Fishing at Kekerengu

Over the weekend we stayed in a lovely batch on the north east coast of the south island between Blenheim and Kaikoura. Jake (my son) and I spent all day Sunday fishing on Kekerengu beach. It was a lovely winter's day and we literally had the whole beach to ourselves.

We usually have a small bet with each other when we go fishing - a dollar for the first, biggest and the most fish. I can blame my brother Andrew for starting this family tradition! We were fishing with two 8 foot rods and using oily fish as bait.

Jake caught the first fish - a small but very respectable red cod. 1:0 to Jake.

After being 'down' for most of the morning I pulled back by catching a couple of medium size dog fish making it 2:1 to me. Jake then struck into a good sized dog fish - it was now evens at 2:2!

I pulled back by catching another good dog fish making it 3:2 to me before it was time to call it a day.

Jake won $2 for catching the first and the biggest fish although he had to give me a dollar back for catching the most fish. Jake was more than happy - he was a dollar up aferall!

You can eat dog fish but I couldn't be bothered to skin them so we threw them back. The red cod had no such escape ....... I am pleased to report it lived upto expectations and was very tasty!

Best NZ Rump Steak

When we lived in the UK rump steak was always a bit of a treat because it was so expensive - you could pay upwards of £3.99 per lb.

I was in Pak 'n' Save Northlands yesterday evening and they had a special on their rump steak at NZ$8.95 per kilo. With the exchange rate of $2.60 to £1 that makes it £1.56 per lb!

We enjoyed some porterhouse steak last week but it was a little more expensive at NZ$9.95 per kilo or £1.74 per lb.

Where is the bar-b-que? Yum!

Enjoy a Diet Cat Break

Meet Mango who is one of our two resident mousers. She is into just about everything!

Death in the Cook Islands

Death in the Cook Islands is regarded very differently than by the western world. Loved ones who have passed away are kept close to home and are literally buried in the back garden.

The memorials also provide a cool place to sleep in the heat of Summer.

Welcome to the Rarotonga departure lounge ...

An outside departure lounge at Rarotonga airport - absolutely fantastic!

To Aitutaki and back

One of the perks of working for a travel agent is you get to go and see some interesting places. Last Christmas, my team won a team trip to any destination on the Air New Zealand network. After much debate, we decided to go to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

We flew out to Rarotongo and stayed at the Edge Water resort. However, we had a surprise excursion to Aitutaki.

We flew with Air Ratotonga leaving Rarotonga at 0800 on a small Saab turbo prop.

After flying for 40 minutes we started our decent into Aitutaki. We flew over the lagoon and approached the island from the north, landing on an air strip built by the Americans in 1942 during World War 2.

The airport at Aitutaki is a little bit basic (an under statement!) but the welcome was very warm.

A man playing in his ucayali welcomed our arrival to the island - Pacific Islanders know how to make people feel very welcome!

Our tour host for the day was a man called Phil who was originally from the island and was a mind of information - he seemed to know most of the island inhabitants.

1900 people live on the island. Power is provided between 0600 and 2359 by two diesel generators. The container ship comes once a month, but if it is too rough it doesn't stop and steams onto Auckland.

The bus took us to the main town and we had chance to walk around.


After a short time we joined our boat and cruised around the lagoon for the rest of the day.

The TV series Shipwreaked and Survivor is filmed in Aitutiki and we payed a visit to 'Sharky Island'. We went snorkling and enjoyed a tuna lunch. After which we sailed to One Foot island.

One island has no inhabitants but it has a post office (UK eat your heart out!) so it was a great opportunity to sit under a palm tree and write my post cards while drinking a cool beer.



Alas, it was time to go home so we went back on the boat, steamed back to Aitutiki and caught the flight back to Rarotonga.

I'll be going again ...... but next time I will take my wife, Yvonne!

How I miss Holme-on-Spalding Moor!

How much for a trailer load of firewood?

It is winter here in New Zealand. During the evening the temperature can drop and you need to keep warm. There is nothing better than snuggling down in front of a roaring log burner.

So how much is firewood? Well, the trailer below which is 4 foot 6 inches by 7 foot cost cost a whole NZ$10 to be filled up with firewood. That is just under £4 for a whole months worth of heat. What a bargain!

It's all work and no play being a scout leader ............

It's all work and no play being a scout leader ... er, except when you get to enjoy a coffee at the Cafe Paris. I hastern to add we were watching the scouts do a treasure hunt around Hokatika and the outside tables gave Roger and I a great vantage point to 'watch what was going on' while we enjoyed a much needed caffine fix.

The stonz-n-bonz Workshop

In the stonz-n-bonz workshop there were all the tools we needed to work the green stone. First of all we had to chose a design - we could either use a standard template or create our own. The design was then scribed onto a piece of green stone and cut on a diamond saw.



We then used a variety of drills and rotating sanders to work the stone. The stone had to be worked with running water to ensure the tools did not overheat.

Once the basic shape is completed, the stone is polished using wet and dry to get the required finish.

The final touch is to dip the green stone in oil and thread a string through the hole.

Hokatika - green stone carving - www.stonz-n-bonz.co.nz

On the Queen's birthday weekend, I helped take over a party of scouts over to Hokitika to do some green stone (jade) carving. Hokatika is a small town on the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. It was the centre of the gold rush that occurred in the late 19th century.

We did the green stone carving at Stonz 'n' Bonz (http://www.stonz-n-bonz.co.nz/)

We each picked out a design and we set about carving a piece of green stone. Steve, the owner, spent the day helping us to use the tools to work the stone into a pendent.

Steve was literally blown away by the effort and the quality of the work achieved by our scouts. It was a really enjoyable day - I thoroughly enjoyed myself!

This is a must do for any traveller who ventures to the west coast.

First Significant Snowfall of the Year

We experienced our first winter snow this weekend. A cold southerly front pushed its way across the south and north islands from the southern ocean on Saturday afternoon and dumped a good couple of inches of snow on the Canterbury Plains.







It only snowed for about an hour but it was still worth getting out the sledges. We intially went over to Cust cemetary but we later found an awesome place to sledge just to the north of Cust. A good time was enjoyed by all.

New Brighton Pier

The pier was opened on 1 November 1997, on the site of the original New Brighton Pier which had been demolished more than 30 years previously. It is the biggest ocean pier in Australasia.

The original pier was opened back in 1894 by the Governor General, Lord Glasgow, in the presence of large crowds who travelled to the beach by special trams. The pier provided the citizens of Christchurch with a recreational destination in the traditional British style - the pier had a “penny arcade” full of games and amusements and even a nightclub.

By 1965, the pier had become so run down that the council ordered that it be demolished. On the night of October 12, between 2.30am and 7am workmen, demolished the pier using a bulldozer. About 100 20 ft piles were winched out or cut off 18 inches below ground level.

A group of residents formed the Pier and Foreshore Society to try to save the pier and they continued to campaign for a new pier after its destruction. Thirty years of lobbying and fundraising in the community saw almost $2 million raised from the community which was matched by a further $2 million from the Christchurch City Council and a new pier design was finally approved in 1994.

The pier is used today for recreation and fishing. Hector dolphin can often be seen swimming in the waters immediately around the pier.

These historic photographs of New Brighton show the pier over the years.

Pier facts:
Length: 300 metres
Height: 7 metres above high tide
Width: 6 metres
Deck: 900mm thick pre-stressed concrete
Piles: 17 piles, 1.4 metres diameter, 20 metres apart

Is Madame Staying in the Chicken Palace or the Chicken Hut?

Once we had got settled into our new house we always intended to keep chickens. After buying 10 pallets of firewood for $200 I had more than enough timber to build a fine chicken residence.

My first attempt was losely based upon an A frame and is 8 foot long by 7 foot wide. It was a big structure and it was christened the 'chicken palace' during its day long construction. I was thinking that would be amply big enough to keep plenty of chickens for both eggs and meat. However, I had not reckoned on my two children, Jake & Kirsty, claiming squatters rights and moving in to immediately after it was built. It has now been reclassified as the 'childrens den' and is used for sleepovers - it can easily accommodate three youngsters on camp beds. I have since received requests to install a carpet and some shelves!

The Chicken Hut is again made from the firewood and is a much smaller affair. It will not accommodate children as the perch will get in the way (I have made sure of that!) but should be good for 6 chickens to live very comfortably.

Cow Sitting

Canterbury has had a very dry year and good pasture is currently at a premium. Our neighbours have six head of cattle and they were getting concerned about the amount of grass left on their section for the stock to eat. Their paddocks desperately need time to recover and they did not want to use the feed that they have put aside for winter.

We have not had the time to cut the grass on the other half of the section so we were very happy to put their cattle to work ..... cutting the grass and fertilising as they go. They are doing a cracking job.

Mark (our neighbour) has been 'testing ' the electric fence (without any test equipment ... he's a kiwi .... what did you expect?) and this has proved to be excellent entertainment throughout!!!

Hot Air Balloons

I was laid in bed on Sunday morning when a hot air balloon drifted by my bedroom window. It got me straight out of bed and running for the camera. It was magical seeing the balloon float past on what was a frosty morning. The balloon eventually came to rest in a farmers field about 400 metres from the house.

Tekapo B Hydro Power Station

The South Island of New Zealand has a network of lakes and canals for the storage and movement of water for the generation of hydroelectricity.

Tekapo B station (shown above) was commissioned in 1977 and is located at the end of a 26.4 kilometre-long canal which takes wayter fron Lake Tekapo. It was built on dry land and was surrounded by water after the Pukaki High Dam was built. About two-thirds of of the powerhouse foundation is now below the water level. There is a 147 metre height difference between canal and Lake Pukaki and it takes a bath full of water to pass through its turbines to generate enough power to boil a kettle.

Nominal annual generation: 800 GWh
Installed capacity: 160 MW

Mt Cook

Mt Cook has become a bit of a mecca for people seeking outdoor pursuits like ski-ing and mountaineering. There are some totally fantastic views and the coffee and cake is not bad either!

The Tasman Glacier

The Tasman glacier is close to New Zealand's biggest mountain Mt. Cook. The glacier looks more like a giant quarry than New Zealands biggest glacier. The rock rumble strewn across this hummocky landscape, called the 'surface moraine', is usually only a metre or two thick. Beneath it there is still a great dept of glacial ice - about 200 metres of it at the head of the lake rising to as much as 600 metres thick as you look into the distance some 9km away.

Like all glaciers in temperate parts of the world the Tasman glacier has been shrinking rapidly over the last century losing about 0.5% of its total volume each year. The accumulation of surface moraine is one consequence of this ice recession; so too is the down-wasting of the surface of the glacier and the formation of the rapidly enlarging terminal lake. Twenty yeears ago this new 'Lake Tasman' was little more than a scattering of sink holes. And 100 years ago you would have had to have been above where this photo was taken from to get onto the glacier surface.

All of the large natural lakes in the McKensie Basin were all created in much the same way when huge ice glaciers issuing from the Mt Cook region began retreating some 14000 years ago. Prior to that the Tasman Glacier had advanced to a maximum length of 85km with an ice surface 700 metres above the point where this photo was taken.

Tasman Glacier: Length 29km; Area 101km square; Maximum speed about 200metres a year (recorded near the head of the glacier).