A couple of weeks ago Viv & Vince arrived from Ireland for a two week road trip of NZ. They saw a lot, climbed a lot and tramped places I’ve not got to (yet!). It was lovely seeing them.
The only sad thing was that, of course, they left again. Really shouldn’t be allowed.
Maaike and I had planned a trip up to Kaikoura to see Val & Dom. It was a simply fantastic weekend. Kaikoura is Maori for “plentiful food”. There’s a really good reason for this. As you may/may not know, New Zealand is half on one tectonic plate and half on another. Good design eh. At Kaikoura there’s a deep trench very close to the short. Within one km of the shore it’s one km deep. Lots of rich waters well up close to the land and basically, marine life goes berserk. Also, the van clocked 200K
Dom had caught Paua and Crayfish (like a lobster only less vicious) which we had on the BBQ on arrival. Perfect end to a Friday afternoon!
The next day while Dom was at work, Val & Maaike and I went for a bit of a bike ride.
I took along my new HTC Desire HD (a smart phone!). I was pretty annoyed that the GPS pretty much failed to work for most of the trip. However, now (a week later) I think I’ve got that mostly sorted. There’s little worse than the anticipation of something entirely hip and groovy being anything less than perfectly so!. Snowpool app to follow in a few months.
In the evening we went for a snorkel (will update with pictures later) and Dom caught a couple of cray and some fresh Paua. Paua is abalone and it’s just the most delicious (and unique) food. It looks like the left, and comes in the shell on the right.
Then the evening was spent with a couple of wines and many many games on Dom’s XBox Kinect. Very very fun, I had pain in my side for 3 days from “throwing the javelin”. Honestly.
On the Sunday Maaike gave me a very generous and slightly early birthday present. A Whale watch flight with Dom.
Most of the pictures came out quite badly. It’s hard to take a decent picture with a small lens in a moving helicopter. However, I was really very happy with this pic.
Well, thanks to all for a brilliant start to my 33rd year on the planet.
Marcel
January 26, 2011 at 9:15 pm
wow, looking great once more!
I also love the coastline.jpg image :)
And, a bit late: Happy Birthday!
Marcel :)
Matt
January 30, 2011 at 8:58 am
That crayfish looks mmm tasty.
You sure you’re not doing a nixer for the NZ tourist board?
Nice tail shot! Not easy to capture…
Patrick
January 30, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Heh, quite sure about the nixer… but sometimes I think I should!
As for the tail shot – complete and total fluke.. all the others were really washed out… I saw he was about to dive and just clicked. V lucky.
Wilmy
February 2, 2011 at 11:08 am
Very nice pictures Patrick, the last one of the tail and the ones of the Paua. I remember Kaikoura very well and I get “homesick” of this pictures.