A brute of a ute

In 1856 some bloke called Jim Holden started up a saddlery business in South Australia. He branched out into repairing car upholstery and then started making other bits for cars. The business ultimately became a successful car manufacturer exporting overseas to Africa and Asia and even the West Indies. In the 1930's General Motors acquired a share of Holden and in the latter half of the 20th century many of the Holden's seen on Australian roads were rebadged versions of cars made elsewhere. An example of this is the Holden Astra which looks just like those Vauxhall Astras made back home just up the road at Ellesmere Port. Holden's Australian manufacturing concentrated on what was one of their traditional strengths which was big luxury cars. And people don't seem to want big luxury cars any more. Aa a result GM is closing Holden's car plant down at the end of 2017.

Bit of a basic back end eh?

And it's not only the end of an era for Holden it's the end of the Aussie Ute! The ute as opposed to the pickup is a hybrid unique to Australia being basically a big saloon car chopped off halfway with a cargo tray grafted on. The story goes that an Australian farmer's wife wanted something that they could drive to church on Sundays and in which they could take the pigs to market on Mondays. Ford stopped making their Australian built utes in 2016 and the end is nigh for the Holden ute.

Holden are however producing a special souped up ute to celebrate! Here it is, the 6.2 litre V8 HSV Maloo Special Edition - production is limited to 160 vehicles for sale in Australia (plus 6 for New Zealand!)

The biggest boot any sports car can offer!

Medallion Man!

Will I get these through customs?

So here they are - the two little bits of bronze metal that are the fruits of my labours on the roads and fields of New Zealand. The World Masters Half Marathon was on a fairly awful course - the 10K was a there and back course on the waterfront at Auckland and the Half Marathon did two of those - great for spectators mind. Hobbling a bit on my sore calf I set off less than hopeful but, looking at the other runners race numbers which identified their ages, I realised at the halfway point that I was in third place. I struggled in the second half of the race and it seemed harder than anything I've done for a long time (think - last 6 miles of a marathon!) however I held on to my position. The cross country was certainly different - held on manicured lawns in Auckland's domain the mass start included runners from Russia, Tahiti, USA, Brazil, Ireland, Canada and so on. I know this through talking with some of the participants. However for some strange reason most of the runners, including me, were listed as New Zealanders. A gremlin in the registration works perhaps? Anyhow we all set of for 4 laps of the course and, feeling a bit better than last week, I got another bronze! Almost made it a silver but the chap I was overtaking towards the finish suddenly woke up and shot off like a startled hare! So two thirds eh! I was very pleased with my haul.

Nice set of cones Paul!

In between the two races we looked up our old friend Paul who emigrated to New Zealand last year. Paul and family are settling in very well in part due to a cunning move which was to set up a Parkrun in Cambridge which is an hour or so south of Auckland. Here he is watch in hand awaiting the final runners coming up the hill. Paul and I met thanks to our shared love of hill running and it's no surprise that this course is somewhat hilly - so slow times for both of us. Cambridge is a very pleasant place and to our delight we found that the Good George Brewery had opened up a tavern in the town - we just had to sample what was on offer!

Off your trundler!

Local terminology is a bit quirky over here - supermarket trolleys are described as 'trundlers', bed linen and curtains are referred to as 'manchester' with a small m and corner shops are known as 'dairies'. The pies are even better than those in Australia - my favourite was a Jimmy's Mutton Pie which we came across on South Island! Something we'll try next time is New Zealand Marmite - it's not Australian Vegemite and it's not British Marmite!!?

Albatross overhead!

I'm just off to South America for a sabbatical.

It's not easy to take a good picture of an albatross in flight - when they get close to you they flash by and to focus and get them in the frame is a job for a professional. However I made lots of attempts and looked back at all the fuzzy photos of bits of albatross that were stored on my camera and found one that looked promising - and here it is - the rear end of an albatross! This is a Royal Northern Albatross with a wingspan of three metres. There are around twenty different species of albatross worldwide and they breed once every two years on various remote islands in the Pacific and Southern Indian and Atlantic oceans and spend the intervening year and a half at sea constantly flying who knows where! The only one that breeds on anything like the mainland anywhere is the Royal Northern who makes it's nest on a fairly inaccessible peninsula close to Dunedin on New Zealand's South Island.

Slow down - I can't keep up!

Here's a more professional photo of the Royal Northern Albatross with a seagull flying in formation alongside to show how big the albatross is! We saw several of these magnificent birds in the fading light before dusk - one of the most impressive sights we've seen on our travels! I wonder if somewhere there's an institution called the Royal Northern Albatross Golf Club where the golfers are so good that they don't just get Birdie's (1 under par) or Eagles (2 under par) but they constantly hit Albatrosses (3 under par)?

Keeping those running legs up to scratch!

Warming up nicely for the World Masters Games with a second placing in the Porirua Parkrun, north of Wellington. Was feeling oh so fit - but what was that little pull behind my left knee? Here's me thinking 'Invincible Martin' again! I'm lucky in that I rarely get injured but the problem that arises is that when I do, once in a blue moon, I try to ignore it.


And here are more intrepid runners at Porirua - it was worth getting up early for wasn't it!

Easy peasy! 

Never mind the peas!

And so onto Auckland, limping and feeling rather incapacitated. The first event, the half marathon, loomed, we took the inner city train service down to the harbour the night before to register, steered well clear of the pubs (although the Good George Brewery had laid on a very tasty 2.5% pale ale specially for the Masters) and got an early night.

Watch closely for the next instalment. 😀😀😀😀😀

Fuming!

No it's not November 5th!

This is the Maori church of St Faith in Rotorua - over 100 years old (which qualifies as ancient history for New Zealand) it's right by the lakeside in an area of town where you're never far from a bubbling hot spring. The pungent scent of sulphur (rotten eggs to some) is never far away, although you do get used to it after a while. This is a town of around 60,000 inhabitants who mostly get on with their lives despite the very evident seismic activity, the town is at the side of Lake Rotorua (80 square kilometres in area) and the lake fills the huge crater of a volcano.

We thought we'd go and take a look inside St Faith's but our plans were thwarted by thermal activity - as we approached the entrance we found our way barred by a fence; a few days previously steam had started to emerge from the pathway to the church front door - evidence of a new hot spring. Apparently this happens all the time. (And note the graves either side of the path - they are raised up above ground level!)

Rotorua became famous as a spa town and folk would travel across the world to take the waters. The main bath house was on a scale to rival anything seen at Bath or Harrogate - the building still exits but it's now the Rotorua Museum - surely worth seeing on this fine morning.

However we didn't get into this either. The building had been destabilised by an earthquake less than five months ago and we weren't allowed in. So our trip was a little disappointing but we consoled ourselves by wiggling our toes in the free hot mineral baths in the local park joined by a dozen or so aged happy Chinese tourists.

A short trip of no more than 10 minutes from the middle of town brought us to a forest where hundreds of giant redwoods have stood for a hundred years or so. I love redwoods (sequoias from California) and have seen marvellous specimens in many parts of the world but two things to note - there are literally hundreds of them and secondly, they thrive here - these trees are growing three tines as quickly as redwoods in their native land - again something to do with the thermals perhaps?

Some nice beer here! These are special editions from the Moa Brewery - nice!!

Up and down

Up your's!

Many years ago I lived in Bristol (or Brizzle as the locals put it). I quite enjoyed this friendly city and have fond memories. My hill running improved a lot as one of my training routes involved climbing up out of the gorge to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. One of the suburbs fairly close to the centre of Bristol is Totterdown - quite appropriate given the steepness of some of its streets, particularly Vale Street which is supposed to be the steepest street in Britain.

So it was with delight that we spotted the world's steepest street In Dunedin, New Zealand, this being Baldwin Street on the north side of town. I had no desire to climb it since I'd just finished the local running club Leith Harriers' annual mountain race. Generally the mountain runs I've done in the US, Australia and New Zealand have been interesting but short on vista as they mostly follow forest trails, so a lot of the time all you see are trees and more trees. This was a refreshing change as, halfway up the first climb, we emerged from the track through bushland onto an open mountain where the views were stunning. I decided not to go for the full 26 K and was happy to do just two of the three peaks going home in 10thin a bit under an hour and a half. Watching the final 26 K runners staggering over the line at four and a half hours I felt a bit of a fraud but at the same time managed to justify my choice of event to myself.

And having had Cyclone Debbie affect us in Australia we're now hit with the remnants of Cyclone Cook. It passed overhead in the middle of the night here in Wellington - not too windy now as it's been downgraded to a storm but it's dumped lots of rain. So we're off for a breezy walk this morning but don't expect us to be getting a fast time in the Parkrun tomorrow - unless the wind changes direction at the halfway turnaround. (Cyclones are the southern hemisphere version of hurricanes and they are also named in alphabetical order - so why is Cook after Debbie? It's because Cyclone Cook came from Fiji whereas Debbie came from north of Australia - two different naming regions altogether!)

A Bit of History for a Change - ANZAC!

Later this month it's Anzac Day - this is the equivalent for Australia and New Zealand of Remembrance Sunday. We visited the crypt of the Shrine of Remembrance in Brisbane where the dawn ceremony will take place on 25th April and were entertained by the curator, an ex-Army chappie who originally hailed from Hereford. One of the curiosities that we discussed related to the yellow crest (seen on this street signpost) which recognises the fact that the person named (in this case William Birdwood) was a war hero. We are staying just round the corner from Gellibrand Street - and I spotted that this also has a yellow crest on it.

A young Gellibrand.

John Gellibrand was from a prominent Tasmanian family, he was sent to Sandhurst and passed out top of the class. Joining the South Lancashire Regiment he served in the Boer War moving on to be a captain in the Manchester Regiment. He left the army to be a farmer back in Tasmania but at the outbreak of WW1 he offered his services, served gallantly in lots of battles and towards the end of the war ended up as a Major General, one of the four senior commanders of the Australian forces in Europe. Some of the first world war generals faced criticism after the war for poor decision making which led to unnecessary loss of life, however Gellibrand seems to have come out of things quite well and was clearly a sensible  clever chap - he went back to Tassie and grew apples for the rest of his life.

An older Monash.

More first world war history! And this is the biography that I find most fascinating. Sir John Monash, according to that impeccable source of information Wikipedia (!), is considered one of the best Allied generals of the First World War and the most famous commander in Australian military history. He led battalions and brigades at Gallipoli, Amiens, etc., etc. and, despite not being a professionally trained officer, reached the heights in terms of the chains of command. His influence was widely recognised and he has given his name to four towns, a hospital, a university and a motorway. He was awarded the French and Belgian Croix de Guerre,  the British KCOB and KCMG, the US DSM and countless other medals but he didn't receive an Australian award. The fact that he came from Germany and was Jewish seems to have had something to do with this. Nevertheless he is still a highly respected historical figure and there are ongoing moves to have his contribution respectively recognised by the Australian Government.

Going back to the picture at the top of the page - William Birdwood was yet another distinguished army officer who led the Australian and New Zealand forces at Gallipoli. It was the best street sign picture I could find so he got the nod!