So got the bus up to Paihia – a pretty good base for seeing the Bay of Islands (names by Cook – he first made landfall here – though it was sighted at Young Nicks Head over Gisbourne way).

Checked into the Saltwater lodge, a nice enough backpackers – en suite etc.. but I reckon I prefer smaller places.

Friday started off .. with a thunderstorm. And it didn’t really stop raining until the afternoon. Not to be deterred I took a boat across the bay to Russell. It’s a really lovely town, I’d highly recommend getting there. It used to be called The Hell Hole of the Pacific by the missionaries because the sailors would come here to resupply, get drunk and generally have good times…

I really enjoyed it there. As I’d been watching my Billy Connolly World Tour of New Zealand I had a couple of things I wanted to check off in Northlands – and Russell was one of them. Billys wife – Pamela Stephenson – her family were NZ pioneers.. and in the church there are gravestones from her family back to the 1840s

I should have ‘blown it up’ but there are actually bullet holes in this church from back when Hone Heke (more about him later) chopped down the flagstaff (for the fourth time). Really nice church though and inside – on each of the 150 or places that people can sit – there’s a needlepoint? cushion – covering some aspect of NZ life

I also took in a trip to the local history museum. There was a travelling exhibition of pictures and text from the Maori history of creation. I kinda took pictures of the whole thing.. so if you’re interested in seeing the history of creation (and the pretty pictures) then have a look at The Children of Rangi and Papa

There was also a 1/4 size?! (probably wrong sorry) replica of The Endeavour (Cooks ship) inside the museum.

After that I had a quick hike up to Flagstaff hill. Russell kinda used to be the capital of NZ (it was actually a few bays over – but Russell became a centre for trade)… then the brits headed off and set up Auckland – and all the trade etc. pretty much stopped. This irriated the locals quite a lot. And an irriated warrior people isn’t (ever) a fantastic idea.

There was a leader – Hone Heke – who chopped down the (oppressive) flagpole that the British had placed on the top of the hill when they left Russell. The British put it back up again. He chopped it down. The British put it up for a third time (this time with a metal shield for 20ft), and Hone Heke chopped it down for the fourth time (March 11th 1845). And the New Zealand – or Maori – wars pretty much started straight away.

After Russell I just caught the 3pm boat back across the water – and walked across to Waitangi.

This was where on 6th Febuary 1840 NZ became part of the British Empire (and yes, 5 years later there was war between the peoples..)

It was a good place to see though, there was the biggest waka (canoe) made (ever?!) on display.

I think that’s one of the biggest differences between the North and South Islands.. The North has so much more history (it seems to me), as it has been a more hospitable place to live – whereas the South has less people – and more mountainous rugged beauty.

I thought these signs were quite funny – very kiwi.

I was feeling slightly energetic – so ran the 5km or so to the Haruru Falls. It was a fun run (which isn’t something I’d usually say about running..) But I put my music on and off I went. It was great running through the mangroves.. It was actually very dark by the time I got to the falls – this pic is so light as it was on IS0 400 for about a second exposure.

I was kinda not looking forward to the walk home (another 5km and the first test match between the All Blacks and the Lions was on). However, a local (well, New Yorker but living there now) dropped me to my door.. thanks man!

Totally disappointed by the rugby – not that I follow it to be honest, but one wonders if Brian O Driscoll wasn’t taken out on purpose..

So flew up to Auckland on the 05:50 flight. Which was quite early… hmmmm. Anyways, checked into the Hilton (as you do) and went to the TUANZ (telecoms) conference for most of the day. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

It kinda reinforced what I’m beginning to think… If your business can get good information out of your contacts with the public, then that has to be one of the most important parts of the business… without good feedback good decisions can’t be made (easily). And I kinda wonder if I want to get into the Business Analyst area of things..

Hmm, that all seemed a little serious for a moment. Excuse me while I snort some coke ;) (joking joking)

Right, where was I – yes, flew up to Auckland – conference was a precursor to the annual awards. Last year we were up for Contact Centre of the year, this year Andrew went for Contact Centre Manager of the year (for contact centres with less than 50 seats)

So L->R me, David, Martine and Andrew went to the dinner (along with 600 others). It wasn’t quite as drunken affair as last time… we were slightly on our best behaviour (ish) as we were sitting at pretty much the top table..

To cut a long story short… Andrew won.

I took two videos at the dinner.. first one(7 megs) and the second one(7 megs). Of the two, the second one is the funnier one by far..

Good times though. We were all pretty stoked with the win. The trophy was by far and away the heaviest trophy I’ve ever encountered. You really needed 2 hands to lift the thing.. Would be quite interested to know how much it weighed.

I must admit.. it was incredibly satisfactory (in a smug kinda way – sorry – it happens occasionally)… The dinner you see was sponsored by quite a few companies, including recruitment companies.. including the company Madison that I used to work for in ChCh – who placed me into the M.E.D. Anyway, I guess I didn’t always feel incredibly appreciated in there, so it was quite nice to go over and say hello and see some surprised – but happy – faces. Amazing how things can change in a year really.

Took the Friday and Monday off – so details to come soon of my trip around Northlands. It was really excellent fun though, very different to Canterbury that’s for sure!

Two great things happened today – glynn got back from Ireland (yay) and my friend Emma Bartlete (and Ailish) and two of their friends (Vanessa and Siobhan) were visiting ChCh.

As you can see from the pic, ChCh was also gearing up for the first lions vs All Blacks test match. It’s just so great having friends from home visiting. Looks like Emma has had a fun time around NZ.. Only wish I’d been able to hang out some more – but on Thursday I headed off to Auckland…

Watch The Corporation if you get the chance.

So yesterday it was off to the ‘Heights Of Winter’ – a 12 hour orienteering event. It a rogaine you’re given a map with lots of checkpoints dotted all over it each of which has a score (10,20,30 ->100 points) associated with it. Checkpoints which are further away / more awkward / require good navigation – are worth more points.

So L->R Me, Franklin, Andy and Kirsty

headed off to do the best we could! I must admit, I was beginning to wonder after about the first 10 minutes when we were struggling up this matagauri infested steep slope…

..whether I had the staying distance. Well, not really, I’m a masochist at heart, but I will be picking thorns out of my hands for weeks. Matagauri is the fairly innocuous looking grey shrubs in that picture. It’s a very tough, very spikey bush. And a lot of the course (I thought ;) was covered in the stuff. Still, more of an incentive to move quickly and get to the top.

Or something.

Still, it was lots of fun cruising around the course. You can see our initial plan on this map (dark blue thin line – only as far as 52 as we were going to see how we were doing!)), and also the route we took (sky-blue line)

As you can see, we looped back through the start. If you were seriously competing in the event that would be suicide.. but I felt a gazillion (or two) times better after getting serious quantities of bread + soup into me.

There were some nice views along the way though

And at the end we all got a hearty meal! which always tastes so great after hiking for 12 hours.

They had these ‘funky gizmotrons‘ (technical term) for keeping track of which points you’d visited. Each team had a sort of magnetic (I guess) penny-sized object, and at each checkpoint held some sort of RF? writer up to it,?! no idea, but it encoded the time at which you’d visited the checkpoint. It was all very quick and very clever. So at the end of the event, after you’d handed back in the gizmotron, there was an instant readout of each of the points you’d visited (and the times you’d got there). I really thought it was super clever. This particular system designed by a local guy… I believe there are similar systems – but it would be great for adventure racing teams etc.. real potential there.

So yes, thanks (though I wasn’t saying it at the time ;) hehe, to Andy and Kirsty for the invite…

So a few other interesting things (if you’ve made it this far!)

Store Wars is a really funny little flash animation. All about fruit ‘n veg wars between Organic Foods and Evil Supermarket Clones (he’s more chemical than potato now Luke ;) Chewbacca is a cauliflower… honestly.. it’s really funny!!

On a mostly sadder note – very odd (and not suitable for mum…) is postsecret.blogspot.com. People send in postcards to an address with a secret on them. And he puts the cards on the internet. Mostly quite sad though.

On a far happier note – organised the wine + glasses for my mulled wine party on Friday week. Co-incidently (not) the day my friend Lorcan arrives from Ireland. It’s going to be an excellent party (I hope). Also – on Wednesday an college friend – Emma Bartlete) is going to be in town.. twill be fun to catch up over a pint or two. And then on Thursday morning fly up to Auckland for a work function – same as last year. Got quite hammered on really excellent wine (and accompanying food). Though I think it’ll be tamer this year. And then taking a couple of days off and heading up to Northlands to explore that part of the country. Only major area I’ve not visited of NZ yet (other than Dunedin). Though there’s still so much to see and do.