One thing I forgot to mention a while ago, was that Myra and Graham organised a trip to see the Rocky Horror Show. The Rocky Horror show was created by a kiwi – Richard O Brian, and it was he who was directing. Having never seen the film or been to the theatre I didn’t really have a massively formed idea of what I was in for. But I did know I had to dress up. Here’s a picture of me dressed up.

Just where I live is a city garden & stately home (Mona Vale). They have Shakespeare plays every year and this year it was the Taming of the Shrew. It was excellent.

Last night we had Graham and Myra over for dinner. Maaike made a delicious pie from a recipe that her brother Sjoerd made for us. I tried a new (simple but yum) recipe for a lime cheesecakeish desert.

Marscarpone and Lime Tart

200g Ginger Bisc – crushed
50g butter – melted
500g Marscapone Cheese
40g Icing Sugar – sifted
Finely grated zest and juice of 2 – 3 limes

Mix biscuits and butter and push into the base of a 7 inch tin.

Beat marscapone, icing sugar, zest and juice of limes together. Spread
on based and chill for 30 mins.

Decorate as wish – chocolate, grapes etc.

It was also a chance to use the lovely forks I got many years ago for the bargain price of $15 from the charity shop. While I do get abuse for my reckless buying of stuff, I still reckon that every house needs specialised desert spoons and forks. As you can see from this photo, Maaike, Myra & Graham definitely feel the same.

In comparison for size, you can see the awesome chopping board that I bought a while ago (which I still receive abuse for buying.. however, I maintain that every good kitchen needs a good chopping board, and truly, this is the king of chopping boards).

It was also pointed out that my blog has been getting less attention of late. Mainly this is because starting a new job, however groovy, is quite a lot of work. Also, it would be fair to say that I have been quite… relaxed… for quite a while.. so the shock to the system is somewhat more than usual. I am enjoying it a lot though. Learning heaps, really supportive environment.

Still, off to Tasmania for 2 weeks on Saturday for Domhnall and Gills’ wedding – and I just can’t wait. Maaike and I will get some tramping and touring in beforehand.. will be great to have a good stretch of the legs. Lots of lovely pictures to follow.

Firstly – a picture of the spare bedroom.

It’s safe again ;)

Maaike had a friend Nelie staying for the last few days and so off we headed with a third Dutch (Ivor) to Mt. Somers for the weekend. It’s ridiculous how easily they all switch between languages. Quite jealous.

Oh – actually this is cool. All of the topographic information was given away free by LINZ, which in turn creates lots of new exciting opportunities for people. Some clever person made a google map overlay of the entire series. So I can now link straight to the map … check this out.

Anyway, had a good day (not toooo hot) up and over Mt. Somers and down to Woolshed Creek hut.

Where we were greeted by the most officious and, frankly, aggressive and obnoxious (as it turned out) DOC volunteer. I’ll not go through it all here – but will be writing a letter to DOC about it. Synopsis – Ivors tent blew down in the strong Nor’Wester and (after having paid a ticket to camp) they decided to sleep on the floor of the hut. Lady comes back at 08:30 and complains that “two of our party sneaked in and they had to pay for the hut”. We said things like “emergency” and “only slept on the floor” and she said “don’t care, even in an emergency you’re not allowed to sleep in a hut”.

It was at that point that we basically told her where to go. Utter utter rubbish. The most unfriendly, officious, mean spirited, nasty and aggressive person I’ve ever met in the outdoors.

*breathe*

Anyway, other than that it was a lovely trip. Came back via pinnacles hut (where there’s some good climbing) and back to Christchurch. It was also one of the hottest days on record as NZ was experiencing some of the weather left over from cyclone Yasi which smacked into OZ.

Oh yes, and swimming was done. I am so *not* a cold weather person. But I did get in.

Anyway, thanks to Ivor, Nelie (and Maaike!) for a lovely weekend. No thanks to the woolshed DOC lady. Letter will be on its way shortly.

My cousin William (from Palmerston North) was down with his partner Buzz and their little’uns – Blake and Anna. As expected things were relatively haphazard but absolutely lovely to have them down.

Blake certainly reminds me of myself a bit – or at least what I was like as a kid. Ridiculously competitive. While I realise the stock response here will be “you still are ridiculously competitive”, I think I’ve tempered my temper somewhat. Blake was a keen player of “tag”.. but also has a very inventive imagination. Every time I “tagged” him, there was some reason why it wasn’t allowed. So I caught him unawares and he started chasing. After half an hour I was knackered, and forced to give up. Good legs. Good commitment. He’ll go far.

There has been an exhibition of Ron Muecks in the art gallery. I’d never heard of him before, but he’s an Australian, and creates lifelike representations of mostly nude humans in various scales. They’re really very lifelike and usually in some pose which draws the viewer into the art. Quite clever. Apologies if looking at these pictures gets you in trouble at work ;)

There was also a waiata going on outside (Maori song) which was kinda part of the buskers festival which happens this time every year.

Good times.

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.

Up to Palmy for Christmas. Cousin Thomas was over from the UK, and lovely to see him again. We gave eachother a poker set (identical) and it saw quite a lot of use over the next few days. Irritatingly, Maaike, once introduced to the game did quite well. I have a theory (Theory A) which has as it’s axiom:

1) Boys don’t like loosing to girls.

Therefore, in a poker bidding war, boys will continue to up the stakes against a girl. This leads to doom when your opponent does, actually, have a decent hand.

Anyway, it was lots of fun. We took the cousins on the Gorge walk, which is a 5 hour (easy) walk just outside of Palmy. I don’t think either my Aunt or cousins had done the walk in quite a long time. It’s a lovely walk, the perfect thing to work off some of the Christmas Turkey.

There were some excellent branches to swing on (if you’re < 70kg)

And some good views of the wind turbines throughout the area. I’m not quite sure where they come up with these stats.. but apparently this area of NZ has “the most reliable strongish wind patterns on the planet”. I’d like to see the sources for (Alisters) claim on that one!

Next it was off to Taranaki to meet up with our friends (and housemates) Steve and Michelle. Steve is from ‘the naki’ and understandably proud of a stunning part of the country. We met up in New Plymouth where we enjoyed the festival of lights. Even going for a row in a pirate boat! ARRRRGGGG

We also had a quick walk up to the top of an old leftover volcano.. and a nice view of the sea.

Next day it was off to Taranaki (Mt. Egmont) where we went on a 3 day tramp. The last time I was here was a long time ago (2003) with my friend Maeve. It’s a stunning place, gets metres of rain a year and is just wonderful. Mind you, last time I was here in the rain and it was much more pleasant this time around.

They’ve been carrying out some extensive stout trapping here. We saw hundreds of traps – but I think we only saw one actual capture. Still, bettern’ nuffink.

We visited a waterfall (Bells falls), and had stunning campsites for the premier of the pitching of our new tent (Macpac Olympus)

New Years eve was a little cold and windy, here a picture of Michelle responding to Steve’s request to pass his bag across, but not willing to risk getting out from under the sleeping bag. We woke up to these funny shaped clouds. I’m pretty sure they’re ‘lenticular’ clouds, and indicative of high winds.

After a quick breakfast we headed up the mountain to the top. It’s only a 1000m climb, but quite steep, quite hot, and with lots of scree. Technically it’s not hard (at least in summer), but claims the most lives each year. Probably ‘cos there’s lots of traffic on the mountain, and the weather can change very rapidly.

An excellent trip – really great to get to the top of a decent mountain again.