Williamstown ice creams

Had to eat gelato in Williamstown despite the cold! Hanging out with my mate Kate's mum, Margaret, who along with her husband Chris, is putting us up in the bohemian Melbourne suburb of Coburg.

Anyone seen a parrot?

Hamner Spring

We loved Hamner Springs! Can you see why? Approximately a dozen geothermal pools varying in temperature from 29-41 celsius and we were lucky enough to be able to sit in them while huge snowflakes floated down both during the day and even more magically, after dark.

Skiing Mount Lyford

Came down from Mount Lyford to Hamner Springs because the weather started to deteriorate - see the snow?

The boys and I spent one day skiing at Mount Lyford club field. We got a lift up the mountain with the owner - he and his brother have taken the farm and mountain on from their parents. The snow was moderate and there were only two lifts: one drag lift and one 't' bar that could take two people but was best used one-at-a-time. Patrick turned up about 11am having run up a nearby peak and then crossed over to run up Mount Lyford. He surprised the people working on the ski field but not us of course as we are well used to seeing him don his tights for his early morning constitutional!

Kaikoura Bay

Kaikoura peninsula has a seal colony. This one was snoozing on the board walk. The day after we read in the local paper that two seals, one pup, had been bludgeoned and then run over by two young men 'doughnuting' their car nearby! The boys and I walked around the headland to see more of the seals lazing around in the coves while Patrick diligently finished his 'place' journal article while sitting in the camper van, tap tapping away on the laptop.

View to the south and north of Kaikoura peninsula.

Trap for stoats and weasels

There were lots of these traps in the wood. An egg was placed in each box and initially we thought they were for catching possum but then we found a decapitated stoat in one and learnt, from two hikers we met in the wood that the boxes were set for stoats. It is a sad tale - Pakeha imported rabbits as a source of food and fur. The rabbits bred like they do and so they thought let's introduce another mammal to kill them off hence the stoats! These of course also bred like rabbits and now they have a pest that is eating the local bird eggs and causing untold havoc to the local wildlife...

Native NZ forest

After the thermal pool we took a hike through a native forest that required crossing a 'one person at a time' swing bridge across a raging river which the boys loved of course. We all loved the variety of algae and funghi growing on the trees: amazingly vivid colours and a wide assortment of textures. It was pretty squidgy underfoot so after about an hour we turned back and were glad to do so because it started to pour with rain just as we got back to our camper van. In fact the rain was so heavy that at this point we decided not to explore the west of the south island (and thereby avoid a huge amount of driving). This turned out to be a wise decision as the 'where shall we go' and 'who is driving' stress was beginning to tell on both Patrick and I - we are at least talking to each other now!

Mountain view

Hard to choose one image to depict the beauty of the south island mountains so hope this gives you some idea of the scenery we have to endure as we pass through in our mobile home/bus! Sometimes hard to get the boys to take their eyes off their Nintendo DSi and look out of the window even with this sort of scenery! Today it is snowing outside so they are playing computer games in the local library and helping the librarian get the different games running as she knows nothing about how to delete old files etc! When they are finished we will head back across the road and go back to the hot springs for a couple of hours and if we get there before 6pm they can play on the flumes. Think that Oscar has recovered from head long fall out of one of the flumes this morning thanks to an exceedingly huge chocolate eclair (Alfie had an enormous custard, cream and blueberry puff) so time to enjoy the steam with snowflakes falling around our heads!

Sunset over mountains

I think Patrick took this because he wanted power lines in the photo? Not really. Some stunning scenery here of course with so many mountains and dramatic sunsets/sunrises as well as lots of rainbows with sunshine/showers combined.

South island adventures

Patrick in Lesotho issue balaclava at Mount Hutt ski field just outside Christchurch.
Few fields open as this is the beginning of the ski season but conditions here were fab. Made the most of the whizzy new 6 person lift and soon found our speed. Boys and I at top speed whenever possible, Patrick a bit more cautious!
This is our 4-berth motor home. Just remember that it is winter here now and so pretty cold at night so instead of 'free camping' we have had to stay in campsites most nights just to be able to connect up to the electricity and run the heating system. A bit of a hassle driving this bus around and we should have rented a car (like we did in the North island) and stayed in back packers where we could have hung out with other travellers (so evenings would not be so boring) and got around quicker (this has max speed of 90km). Mind you this might be a good thing because I got a speeding ticket doing more than the regulation 100km ph in the north island (been used to doing 120km in South Africa)!

A quaint tram in Christchurch! Just popped into the city for an hour to pick up a present for my Dad...can't say what it is of course because he likes surprises!

North Island cousins

Maggie and her two kids Imogen and Alexander with us at falls near their house in Keri-Keri, north island of NZ. Kids had great fun playing with these guys!

Something fishy

Yesterday we visited Te Papa - Wellington/NZ national
museum and as we entered we thought 'let's see the giant squid that they are
advertising'. Boy did we feel put off eating fish for life. Nothing particularly wrong
with the squid itself - there it was, perfectly pickled for posterity albeit with one or
two areas of stitching (!) where the scientists had poked it but the video of it being
accidentally caught in the Atlantic ocean on a long line (used to catch thousands of
other sea dwellers of course) combined with a 3-D movie bemoaning the fact that it was
'another' female giant squid (as shown by the millions of now dead and useless eggs it
was carrying) rather than a male (which has never been found/studied by science so we
really want one) made Alfie, Oscar and I feel like we have had enough of eating fish
which are in effect wild animals just like the lions, rhino etc that we had seen being so
carefully conserved in Africa.

Stop eating wild sea fish especially from relatively unspoilt areas like Antarctica!

Enough rant, time for action, so bye bye fish and meat and hello lentils
or more appropriately kumara (NZ indigenous sweet potatoe)!

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

We decided to stay in Clovelly on recommendation of our Irish pal, Lisa Martin who lived in Sydney for a few years. Clovelly is a seaside town to the east of Sydney, just south of Bondi. What a great choice albeit that the actual place we stayed: Clarks at Clovelly was a bit of a dive. We could walk to the shore and there we found seawater lidos to swim in - this was great fun when the tide was rough and the waves were breaking over the edge of the lido in Bronte harbour (Sydney's first surf beach i.e. pre-Bondi). There was also a great coastal trail for us to run and walk along, just above the cliffs and crashing spray. We walked north to Bronte beach where we saw 'Bogey holes' which are Aboriginal swimming holes: one for the men and one for the women (also used as birthing pools). Unfortunately the sea was too rough for us to swim in them. We did make it out to Manly beach which was also brilliant.
Bought a ferry ticket that allowed us to roam the harbour including going under the bridge passed Cockatoo island to Westville.

We liked how safe about Sydney felt, after the constant fear of crime that blights South Africa .....

Visiting Aunty Geraldine and Margaret in Joburg

We took an overnight train from Pietermaritzburg to Joburg on Saturday night. http://www.seat61.com/ gives it a rave review and they were right - fantastic service. We arrived in Joburg 0630 Sunday morning and were met by Patrick's aunt Geraldine and Margaret. Both Dominican nuns who have lived/worked in Joburg for 40 years. They fed us very well: full breakfast, braii for lunch and we got to meet Margaret's niece, Alexis who is studying Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch uni and who had loads of fantastic ideas - hope she follows them up...p.s great to meet feminist nuns!

Alfie's birthday party

We invited a few pals from Alfie's class: Bladyn, Sarjan and Keanu (who he sat next to at Howick Prep) as well as Oscar's pal, Dylan to play 'Renegade' paintball at Yellow wood. Alex Copping from Box who had come over for the comrades marathon (89km Pietermaritzburg to Durban on the road) decided not to play in case his legs got hurt. Good move Alex - we all got blasted and my apologies to Dylan for shooting him in the head - not nice! We went to Yellow wood cafe for cake etc afterwards and were all sad to have to say goodbye to their friends. Bye Bye South Africa :-(