike it's often hard to stop the front wheel from coming up all the time and trying to pop a wheelie! With the hydraulic wind down forks on the Marin Nail Trail you can effectively reduce the travel on the forks from 100mm to 70mm. This lowers the front of the bike and makes going up steep hills very easy. Nice design feature!

Falling Rocks

2004-06-15T14:44:00.000+12:00

An interesting thing to learn about the kiwi culture is their capacity for understatement.

In the UK, if you go for a tourist walk the timings given in the guidebook always seem to allow for enough time to walk backwards the whole way and spend an hour for lunch. Guidebook time on Kiwi walks seem to assume you will sprint most of the way, eating as you go.

Learning this cultural attitude for understatement seems quite important. I told a Kiwi friend about the difference between a 'Falling Rocks' roadsign in the UK and in NZ. In the UK, the sign is akin to a superstition. One day in a hundred years a pebble might come tumbling down. In NZ it seems more typical for a stack of rocks in the road to lend credibility to their 'Falling Rocks' signs. My Kiwi friend asked me why you'd put a 'Falling Rocks' sign somewhere that rarely had falling rocks. Hmmm, understatement meets nanny state perhaps.

On the rocks front though, I guess things are quite different here in general as this place is geologically much more dynamic than the UK. The mountains gain height during earthquakes and even Mount Cook lost 20m off the top a few years ago.

Eruption of Mount Ruapehu, 1995 (an area now known as Mordor)

In Wellington's Te Papa museum is an excellent exhibiton where you can find out a bit about NZ geology and loads of other stuff. Great day out there!

Rugby

2004-06-13T12:49:00.000+12:00

Not really a sports fan but went to town to watch the NZ vs England match at The Holy Grail (a sports bar in a converted cinema). Fortunately it was too crowded to get too far into the bar from the door which was just as well because the Kiwi's turned out to be quite aggressive about their rugby (and certain people's English accent's stand out more than certain other people's).

In the event, the All Blacks slaughtered the English (at least this is what it looked like for an uneducated sports person).

New Bikes - Marin Nail Trail's from Penny Sports Cycles in Christchurch

2004-06-13T12:20:00.000+12:00

Having spent a week looking around for second hand bikes, my friend Bianca suggested trying Penny Sports Cycles who have some amazing deals. Well, I called them and Hamish told me they had a brilliant deal on a Kona Cinder Cone ($1000 reduced from $1700) - this is like my bike in the UK so I was very keen on that idea. When we arrived at the shop, Hamish had an even better deal for us - Marin Nail Trails with Hydraulic Disk Brakes, Forks and a lightweight Aluminium Frame. On offer for $1000, reduced from $2000. This worked out less than £350 and they retail in the UK for £775. Not only a bargain but a fantastic bike! Hamish is really helpful too - cant recommend Penny Sports Cycles highly enough.

Unbelievable that I was checking out the various mountainbike websites here (www.mountainbike.co.nz, www.vorb.org.nz) and trading website (www.trademe.co.nz, www.buy-sell-exchange.co.nz) for bikes up to around $1500. These new ones are cheaper and higher spec than a lot of the second hand stuff I looked at ("second hand" is sometimes rebadged "pre-loved" here, though thankfully not in biking circles).

Next up - exploring the Port Hills and trails around Canterbury.

Very warm day for a winter's day!

2004-06-13T12:16:00.000+12:00

It is lovely and warm here when the sun shines, even though this is the middle of Winter. In the UK I am always aware of the time of year when you first feel heat from the sun on your skin again - it seems you feel no heat from the sun whatever for months. Here, if it's a clear day you usually feel the heat - people are often out and about in shorts, even in the snow in Mount Cook.

So, we went for a great walk yesterday, from Taylor's Mistake to Godley Head. Great walking and some excellent mountain biking tracks out that way!

Kiwi's don't go in for insulation, double glazing or central heating! (and have power shortages)

2004-06-11T15:42:00.000+12:00

It seems a bit surprising that so many kiwi homes have such poor insulation and double glazing is like the latest new thing, and many people still dont seem to bother with it. Yet at the same time, the demand for power is going up all the time New Zealand risks power shortage by 2008 with regular warnings of blackouts when demand exceeds supply.

Odd, I thought NZ had very green credentials, they dont seem to apply them much to energy efficient heating!

Perhaps people would do well to look at some of the CAT information - CAT Publications

QE2 Master's Swimming Club

2004-06-09T23:00:00.000+12:00

Went to the QE2 pool tonight in New Brighton to try out their QE2 Masters Club. What a fantastic pool, it's 50m, and there are several other pools around the facility. Diving pools and spare pools for kayaking polo, wave pools and all sorts of things. To top it all it seems that the pool doesnt have chlorine in it, so I'm guessing it must be ozone treated - mind you, had a sneezing fit later so perhaps it's not totally chlorine free.

The only downside of the pool is that bike shops have warned us that lots of bikes are stolen from there.

The master's club is great. Not too serious and very friendly folks of all ages. Not entirely unlike my favourite swimming club at home - Impington Swimming Club in Cambridge. Though I'm missing my friends from there and our after swim drinks in the various Histon pubs :-(.