Monday, May 25, 2015

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!

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

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!

Saturday, May 16, 2015

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.


Thursday, May 7, 2015

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!

Monday, May 4, 2015

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!