Hello everyone! So we've finally got round to updating this again....!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying summer at home. It's definitely got cold and wintry here recently...not cold enough for the ski season to start yet though unfortunately!

So have had a couple of long weekends since we last updated you. Went away for Easter to the north-eastern part of the North Island. It was a typically rubbish weather forecast for the entire country for Easter, so we chose the least wet-looking place based on the forecast and drove up! We did pretty well compared to most places I think - limited sunshine, but mostly dry at least. Went to Gisborne and Mahia at the north end of Hawkes Bay, then a bit further north up the East Coast. Mahia Peninsula is known for being really pretty, lovely white beaches and bright blue sea, and it was indeed, but we were surprised how rugged and impressive the rest of the coast up there was too. Did numerous short walks, trying to avoid the showers.


Then on the way back, we went inland to Lake Whakaremoana. There's one of the ten "great walks" there so we'd seen plenty of photos of the area, and it'd always looked very pleasant - bt in fact it was really quite spectacular. We were there on a showery, really blustery day which helped with the impressiveness of it all.














A few weeks ago we went for a good long walk in the Tararua Range north of Wellington. It was meant to be a 2 day walk, walking up to and along a ridge on the first day, then staying in a hut en route and walking back down into the valley the next. The weather started off really nice so had some great views early on, though it started clouding over a bit before long (hence the misty photo below!). We got to the hut we were planning on really early, so decided we'd walk down to the next one and just make the walk out on the Sunday a bit shorter. But when we got there, the hut was already full with people who'd just done the short-ish walk up the valley from the car park and who didn't seem to convinced about having us sleep on the floor! So we had a race against the fading light to get back to the car before it was dark! Made it - just! Nearly had to get the torches out! Good job the last bit of the track was wide and well made so we didn't fall over things! So treated ourselves to a nice pub dinner on the way home! Definitely beat the pasta we were going to have in the hut! So it turned into a bit of a long walk with a lot of height gain! Wouldn't have been too bad if we weren't carrying all our overnight stuff....sleeping bags, cooking stuff, wine...!


Had a long weekend for Queens Birthday at the beginning of June. We flew up to Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty on the Friday afternoon and rented a bach near Whakatane at the other end of the Bay for three nights. We were hoping to go to White Island (the most active volcano in NZ about 50km off the coast there, with geysers, fumeroles, lots of sulphur e.t.c.), but unfortunately the weather was too bad all three days we were there so we didn't get to go. There's just a small boat that goes out, and the swell was so big all over the weekend that no boats could get out of Whakatane Harbour at all. Bit of a shame for us geology geeks!

We had a hire car, so we made the most of it anyway and explored some places we hadn't been before. The weather wasn't actually that bad most of the time (just really windy), so we got out a fair bit and did a few nice shortish walks around the East Cape and Mt Maunganui. Also went down to the Rotorua area to satisfy our geology-ness with the geothermal areas down there.



























So that's us really.....had a good few day trips out of Welly, and have been to see rugby matches, comedy festival shows and the like in the city.

All's good with us, hope it is with you all too. Bye for now...til the next well overdue update!

Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year and 2011 is treating you well so far!

Kerry started a new job with an environmental consultancy firm in September, seems to be going well so far! In fact, we've ended up working together for a couple of weeks carrying out land assessments following the earthquake in Christchurch in September.

We spent a very enjoyable 2 and a half weeks on the South Island over Christmas and New Year. We sailed over on Christmas Eve and drove all the way down to Aoraki Mount Cook, stopping in Kaikoura to pick up a crayfish (rock lobster) for our Christmas dinner! Kaikoura is the place in NZ for crayfish, and since we were driving through it seemed like a good excuse!

Christmas day was a beautiful sunny day, so we did a fantastic walk from our campsite to Mueller Hut. There had been some fresh snow overnight so it was great to be walking in fresh snow and warm sunshine. The hut is in a spectacular setting, with great views to Mt Sefton and Mt Cook itself. We were watching loads of small avalanches down the faces of the mountains across the valley.










Fortunately the campsite we were staying in had a cooking shelter, else our Christmas dinner would have blown across the campsite in the gales! So we had a delicious summer platter with nice cheeses, parma ham, olives, sun-dried tomatoees, crusty bread and of course the crayfish and a nice bottle of wine (Kerry's work Christmas present was 6 nice bottles of wine - dare say they didn't last too long!). Was great - all the other campers were looking at us with such envy as they tucked into their boring pasta and sauce! We camped here for 2 nights...until the gales got too strong and we hastily pulled down the tent and drove down to Alexandra, Central Otago where it's always sunny! Indeed it was!

We then went down to the Catlins in the far south, where there's lots of empty, wild beaches, sea caves and impressive waterfalls. Saw several sealions and some yellow-eyed penguins on some of the beaches as well as a cool petrified forest...geology geeks again!


We spent the four days around New Year on Stewart Island, an hour's ferry ride off the South Coast. It's a beautiful island, with loads of pristine rainforest and beaches. We did a 3 day walk on the Island - one of NZ's "Great Walks", which was really good. The first and last days in particular were really nice, through rainforest between small coves. We stayed in Department of Conservation huts, normally very basic, but the one on the first night had just been renovated and was really quite nice - apart from the mosquitoes buzzing around your head all night!
Supposedly Stewart Island is the place to see kiwi in the wild, but unfortunately we didn't spot any. We ventured out at night a couple of times, but with no luck. We did spot plenty of mud though! Stewart Island is famous for it's mud, evidently we barely scratched the surface, but was pretty gloopy for a good few kilometers!


The second night was New Year's Eve. It was good to have spent the previous night with the same people in the first hut, so we already knew each other a bit. Almost everyone had brought some wine to celebrate New Year with, and even without electricity, it's so far south that it still wasn't properly dark at midnight.

The evening we finished the walk we met up with some of the people we'd stayed in the huts with for drinks in the one and only pub on the Island. Also tried local natural oysters which were surprisingly nice! Sailed back to the mainland the following morning on a rather rough crossing! Spent the whole hour concentrating on the horizon! The boats are only small catamarans that seat about 50 people, and the swell was about the same height as the boat...! We were watching the albatross soaring around the boat as an attempt to take our minds off the rough ride!

From there we drove to Fiordland and did a two-day sea kayaking/camping trip on Doubtful Sound. It as a beautiful location, and very remote so much quieter than the more famous Milford Sound. We had two days of perfect weather, light winds and blue skies - incredible for Fiordland (the area receives about 10m of rain a year, so 2 consecutive days with no rain at all is pretty lucky!). Ben was complaining that the good weather meant there was no atmospheric mist to make moody photos! The only bad thing about it - the sandflies! Little buggers! They're tiny little flies that give you the worst bites! And there's so many of them! Put your hand down towards the ground or reach round some vegetation and it turns black! Not nice!


We hadn't planned our route after the kayaking so we could wait and see what the weather was like across the country. Managed to avoid most of the rain by heading up to Queenstown and then Arthur's Pass. Did a bit of "caving" - it's a marked footpath that a tiny bit of crawling, scrambling, ladders and traversing round pools, but was quite fun! Rented a bach (holiday chalet) in Arthur's pass for a couple of days - it was nice to be able to spread out a bit more than in our little tent! And a very good excuse to cook lots of nice food in a kitchen rather than do our best on a camping stove!



Had a bit of time to squeeze in some wine-tasting in Marlborough on the way back and arrived back in Wellington on 9th Jan...after another pretty rough ferry ride! And then had a huge shock to the system going back to work the following morning!

Shouldn't complain too much though, we get a bank holiday weekend next week! So we're off on holiday again! Will be going up to Hawke's Bay on the east coast of the North Island with a few friends to a music and beer festival and to do some more wine-tasting. Fingers crossed for a sunny rest of the summer so we can make the most of all the events that go on in Welly.

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!