Hi again,

Sorry it's been so long, have been saving up the holidays to tell you about!

So we have indeed moved house since our last update - we now live in a classic Wellington house; wooden, no insulation, no central heating, no double glazing - i.e. damp and cold! It's like they think they live in Australia.....but in fact they have the climate of the UK. We shouldn't complain, it's a nice house, much bigger than the flat we were in, with outside space and at the end of a quiet street next to a reserve...and less than 20 minutes walk to the city centre!

It's been a typical winter here (apparently we were lucky with last winter and they're usually as wet and cold as we've had this time around!), so sadly we haven't got out walking much lately. A few week ago we did a good, long walk in the Tararua Range (in the snow at the top). In the forest on the way down we saw a morepork (a native NZ owl) - not quite sure what he was doind up and about at 3 in trhe afternoon, but he posed for photos for us!



















Although we haven't been out walking much we've been on a few weekends away skiing with various friends. Some weekends have been more successful than others! We've been stumped by the foul weather on several occasions now (going again this weekend so fingers crossed)!

Having said that, a couple of week ago we went down to the South Island for a week with our friends Mike and Jody and had glorious weather most of the week. We spent 4 nights in Wanaka and 4 nights in Queenstown and managed to ski every day. Much nicer snow than we're used to from skiing in the North Island, great views from the ski fields over the mountains, lakes and valleys...and much nicer weather! Often we were above the clouds in the valley. Had a beautiful drive down through the Southern Alps too, stopped at Lake Tekapo for the popular tourist photos at the Church of the Good Shepherd. Everything was going smoothly until the penultimate day when we had started to get a bit cocky and were trying to do little jumps...only Mike went one step further, tried to do a 180 turn, crash-landed and buggered his back right-royally! Poor Mike! Other than that a very successful week's skiing!









































Then we had 2 days back in Welly before jetting off to Sydney to meet our UK friends Nic and Jeff who had a few days there at the end of the Australian holiday. Had sunny weather there too (must just be something about Wellington!) so had a wonderful time catching up with them and wandering around the city. Realised how un-acclimatised to big cities we are now though - everywhere's so damn busy compared to little Welly! Saw all the classic sights, and were well wined and dined.





























On our last day we got the ferry out to Watson's Bay at the harbour entrance. Complete contrast between the calm beaches in Sydney Harbour, and a 2 minute walk up trhe hill the sheer cliffs overlooking the Pacific. But from the top off the cliffs we saw a whale! Kerry's always on the lookout for them (even when there's no hope of seeing them!) but this time we were in luck! We were actually straining our eyes to try and see if what looked like spouts from their blowholes a long way out to sea were indeed spouts (in hindsight they probably were), and then Ben spotted one (probably a humpback whale - barnacles and all - we think) right below us at the base of the cliffs. The poor thing got startled by an overeager tourist boat speeding up to it with the people screaming, so promptly dived down....to return to the surface about 20 seconds after the boat disappeared! Clever whale! And then he kindly stayed around long enough to get photographic proof!














Kerry started a new job this Monday as an Environmental Scientist at a Consultancy firm in Welly city centre. All seems to be going well so far!

The Last Dregs of Summer

Hi all,

It's getting pretty autumnal here now, so thought we should update you on what we've been doing to make the most of the last of the summer.

About a month ago, just after we last updated you, we went away with a couple of friends on a camping weekend. It turned out to be a more luxurious trip than most of our usual camping, Mike and Jody are fairly new to the idea, but their huge tent and lots of food and alcohol helped them settle in! We camped further round the south coast from Wellington, at the base of the Putangirua Pinnacles (we visited there last June, but the weather was much better this time, so photos included!). The weather was great for the trip and we had a beautiful sunset looking over the Cook Straits towards the South Island, followed by toasting marshmallows over an awesome campfire.



We finally got around to visiting Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, on the edge of Wellington, which we had been meaning to do for a while. It's a pest free, fenced nature reserve to encourage breeding of rare native species. Although most of the native species there are birds, the other highlight are the tuataras, ancient lizard-like reptiles that live til they are over 100 and do everything slowly...it helps with photographing them!

At Easter, we had a bit of an epic road trip to go and explore the Waikato and King Country (northwest of north island, south of Auckland) as we hadn't previously made it that far. On the way we took advantage of great weather to go and climb Mt Ruapehu (the one we ski on in the winter). We got the ski chair lift up part way, but it's still a good climb above that. Its the most active volcano in the country (erupted last in 1996) and has a beautiful crater lake at the summit. Yes, we do go up quite a few volcanoes, and yes being geology geeks we love it!

Easter Saturday was spent underground. We decided to do the touristy thing and go and explore the limestone cave systems around Waitomo. But rather than just walking through we went 'black water rafting' - sat on a tyre inner tube floating/paddling down the water ways. Got to see thousands of glow worms and amazing cave formations, as well as jumping off underground waterfalls! The afternoon was above ground, visiting the waterfalls in the area and a huge natural arch.


Sunday we explored the coastline around that area, including the little surfing town of Raglan, and then inland to another fenced nature reserve, with loads of native parrots and parakeets...and loud annoying Americans scaring them off!















On the drive home on Monday we went via a geothermal area just south of Rotorua - called Orakei Korako. Again being geology geeks, but the steaming pools, bubbling mud and colourful silica terraces are awesome.

Last weekend, we made the most of some free flights up to Auckland for Ben (it turns out training courses have some uses) and went to see the Coromandel Peninsula. It has really beautiful coastline and beaches, but the highlight for Kerry was that we finally saw some dolphins! A pod was swimming along the coast as we drove north, sticking just off shore for about 20km.
We were staying in hostels, which was pretty weird as we haven't done so since we werre travelling, but met some interesting travellers (some were nice, some just interesting!). In fact after that we have become hospitable Kiwi-like people and have Nicole, an American girl who is cycling round NZ staying this weekend (she was one of the nice ones!).



Think that's about it for now, this may well be the last blog from our current flat as we're planning to move out in about a month. No, we are not moving back to blighty, just across town to a more leafy inner suburb. We'll update you on any changes when they actually happen. Hope all's well back home / wherever you are stranded...damn Icelandic volcanoes!

More summer-time trips

Hello again all,

Hope this finds you all well. We've been enjoying the rest of the New Zealand summer and shall update you with news and photos!

At the end of January we had a long weekend away in the Hawkes Bay region on the East Coast. We had 3 days in and around the art-deco town of Napier - unusual that NZ cities have old buildings that you can link to a certain era, so quite nice to walk around. Visited the National Aquarium in Napier which was interesting, although quite a lot of the species don't actually live in NZ waters which seemed a bit strange. Terry the hawksbill turtle was cool though!

In the sunshine over the next couple of days we went up Te Mata peak (only a hill really
!) that overlooks most of the southern part of Hawkes Bay and to the mountains in the centre of the North Island and went cider-tasting (the region is actually famous for wine, but we didn't have time to do the touristy thing and hire bikes and cycle around all the vineyards, so opted for the cider instead) which was delicious on a hot day...and managed to bring back a couple of bottles for later consumption!

We also walked out to Cape Kidnappers, where there's a huge gannet breeding colony (about 4000 birds in total). We were amazed how close they nest to the path! The birds nest literally 1m from where the tourists gawp at them, feeding their chicks quite happily. They're both funny and very cute (even Ben thought so and he's always accusing Kerry of being a twitcher!); they crash-land every time (some got dangerously close to our hitting our heads!) and they're so pleased to see their mate come back that they spend the next minute ignoring their chick and tapping beaks/rubbing necks to say hello!



Then a couple of weeks later we went over to the Taranaki on the West Coast of the North Island, with the aim of climbing Mt Taranaki, another volcano. Started off in beautiful blue skies, above the clouds, perfect view of the summit, but the clouds chased us up and by the time we got to the top they had caught up with us and we couldn't anything below us! Shame! At least we were actually still in the sun on the summit. But had great fun scree-running on the way down....had struggled up about 400 vertical metres of loose scoria on the way up in about 1 1/2 hours.....then ran down it in about 10 minutes!



















A couple of weeks ago we went back up to the Central North Island with Will and Alex to do the Tongariro Crossing. We did it with Kerry's parents in November, but the weather was pretty rubbish, so was great to do it in perfect sunshine this time. We also did a side trip up Mt Ngauruhoe (which stars as Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings), a perfect cone volcano that has the same struggling-up-hundreds-of-metres-of-loose-scree as Mt Taranaki, but the views from the top were well worth it! There's also loads of really brightly coloured rocks, and a classic circular crater in the top.....just to keep the geologists happy!


















Then this weekend we went to stay with Jane and Matt (Jane is one of Ben's work-mates) at Jane's family beach house an hour and a half north of Wellington. Had a lovely afternoon on the beach, playing a bit of rugby, some BYC (back-yard cricket for the uninitiated) and a BBQ. Then had a morning's walk around the beach/estuary before heading back to Wellington to go to the Phoenix football semi-final. Fortunately the Phoenix won (after a nervous extra time!), so the sell-out crowd (amazing for a football game in NZ!) were justified in their abusive chants at the Aussies!



Think that rounds off our first year in NZ fairly well, we'll update you again soon!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone, hope you all had a good Xmas period.

We've had quite a busy time since out last update, with it being the middle of summer...not that you'd think it today in the pouring rain and cold winds!

At the end of November we did a three-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River (the longest river in NZ) with Heather and James and Will and Alex (Ben lived with Will in Canada a few years ago). Was good fun, if a little knackering on the arms! Plus it rained a lot and we got eaten alive by sandflies! But we managed to take lots of beer/wine/gin in the canoes (easier than the walking weekend a while before!), so that made it all the more fun. The last day had quite a few rapids, so we got drenched - but fortunately didn't fall in/capsize!

Then the last weekend of November Kerry's parents came out to visit. They were in NZ for a bit over 3 weeks, but we only saw them for 4 1/2 days. We met them in the central North Island to walk the Tongariro Crossing, over the volcanoes. Unfortunately the beautiful clear skies that we had first thing in the morning didn't last and we were covered in cloud most of the way over the tops, and clinging on to rocks so we didn't get blown into the crater! We even had to sit down and wriggle a bit of the way down on our bums cos it was so windy we thought we were going to get blown off the narrowest bit of ridge! How embarrassing! But we still got to see all the main volcanic features (craters, lakes e.t.c.) that it's famous for. Then they spent a weekend in Wellington with us...in the rain!



Ben's parents came out to visit just afterwards so we met them up in Auckland for a long weekend. Ben took Richard for a trip on an America's Cup yacht around Auckland Harbour...Kerry and Wendy found a cafe in the sunshine to pass the time more smoothly! Then we drove over to the Bay of Plenty, staying in a lovely B&B just outside Tauranga. On the Sunday we had a day at Te Puia geothermal area in Rotorua where we could be geology geeks! There's a couple of geysers, plus loads of bubbling mud pools and boiling springs. Very cool and not as smelly as we were expecting it to be!






























Finished work for Xmas on 23rd December after numerous BBQs (definitely seemed a bit odd having such summer Xmas celebrations!) and met Wendy and Richard off the ferry (they'd been in the South Island for a week or so)....and saw a little blue penguin swimming around in the harbour! Christmas Eve we went over to our local wine region over the hills, to taste plenty (and get a couple) of yummy wines for Christmas Day. Spent Christmas Day in Wellington...sadly it was a bit windy to go to the beach, so had to settle for a picnic in the botanical gardens. Seemed to be the place to go, there were lots of families doing the same thing...but walking back through the city centre in the afternoon felt like a ghost town! Just like London in "28 Days Later"!

When Wendy and Richard left on 27th, we went down to the South Island for a couple of weeks holiday. Had a great time travelling down the East Coast to Dunedin, across to Queenstown for New Year (staying with a friend's family in Arrowtown) and then back up the West Coast.

Sadly we had pretty crap weather so didn't see much of the mountains, but saw plenty of wildlife along the way like yellow-eyed and fiordland-crested penguins, fur seals, sealions, albatross, weka (a species of supposedly rare NZ bird that they thought was extinct a few decades ago - obviously they didn't go to South Island campsites!) and some huge (1.5m across) stingrays. But much to Kerry's annoyance - still no dolphins!

















When we say bad weather, we mean it! It might not be as cold as in the UK right now, but we had a metre of rain in a week on the West Coast! Nearly had to spend a night in the car as we got stuck on the one and only road up the coast between 2 floods (thankfully they cleared it about 6.30pm) and couldn't walk up to Fox Glacier because the path had been washed away. At least the clouds had cleared enough so we could actually see them! Funnily enough we gave up on the camping and retreated to cabins/hotels instead! One thing that was fine to do in the rain - gold panning! Not that we found very much! We decided it was a bad thing being geologists, cos we could identify all the shiny bits we found as other minerals and not gold!



After a week we decided we'd had enough of waiting for the weather to improve so escaped to Abel Tasman National Park in search of some sunshine! And sure enough, we found some! Thankfully! Walked the southern half of the Great Walk there, really pretty coastline and not as busy as we were led to believe it might be considering it's the middle of the school summer holidays here.

Just means we'll have to go back for some more holidays to see the South Island in all it's (occasionally) sunny glory!

Back at work now, though next weekend's a bank holiday for us so will hopefully get away somewhere.

Hope that 2010 has started well for you all, will be good to hear how your Christmas went.

Bye for now!