LEJOG

5th day of the Land's End to John O'Groats cycle ride over and done with - a wet rainy day so we decided to treat ourselves to a cuppa at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire. Cycling has taken up most of our time so we've not been able to access the internet, however I will now try to upload some of the more interesting photos as we go along. I'll start with a bit of a retrospective.

Racing the Dodo

Another early wake up call - buses left at 6.45 for the start and there we were, nearly 300 of us attempting the 25K. The smaller number of 50K'ers had already been running for over an hour starting in the dark. We were a bit luckier as we didn't need head torches. This was a serious race, in fact all of them were including the 10K race which skirted round this rocky peak - our job was, with the help of strategically positioned ropes, to go up and over; this at the end of 4 hours of running through jungle avoiding tree roots on steep uphills and downhills.

What a well organised event though. Aid stations were manned by dozens of volunteers providing water, coke, energy drinks, bananas, energy bars, fruit, raisins, you name it it was there  - and it was all needed. There's one photo of Ricky Lightfoot from Cumbria, who won the 50K comfortably for the second year, having a positive picnic at one stop. Ricky's fairly tall but he's certainly light on his feet.

A new friend!

 So, results then, Vicky was second V60 lady in the 10K - it looks from the picture that she was beaten by the cuddly Dodo but, in fact the first over 60 lady had disappeared - Vicky had obviously run her into the ground. Lyndall paced Vicky for much of the race but once she realised Vicky was going to make it OK, she took off and waltzed through the field to gain an additional sixty places. Lou 329th in 1.46.24, Vicky 392nd in 1.53.33.

Bit of a breeze really!

 Also on the podium - me! I found that I was first placed 96th overall in a time of 4.52 - I've not run (not sure much of it was actually running) for that length of time for years. Astonishing how many locals do this event - the population of Mauritius is about 1.2 million and here were nearly 1200 lunatic mountain runners, mostly from the island but interspersed with a few tourists, mainly from South Africa.

It's nice up here!

And would I run this race again - if you'd asked me after I'd finished I'd have said no but now I'm not so sure. Mauritius is a friendly place with lots to see and we only saw a few of the sights. One of the most impressive in my book was the sight of a White Tailed Tropic Bird Phaethon lepturus gliding over the high forests. They have a wing span of nearly a metre and are about the same length. We tried to get decent photos of them but they move rather swiftly so this is a Googly snap.

And I though I'd better include a photo of Lou in the water with a smile on her face!

Learning to fly!

All for me grog!

A hot and humid afternoon, perhaps not the best time to go tasting rum, but it was a mile or so up the road so we thought we'd give it a go. Chamarel Rhumerie is in a beautiful setting with fine manicured lawns and perfumed gardens - I thought this photo came out quite well! The rum itself came in tiny tots but we had several of them and were a bit woozy on the walk back. I thought the various flavoured rums were a bit on the sweet side and I can't really enthuse about them, however their double distilled white rum was something special, quite different to Bacardi!

Almost Race Day

I'm not running up that!

The big race tomorrow and we are thankful that this is not the final peak that we have to climb for the  Dodo Trail Race - this is one of the views from the starting point of tomorrow morning's jaunt. The final peak is in the other direction - just as high but not as spikey. We signed in this morning at a well organised race HQ - 750 runners in total at the three distances. Last year's winner of the 50K race was Ricky Lightfoot from Cumbria and he's down on the list again. I've settled for the 25K event which has 1500 metres of climb much of it on trails covered in tree roots and other debris.

Off we go!

And by way of a warm up.on Monday we decided a bike ride was in order. This took us down to the Seven Coloured Earth site which was described earlier - here we are passing between sugar cane fields on our way back. These appear to be quiet country lanes but every so often an ancient bus with a smoking exhaust pipe or a mad Mauritian taxi will come hurtling round a corner on the wrong side of the road. So it was with a sigh of relief that we cut off the road and pulled into the service road at the back of our hotel.

Now this won't hurt.

And then disaster struck - I tried to avoid a large puddle by skirting to the side of the gravel track and my front wheel gave way sliding off to the side - I slid forward on my knees and ended up in the local clinic! The gravel of the track was collected from a stony beach and comprised small lumps of dead coral. Coral, as divers on reefs know full well, can be extremely abrasive and therefore this mishap meant that my knees were well and truly shredded. This particular doctor (who attended to me the second we came through the door!) was accompanied by a no nonsense nurse who was quite handy with a scalpel, cutting away loose skin in order to clean out gravel from underneath. All in all an interesting day we thought! The challenge now of course was to cosset the wound carefully such that I could run on Sunday, large quantities of betadene and iodine were employed to try to avoid infection and, after today's careful examination the decision is to go ahead and go for it!

What to see in Mauritius

Perhaps if I jump a bit higher?

This big fellow is in the park at a tourist attraction called the Seven Coloured Earths. He (or she) is one of several giant tortoises on Mauritius. The original giant tortoises died out at the same time as the Dodo (Oh those hungry sailors! Did they realise what they were doing?) This gang of dipsochelys gigantea were imported from the Seychelles in the 1880's. They were sitting/lying down in a group contentedly munching away when one of them lurched to its feet and raced across to these stumps to see if any had fallen over.

Who left this mess?

The Seven Coloured Earths is a small area of sand dunes in the middle of nowhere which are somewhat of a mystery. Nothing will grow on them and despite the area's torrential rains they don't wear down. The key feature though is the stripey pattern consisting of seven different colours - this photo doesn't really do it justice. A range of different coloured ions give rise to the colours which separate again even when mixed together. What a great opportunity for a chemistry school field trip!
 

Is it a bird, is it a plane?

Finally something which I thought was a bird at first - this is the Mauritian Flying Fox  a fruit bat or megabat with a wingspan of around a metre. Most bats only fly at night but you can see these guys throughout the day. Interestingly fruit bats have lost their ability to find their way around using echo location. This photo doesn't show it clearly but there's a tiny Garmin attached to this chap's right shoulder.

Show me the way to Port Louis

Yes we have some bananas!

The capital of Mauritius is a busy town called Port Louis. Everybody speaks French over here but curiously they all pronounce the 's' at the end of Louis. One of the sights to see is 'The Markets' - this is a little bit Asian and a little bit African with lots of interesting fruit and veg and all sorts of souvenirs including Dodos. There are wood carvings of Dodos, pottery figures of Dodos, Dodo table cloths, you name it it's got a Dodo on it. And bananas - this stall had quite a variety of different types of bananas - we like the small yellow fleshed sweet tasty ones!

Can you see what I see?

Port Louis traffic was fairly thick - around 5 pm, the centre seemed totally grid locked. However we got back in the car about 5.30 pm to find the traffic moving freely again. This was rather helpful as we had then to follow some rather vague directions in our search for the Flying Dodo. In the town centre there's a small park planted many years ago with Banyan trees (ficus bengalensis). They've grown a bit since then as you can see. This particular tourist was clearly intoxicated with the view!

Good ale is not extinct.

And here's the Flying Dodo. Having limited ourselves to the local Phoenix beer for a few days (mainly because there was nothing else on offer) it was a pleasant surprise to find the Lambic Restaurant, one of two outlets for the products of the Flying Dodo microbrewery. Not very well signposted, we drove past it on the one way system without spotting it first time round. However once inside we found a handpump with a Fuller's London Pride clip on it. This was just for show and therefore we sampled a pint of the Flying Dodo Blonde Ale; just the one as we didn't want to become intoxicated at this early hour.

Running in the Indian Ocean

Hot news off the press. All three of our gallant visitors to Mauritius stood on the podium this morning. In the 10K Vicky was first lady in her class and won a gold medal and Lyndall was 3rd senior lady winning a bronzie. Martin completed the half marathon in testing conditions and finished 2nd V60 in 1,47.13. Photos to follow!

She's a winner!

And here she is standing on the podium - first V60 lady at the Mauritius 10K holding up her prize - a fresh pineapple. She failed to hear her name being read out on the tannoy because she just wasn't expecting a placing (modest to herself as usual). She also won a nice little gold medal as a memorable souvenir together with the bright red running vest which will soon be seen round the parkruns of North Wales and Cheshire. Not only was it hot and hilly but the second half was straight into a fairly stiff sea breeze. To add to that we were virtually just off the plane after a 12 hour flight so a very respectable time indeed! The pineapple was flambed by the chef at our hotel that evening - very tasty.

Pictured below are the silver and bronze medallists enjoying their brief moments of glory!

We should have tripped you up!

My legs are longest.

Dangerous wildlife in Mauritius

First day in Mauritius and found one of these huge things crossing our path on the way down to breakfast! Achatina Fulica, to give it it's Latin name, is the second largest snail in the world and was introduced by accident to Mauritius over 100 years ago. It seems that this species can harbour a nematode which can give humans a form of meningitis and can also kill dogs. This one was about 8 inches long.

Danger - I can kill dogs!

On yer bike!

Here's where the blog goes a bit bikey - having been a runner for many decades and only looking at cycling as a means to get from A to B, I have now started to get more enthusiastic about the pleasures of cycling. This is the Dawes Audax Giro - a fine vintage touring bike which has carried me round the lanes for the last few years. Probably indestructable it goes fairly well but the brakes and gears leave a lot to be desired. It also rattles and shakes so on any longish ride it's a bit jarring and uncomfortable even with the padded shorts and padded saddle cover. Still it's put in some good service.

And this is the shiny red one - a Fuji Sportif, sportive or sportif is a flash continental term for a touring bike and this one's fairly sturdy (note the mudguards.) The man in the shop spent ages talking about the relative benefits of disc brakes and Shimano whatsits and trying to sell me top of the range Cannondales and Specializeds and so on, but in the end I just said I'll take the red one! I've put the padded seat cover on and am just about to do 50 or so miles on a pleasantish Sunday afternoon. A few weeks ago I'd have struggled with half that distance but we're building it up to a big one. (LEJOG!) Not that I'm losing interest in running or anything like that but last weekend's Fairy Freckled Cow trail race was a bit painful as you can see from the following photo. Vicky took this about half a mile from the end when I was rapidly running out of steam in part due to a wicked tumble which saw me splattered on the ground. In fact no one saw me as at that stage I was well ahead of the next runner on a isolated part of the course. I staggered to my feet expecting hordes of runners to whiz past but in fact nobody appeared. What had seemed like several minutes must have been just seconds - I got going again and managed to stop my fast finishing clubmate Fred Jones from beating me to win an excellent bottle of beer for finishing in first V60 position.

N

Chester Irregularities

 

Been far to busy since getting back to the UK to do much in way of blogging! However things starting to ease off now - one more wedding party tomorrow and that's it for this month at last. We're now in Chester which has more than it's fair share of quirks - they're repairing Eastgate and put up a temporary clockface surrounding the old clock - as you can see someone was looking in the mirror when they designed this one - it's now been corrected but there must have been plenty of red faces all round. And just around the corner from Eastgate is St John's Street where sits a cosy old alehouse - if you look at the pub name more closely you'll see it's a bit of a tongue twister - apparently a pub signwriter long ago had made a bit of a mistake but the landlady quite liked this little touch of whimsy - and the name has stuck!

 

A perilous place!

Don't follow me!

Well it was inevitable that we would face some wild weather at some point seeing as we're just north of Antarctica. A powerful southerly gale pushed into Wellington and battered the coast. This is a view of Petone at the height of the storm on Friday and widespread flooding caused no end of problems. We had scheduled a park run at Lower Hutt very close to this scene on the next morning. However the major surprise was that, of the three parkruns in Lower North Island, this was the only one to go ahead. Straight into the teeth of the storm we went facing 40 mph winds - we did get blown back fairly swiftly though and I managed 10th in 20.52 knocking well over a minute off the previous V60 record. In 71st Vicky was trailed by a good many others and came back strongly in 34.26.

Australia has poisonous snakes, spiders, hungry crocs, dangerous plants and more whereas there's none of this stuff in NZ. However the Kiwis are definitely conscious of being in a dangerous part of the world. This is the headline from the Dominion Post, which is Wellington's daily paper, warning that a major quake is overdue. Since the earthquake that caused major damage and killed 185 people in Christchurch in 2011, there have been several more of at least equal magnitude. On top of this there are a number of volcanoes waiting to 'go off'. In addition there are other natural phenomena which are firm evidence of dodgy activity not far below ground. As we drove through the middle of North Island, Vicky spotted what she thought were bonfires in the distance. These were, in fact, steam vents releasing superheated water from below ground.  The pungent smell of sulphur wafted through the car windows, the sky darkened, fire and brimstone gathered around us and the end of the word nearly became nigh. Foot on the accelerator and we got through by the skin of our teeth and were able to stop off for a nice meat pie for lunch in the gumboot capital of the world (more of this later!)

There's a kettle boiling somewhere!

Did you leave the keys in the car darling?

Another unnerving consequence of the Christchurch earthquake was something called liquefaction, nothing at all to do with milkshakes it's the result of rapid vibrations in the ground during a quake. In scientific terms it's a process within a mass of soil where the soil particles lose contact with one another. Basically solid earth temporarily turns into quicksand resulting in remarkable scenes like this. All in all New Zealand seems to have it's fair share of hazards!

Sunday in Nelson and Squid in Wellington

Nelson in South Island is a fine place to be. On Sunday when we got there we went to call in at this fine establishment. This was a chapel but it's now a pub going by the name of the Free House and it's been voted one of the best bars in New Zealand. We were very lucky to be able to sample the fine ale that was on tap including beer served from the only handpumps in this part of the country. This felt more like a proper pub than anywhere else we've been to - very relaxed and a real mix of clientale (sorry I'm sure that should be spelt clientele!)

 

This is the New Zealand Fantail! A bright chirpy bird - these little so and so's seemed to follow us everywhere when we were walking in the bush on North Island. Apparently what they do is go for the little insects that we've disturbed as we brush against bushes. They then swoop down with a very erratic flickering flight - very difficult to photograph cos they move so quickly. And then in South Island, right outside our balcony in Nelson I saw a bunch of fantails swooping around. But they were jet black! I couldn't find them on the Wikipedia list of NZ birds or indeed anywhere else until I googled

'Nelson' and 'fantails' - and there they were - the same species but a variant that seems to occur only in that area of South Island. Well this is clearly designed to confuse foreign twitchers like me. However we've seen lots of other weird and wonderful wildlife like pied stilts, pied shags, great black shags and various indigenous birdies.
And so to the New Zealand's Te Papa Museum in Wellington, not just interesting on account of it being a big (free which was good!) all encompassing museum of everything Kiwi, but it houses a big bath containing the 'squid'. Oh yes this is a big squid!

The largest example of a 'Colossal Squid' on display anywhere n the world - it's nearly three time as long as I am! Only about 5 metres, but others twice the size have been found in NZ waters. The captain of the fishing vessel who found this a few years ago could have obviously made a fortune supplying all of the restaurants in Wellington with squid for a month but we think he chose the best option - he is now commemorated in the Te Papa museum along with this very well preserved specimen.

And while this is happening there is history in the making - we then went to Golding's Dive Bar (handpumped beer again!) round the corner and the barmaid told us about the really big one found last week. I'm afraid there has been a bit of a seafood theme this week but that's the way it goes!This new big big big squid (7 metres in length) is apparently on ice waiting for six scientists to jet in from Japan (the expert six squid seekers) to come and probe it with endoscopes, etc., to see what sex it is. Well where do you start?  (Footnote to all this - pie of the week was a Thai Green Curry pie eaten 'al fresco' on the seafront at Petone! Delicious!)

I'm a sick squid!

Running for a Bottle!

Actually everybody got a bottle!

My winnings from the St Clair half marathon! A very nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc with a sprinkling of bubbles in it. Mind you I had to work hard for this. The race was round the vineyards of Marlborough on South Island, NZ. I had thought that Marlborough was a town but it's a region full of vineyards, the major town in the middle of the valley is Blenheim. I managed to get a late entry based on the fact that in North Wales we hadn't been told that this race fills up early. There are round about 4,000 people galloping or strolling round the course every year - seems to be very popular here and we'd no idea that there were this many runners in New Zealand. Very confusing in some ways because they set us off in waves - I wangled a place in the first start and thought I was doing well - no old geezers in front of me and I kept digging in to finish in 1.36. It was hard work as we were running up and down between rows of grapevines on fairly thick grass but I kept a bit in reserve and finished strongishly.

A fairly busy finish area with lots of stalls and so on and we found the pie tent - just what I needed. And then they started putting up results on a notice board - yes there I was 36th overall but 2nd V60!!! I looked up to see where the first V60 was and he was logged in as first in a ridiculous time. Help! We eventually found that this was incorrect and some shenanigans had taken place so I got 1st place and was pacified! Here's me fairly fresh not far from the start - this is Vicky's snapshot which seemed much better than the official race photos as it depicted vines and mountains and a strong looking elderly runner.

Nice view - shame about all these boats in the way!

Marlborough Sound is quite something - we took the ferry from Wellington to Picton - the open sea crossing is fairly short but then we spent the next hour or so cruising past inlets and mountains covered with high forest - spectacular indeed. Picton itself was pictureskew and we  spent some time there in a very nice motel, mainly because we have deadlines regarding a pile of work we are currently doing. Free wifi is essential at the moment! However it beats sitting at home doing it all. What is excellent about NZ motels is that they all have nice little kitchens in the motel rooms so we can nip round to the supermarket, grab a bit of food and beer and just carry on working.

Treading Dangerously!

There she blows - well hopefully not just yet!

This is an impressive sight - if you can see it, unfortunately for the duration of our stay in New Plymouth it was covered in dense cloud. However we thought we'd go and pay it a visit and drove up to the visitor centre. Taranaki is an active volcano and is currently over 8000 feet high. According to the vulcanologists it is overdue for a major eruption! Because it looks very much like Mount Fuji, they filmed the epic movie The Last Samurai here which starred Tom Cruise and, for some reason, Billy Connolly and Timothy Spall!

And here we are, well here is Vicky and here's me taking the photo. This was about half an hour or so quick tramp up the mountain from the visitor centre, so we were well higher than the top of Snowdon. You can see the start of the snow line in the top left hand corner of the picture and I went up as far as the beginning of the ridge that you can see beyond the end of the tree line (with the land slip off to the left - there seem to be plenty of land slips in New Zealand!) It was pretty nippy up here but we'd climbed vigorously through the New Zealand rainforest to get to this point so were warm enough. Didn't see another soul on the mountain but then again this is the start of their winter. And they don't call them hikers over here - as in the US we fall into the category of 'trampers'!

On our way to Wellington we listened to the car radio and heard the most casual news flash ever along the lines of: 'Hey guys, there's just been a 'quake down at Queenstown, if anyone knows anything 'bout it can they give us a call!' And for the next half hour folk rang in arguing whether or not it was a 'shaker' or a 'roller' and bragging about how many plates had fallen off the sideboard. It's all very laid back!

Not seen Polly for 100.000,000 years - does she still talk rubbish?

And also on the way to Wellington we stayed overnight with Chris and Fran's very nice relatives who lived on Denbigh Road at Feilding (no that's not a misspelling). Despite being over here for 50 years Alan has a very pleasant broad Derbyshire accent.
We managed to also sneak into an aviary in Palmerston North to spot some rare New Zealand birds including a Kaka which eventually we discovered is the Maori word for parrot! These are distant relations to the rest of the world's parrots and they split off from the rest of them 100 million years ago.

Final word on the pies here - even better than the pies in Australia - Vicky had a Lamb, Rosemary and Kumara pie yesterday - yummy!

Still here on North Island

Keeping the running going!

http://www.parkrun.co.nz/kapiticoast/news/ this is where you'll find the evidence - Vicky was first L60 and I was first V60. What stars we are!

Friday was good preparation for the Saturday parkrun! We found the Tuatara brewery tap within walking distance of our b&b at Paraparaumu (getting good at pronouncing these names now!) Had some excellent beer and pizza and just before we set off home we saw some 6 packs of Sauvinova single hop for sale We couldn't carry them back because we were nearly two miles away but the following day I drove down to grab some. This is yet another example of wet hop beer. This must all sound a bit fishy to all of you back home, but basically it means that just before they pack the beer into bottles or casks they throw some fresh (undried) hops into the beer to give it a real hoppy boost. And so we opened the first couple of bottles tonight - absolutely fabulous to coin a phrase. And so back to the parkrun............limbering up with dozens of other folk I was feeling a bit ginger but we were ordered up to the start line - off we went and I found myself in about sixth place trundling along a gravelly path up the river. Struggling somewhat but I picked off a couple of runners before the halfway turnaround and grimly hung on to a chappie in front - I realised he was in second and gave it a bit of oomph towards the end and managed to get past - that's several seconds and thirds in parkruns now - don't think I'll sneak in  first though unless there's something else on and the best guys don't turn up. Vicky had a superb run getting stronger all the time and she is getting more competitive as well!

This weekend's parkun pic - looking as if I'm well down the field but in fact there's only one guy in front - must get some trendier running togs! Now in Wellington and checked in to our hotel to find we are at the foot of the 'Town Belt' which is a park on a hill - must have been at least 800 feet climb and then some up and down. Still there were some great views from the top. Will explore it at leisure tomorrow. More pizza and ale at the Sprig and Fern over the road to finish off with! Barman was from Bradford would you believe!

I'd seen that there was a big feature halfway up the hill called Elephant Rock. This brought to mind a fillum that was made in the late 1970's called East of Elephant Rock and I thought maybe there was some connection. I'd heard about the film because Peter Skellern (the fine songsmith from Bury, Lancashire) was responsible for the soundtrack, and his single 'East of Elephant Rock' was the B side of 'Put out the Flame' - a fabulous song if ever there was one. There was a fine schoolgirl choir providing a 1930's style chorus to both sides of this forgotten classic!

Quick Update from the South Pacific

Quite pleased with this photo - brooding skies over Karioitahi Beach where the sand was jet black, never seen anything like it! Apparently it can get hot on the soles of your feet in summer. It goes on for miles north and south and next stop is probably South America. We walked for a while and had plenty of space although there were a few lads racing off road bikes up and down - mind you it was Sunday afternoon. The ice cream man was an elderly chap called Mr Muggeridge who sold cornets out of the back of his pickup.

We managed to get a bit of a mention in the parkrun news from last weekend where I came in second. How did that happen?
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Millwater-parkrun/313265495526151

Keep thinking that we are seeing New Zealand native birds but it's not quite like that.

These little so and so's were quite fun jumping up and down in the air and attacking each other at the Wenderholm reserve up the coast. We then found that they are Californian Quails, which are yet another introduced species - it's a wonder that there are any of the original birds left. Kiwis are fairly common apparently but they only come out at night - which is probably why they've survived this long.

No parkrun in the morning unfortunately - it's ANZAC Day so the whole of Australia and New Zealand is having a lie-in! We'll just have to do our own thing.

Imperial Stout!

This is from Moa Brewery. Got it on a special from the shop down the road - 10% ish so we didn't dare open it just yet. The Moa was a relative of the Ostrich but it was up to 12 foot tall! They became extinct about 500 years ago because they had plenty of meat on them and they were easy to catch - this was well before Captain Cook arrived and the Maoris were the culprits. Bet they must have tasted good - Moa Tikka Masala?

Up towards the Northland

Sporting folks these Kiwis, they're into rugby, cricket and running. But their tennis has suffered a bit in recent years especially in Mauku. Here's the local tennis club, we didn't have to pay to go in but there wasn't much going on anyway. Still it's in a very pleasant spot with two courts gradually being overtaken by weeds on either side of this dinky pavilion. Mauku is also home to St Bride's church. In 1861 during the Maori wars the newly built church was stockaded with split-logs set closely against the walls and rifle slits cut through exterior walls. The church became an important military post with as many as two thousand men being camped there. Women and children from the district were placed in safety on a schooner in the harbour but we haven't found out how long they were ensconced there!

Another church we found was built just 100 years ago in 1915, so it's a bit newer. this is Christ Church in Waiwera which we spotted when we were looking for the Waiwera hot springs! It's on the right hand side of the big finger of land that heads up north of Auckland. Very pleasant beaches and lots to look at in the Wenderholm Regional Park. We'd just done the Millwater Parkrun and I'd come second - seemed to be miles behind the front runner at the turnaround of an out and back course but I nearly caught the winner up in the last few hundred yards - 9 seconds behind at the finish - if only I'd pulled my finger out quicker! It did pour down a lot shortly after I took this photo but we found a pie shop! Kiwi pies are just as good as Aussie pies and I had a beef and onion pie and a chicken and mushroom pie (well I had just been exerting myself!) - Vicky had a quiche!

I mentioned that we'd headed up north of Auckland and I thought we'd made a bit of progress but the top end is over 300K north and the roads get progressively tinier - we really got less than a quarter of the way up - maybe next time.

Quick update - stars, birds and dinner.

Odd to see Orion upside down just now. The stars are all different down here and some of them we never see up north. Haven't seen the Southern Cross yet but we're close to Auckland and there's some light pollution so I haven't really looked yet - the cloudy skies are also a bit in the way. Today has been another typical day, short but heavy showers (the great big water tank is full) interspersed with hot sunny periods. However NZ winter is on it's way and they've had snow down south inland from Christchurch. Added to all this the moon is the wrong way round!

Spotted a furtive Grey Warbler this morning, endemic to New Zealand (which a lot of birds aren't) it's just about the only warbler down here. It moved too quickly for me to take a photo but here's a google-pic of one. We have seen quite a range of birds where we are including Tuis, Pīwakawakas which are a bit like Australian Grey Fantails and a Kereru, which is a great big pigeon which goes 'whoosh-whoosh' as it flies overhead. However thanks to rats, which wiped out a lot of native species many years ago, and the Acclimatisation Society most birds here are European. The Acclimatisation Society existed in the 18th Century and it's goal was to displace native birds with ones from back home such as blackbirds, thrushes and sparrows (never seen so many sparrows since I was 10 years old!) They wanted to hear the dawn chorus like what is was back home - homesick philistines they were!

 Dinner tonight was hoki, kumaru and hubbard squash. The hoki or Blue Grenadier fish is a meaty white fish, kumara is sweet potato and the squash I found at the side of the road. This is a real agricultural area and I'd been out for an extended run for an hour and a half and just coming round the corner back to base one of  these sat in the middle of the road - obviously just fallen off the back of a lorry - well what could I do? Kumaras are a staple round here, people of polynesian origin apparently live on them and they come in various varieties - we had red and white ones tonight. Tasty!!