30/06/2008 by jon.

Ah, the Cook Islands … great climate, nice people, nice beaches but way too far to get to from the UK.

Just four hours from New Zealand - marvellous!

Just back from a week spent blobbing out on the wonderful beaches and can’t wait to go back - and we will be back, but for longer next time. It was the first flight we’ve taken since arriving here 8 months back and it was almost novel to be on board again.

The island itself is rather nice and somewhat unique amongst tropical islands in as much as everything works well, nobody is on the poverty line, the locals all have some very fertile land (only the islanders can buy it) and since the temperature varies from 22 to 30 degrees all year, nobody is going to freeze to death. Given the amount of fish we saw, the locals can feast on such wonderful stuff as Parrot fish (no, it doesn’t repeat on you) and all kinds of other fruits of the sea for free - my favourite price.

The idea behind the holiday was to give my poor wife a rest from the marathon study-fest she had just undertaken. Yes, it was literally a few weeks of cerebral excercise for her exams (she passed with flying colours of course) and who would argue with a week in paradise?

Would we like to live there? No, but I’d take a couple of months …

This is one of me sitting in the place of the chief at the tribal meeting place (morai). He wasn’t using it, on account of having died a few hundred years back. It was in a stunning location, but it could get a bit draughty there if the wind gets up, as mine tends to after lunch.

We didn’t have far to go from bed to sun bed, as you can see. The marquee at the end is where they serve lunch and in the evening, dinner if it’s warm enough (and it is for about 300 nights a year).

This little chap is a hermit crab, and I added it because it shows off what a smashing camera I’ve bought. He was smaller than my finger nail …

How’s this for a used car showroom?

A nice shot of the grounds at the hotel where we stayed.

This is the beach on the Eastern side of the island - not quite as nice as Muri beach where our hotel was.

This is the inlet (or outlet) where the original Maori boats set sail for New Zealand from, a few hundred years back. It hope they took enough butties with them for the journey, it’s over three hours on a good day by aeroplane.

Some of the buildings were painted nice bright colours. Others, like this one, were like the inside of a sick baby’s nappy.

The main street … well, there’s only two main roads (the inner road and the coast road, both pretty much circumnavigate the island) and this is the busy coast road. It was almost two lanes wide in parts …

Muri Beach, just outside our hotel. Busy as ever …

… and this is the view in the other direction. Emptier than Dubbya’s cranium, but no less interesting.

An arty shot, designed to emphasise the tropical climate by the sharp shadow of the palm tree cast by the bright sun onto the bleached sand and the carefree spirit of the traveller in paradise. I can smell that from here

One of the islands in the lagoon, about a minute or two from our hotel, where the snorkling was superb.

Despite it being winter (no, really) there were plenty of flowers still on show.

Just in case you liked the last shot, here’s a close up.

So, that’s it for now … who knows when we’re going to get another break. Perhaps in July when we go skiing

Posted in June 2008 | Print | 2 Comments »

15/06/2008 by jon.

So, where the bloody hell are you then?

I was warned that the winters down South were going to be pretty cold and expected to be up to my testicles in snow for half of the year. The truth is a little different - lowland Canterbury (the plains in other words) gets frost overnight but only when the sky is clear, meaning that the following day, it’s likely to get to 15 degrees or more.

What kind of a winter is that?

We had snow last week and that apparently only happens once a year, or less. Less ? How can you get less than sod all? The good news is that you do get plenty of snow on the Alps, otherwise the skiing would be a little disappointing, don’t you think.

To celebrate this winter-fest, we took our new monster truck over to Akaroa to soak up the sun, have a spot of lunch and a beer and to recharge our batteries after a challenging week at work.

This one was taken from the pier looking back to Akaroa. You can buy fish caught that very morning from the pier and if only we had remembered to bring the chilly bin, we’d be eating that for dinner tonight, but it would have been less than fresh by the time we got it home, because “you know who” insists on having the interior of the motor at melting point.

As the light faded and we took the long and winding road (cue The Beatles …) home, we pulled over to take this one, looking back towards Akaroa. You can probably see the wintery sky and cold looking sea that is typical for this time of year.

And finally, a photo of our new toy, amongst the Chistmas trees and bogged down in snow - must be global warming or something, because it was about 18 degrees outside. Even Jackie had only one coat on …

Posted in June 2008 | Print | No Comments »

15/04/2008 by jon.

So, we’re back from the West Coast and we miss it already.

After heading out of Christchurch - and when is that not a good feeling - towards Arthur’s Pass, things started to look up. The weather was gloomier than a wet weekend in Bognor but that’s usually a good sign if you’re crossing the Alps. The drive to Arthur’s Pass was lovely with the Autumn colours on display and when we stopped in the village at the Pass, all was well in the world.

The drive continued on to Hokitika and the beach … ah the beach. It was bloody marvelous to be on the beach again and we wondered just how savage the sandfly attacks would be, especially since Jackie’s normally a prime target for that kind of thing. Well, we were surprised to see that they were pretty timid on the beach, as can be seen by this picture of happiness.

The beach is known for being empty, the rips, sandfly and driftwood. Well apart from the shy fly, the others were all present in abundance, if emptiness can be present in abundance. There were thousands of bits of driftwood in all shapes and sizes and the colours became apparent later on as the bleaching sun lost some of it’s intensity.

Not too long later, the sun dropped into the Tasman as I looked towards Australia. Of course, then our thoughts turned to food … as usual. Hokitika has four or five very good places to eat, it makes you wonder if there’s a job there just for you. Of course not, but who wants a job anyway?

The next day was again beautiful, so much warmer than what we left back East. Another impossibly bright day, on the beach, 20 degrees, no bugger about.

So where’s the famous sandfly? On holiday perhaps? No, he’s hanging around with a billion of his pals up at Hokitika Gorge. Well, there was a couple of dozen of them anyway, but only once you get close to the fresh water.

Heading North, the great weather held up and it doesn’t look like it’s unusual. There were still flowers in full bloom even though it’s now officially Autumn. This beauty was on the road North to Punakaiki.

There are two things about Punakaiki that brings people here. The amazing pancake rocks shown below, and the blowholes. Unfortunately, the blowholes only blow at high tide, and we were about three hours too early for that. We will be going back however as we spotted a top posh place to stay, with views over the Tasman, and you know we like a bit of posh.

The last leg of the journey home followed the Buller River upstream, through an old mining town called Reefton, to the Lewis Pass and tantalisingly close to Hanmer Springs. We would have stopped overnight at Hanmer, but we’re probably going there for a long weekend in two weeks time. I know, it’s a hard life, but somebody has to do it.

More photos can be found on Flikr.

Posted in April 2008 | Print | 2 Comments »

07/04/2008 by jon.

Sadly, I’m not a driver of a train. For those who may have missed the reference, there’s an educational video for you on YouTube.

Almost two months since I last wrote anything meaningful and that’s a sorry state of affairs, and something that I will put right as we wait for the dinner to cook. Fish pie tonight … mmmm, lovely. You could almost believe you were in a sunny seaside town with the fresh sea air and blue skies if it was not for the rain and the smell of fires.

Log fires are burning everywhere today because the weather has turned all Scottish on us. Yah, boo, suck to that. The strange thing is, the weather was pants at work and sunny but cool here at home and I am starting to think that I have my own personal rain cloud in the office. That’s surprising with it being such a great place to work and all that.

This weekend we are heading over to the west coast and will of course take a whole load of photos and eventually get them onto the web. Just like the last lot. I have started to put them onto Flickr but have not labelled them all (or, indeed any of them) yet but I’ll let you know.

Must go check on supper …

Posted in April 2008 | Print | 2 Comments »

11/02/2008 by jon.

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Posted in February 2008 | Print | 2 Comments »