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!!

Into Rural New Zealand

Tonight's beer festival! We've just sampled the Moa beer which is from Blenheim, South Island. This is their bottle conditioned South Pacific IPA which is another example of the Pacific ale that seems to have become established as a new Southern Hemisphere style of beer in the last few years. It's pale but it's definitely not a European style lager - we had a wonderful introduction to this style of beer last year with Stone and Wood's fabulous Pacific Ale from New South Wales Australia. Mac's Brewery have a couple on the table - their Hoprocker is a pilsner but with tons of hops - lovely jubberley! The Tuatara beers - well we have to get started on them now!

And this is why we are thirsty - an early morning jaunt at the parkrun round Hamilton Lake. Hamilton is the fourth largest city in NZ - about half the population of Chester. Nevertheless there were well over 100 runners at this very pleasant gallop round the lake - Vicky had a great run with over 40 behind her - she was 84th in 33.46 and I got 5th in 20.21. These parkruns start at 8 am but even in early April (which is their equivalent of early October) it was warm and muggy by 8.30!

Dropped down out of Hamilton a few miles to meet up with our contact Peter who runs a small (only 900 beasts) cattle station. Lovely views of gentle Clwydian looking hills from his back verandah - he passed on to us Rhian's excess luggage, which didn't make it onto her plane back home with her a few weeks ago, due to a ghastly prohibitive surcharge which was almost the cost of her flight. Cambridge, which is a pleasant country town in a pleasant fertile valley, is  best known for a garage rock band called the Datsuns and for being the birthplace of Sir Mark Todd. Vicky tells me he is New Zealand's premier 3 day eventer! Something to do with horses and medals (5!) at Olympics. I thought jockeys were small  but this guy is as big as me - bet he couldn't have beaten me this morning at the parkrun though!

This was this morning's Farmer's Market in Cambridge - 5 different varieties of Avocado, lots of wierd and wonderful fruit and veg plus black garlic! This is a caramelised garlic that we managed to have a taste of (I was looking for free samples mind you!) I really need to find out how to make this stuff!

Luck of the Irish

Just going down to the shops!

This was a fairly low key 5K road race round the streets of Auckland. We entered the race at O'Hagan's Irish bar by the waterfront and lined up on the road. There didn't seem to be any markers or marshalls but I followed the guys in front and did my best to avoid getting run over at the (unmarshalled) road junctions. they all seemed to be swift young  locals and the winner was 15 minutes something so over 4minutes behind, I wasn't doing too badly. The guy in red just to the left of me got me at the end  - turned out he was a headmaster from Cornwall over for a wedding.


 And here's the beach at Orewa - goes on for quite a way but this is a rainy Autumn day and there weren't too many Kiwi beach babies around. And it was Monday morning!

Beach baby!

NZ Running

 

Tried to shake off jet lag by both of us doing the parkrun at Cornwall Park, a historic park in Auckland. Bit of a hill in it and Vicky went too far down so did more distance than she should have done. I was 21st out of 163 in 21.53 and she was 147th in 39.13. High standards here - there was a 60 year old lady coming in in 23.32. These signposts are from the second Parkrun yesterday at Barry Curtis Park south of Auckland - I got a fourth placing in 20.44 and Vicky tried to volunteer to help, as she has a shin splint niggle, but she was sent round the course in any case, as a tail end Charlie, and she had a pretty good outing anyway.




Galloping round the marina at Auckland O'Hagan's 5K course went right past the superyacht My Serene - owned by a Russian Vodka tycoon this has three helicoper pads, an indoor climbing wall and several swimming pools. Ooh look it's for charter - shall we take it out for a spin? Despite having raced three days before this was my best time of the year over a 5K course coming 17th in 20.22. And this race was actually better value than a parkrun. Parkruns are free to enter whereas O'Hagan's 5K was $7 but this included a beer, and I went for the Emerson's Bookbinder which was light and refreshing and would have cost $9!

Almost a Winner!

Nearly got medals! Competing against the best that the rest of the UK could offer, were our modest lads from Denbigh Harriers,our over 55 team  in the British Masters Cross Country at Ruthin. Yelled on by plenty of enthusiastic locals we surged around the muddy fields thinking we were having the race of our lives. Feeling mildly optimistic we sat in anticipation in the crowded hall where the results were analysed and prizes were being presented. First were Wirral AC - not too much of a surprise as they are the strongest cross country team in the Liverpool area, second were Tipton, OK they are, according to their website, 'One of the most successful road and cross-country running clubs in Britain.' so fair enough. So - the bronze medals, must be us, we had a strong team didn't we, who else could it possibly be? On no! Long Eaton (collective groans of disappointment.) Where on earth have they emerged from - I didn't see anyone in a Long Eaton vest? Ruefully we looked at each other having just imagined the big shiny medals around our necks. Oh well, it's who turns out on the day and at the end of it all we were still smiling.

A Bridge too Far? Underneath the Marches!

Blogposts sporadic of late due to pressure of work and lack of excitement. However I happened to have a camera while I was on a 9 mile jog by the River Dee near Chester where I came across a rather fine iron bridge over the river. This was in pristine condition presumably because it's looked after by the Duke of Westminster who resides at the nearby Eaton Hall. It was designed about 200 years ago by Thomas Telford, who was handy at this sort of thing, and it carries estate traffic and long distance walkers who are on the Marches Way which goes all the way from Chester to Cardiff.

Have been managing a few parkruns here and there including Belfast, Ellesmere Port and Delamere Forest. The Delamere race was it's 100th anniversary (so it's been going 2 years!) and it was a very pleasant gallop through the woods , although we took Skippy along, I don't think he's quite up to running 5K yet - he did make lots of friends though.

Still on the run!

No, the title of this blog has nothing to do with prisons or prison officers - it's just to say that we are still on the run as is evidenced by this photo which is now on the front page of Brentwood Parkrun's newsletter. Having a long weekend working/housesitting in Essex to contend with we searched for a local event and found the delightfully muddy Brentwood event, a single loop though woods and across fields in a hilly country park. And even though we're miles from where we usually run, we still found a familiar face in Paul Jeggo who won the WFRA V50 series a couple of years ago travelling up from the Chelmsford area at regular intervals. Paul did exceptionally well and was only just beaten at the finish by two seconds.
 http://www.parkrun.org.uk/brentwood/news/

This being Essex and just outside the M25 we found that the local ale was more than a touch on the pricey side but we did find the wonderful 'miles from anywhere' Moletrap where we were treated like long lost friends. According to the pub website there's only one pub in the country called the Moletrap - and this is from the pub history page -

'Samuel Threader invented a mole trap.  He put it for commercial sale and made enough money to enable him to build a house.  He named that house ‘The Moletrap’.  In 1871 it is recorded as the Mole Trap Beer Shop.'