Update

Hi all. It's about time I wrote another post... We haven't been doing too much exciting stuff to report on, but there is still news to impart.

We're planning on returning to Australia at the start of March! Between our tenants at Morton Rd (who wanted another 12 months lease or would be moving due to an expectant baby) and the landlords of our place here (who want to put this house on the market in January), we're stuck with the need to move - again! I hate moving!

So we figured it would be easier just to move once - back home - at the same time that both leases are up.

Consequently we've been selling lots of stuff on Trademe, generally getting good prices (the sofa bed went for 50% more than we paid for it!), and the house is starting to empty out again. We're starting to get some shipping quotes, it should cost a bit less than what it cost to get here (though the cats may cost even more to get into Australia than out). We might even have some money left over by the time we get home! Not sure whether we will bring the car back - duties and GST and shipping look like they will add up to a fair bit!

It's nearly holiday time! We're going up to Paihia, which is near the Bay of Islands, for a week or so. Should be very nice. Might even have time to write a resume and find a new job...

Coromandel v2.0

Liz (that's Jo's mum for those playing at home) arrived in Auckland last Friday night and we made our second effort to get around to the Coromandel Peninsula (to the east of Auckland). Fortunately this time we successfully reached our destination with no dramas. The villa at the campground in Hahei was very pleasant, but (since we arrived in the dark) the true charm of the place wasn't revealed until the next morning.

This was the view from our bedroom window...
And a 30 second walk to the beach...

Despite forecasts to the contrary, Saturday was sunny and warm. We went out to Cathedral Cove, which is only accessible via a 45 minute walk. It seems longer, but once you finally drop down onto the sand it feels like you've stepped into a postcard. It really is as pretty as it looks in the photos.

With the unexpected sun came the usual consequences - aka sunburn. Three days later I was already peeling. Oh well. We spent the afternoon watching the family channel on the giant visi-screen (aka looking out the villa window at the neighbours chase their children and get drunk.)

On Sunday morning I was itching to go for a drive, so I nabbed the keys to the 330i and headed out. The road between Whenuakite and Tairua is awesome: smooth, and twisty like a breakdancing snake. So what else to do but dump the car into sporty shift mode, and spank it like a red-headed step-child? This is the first good chance I've had to thrash the Bimmer, and it turns out to be a bit of a lead-tipped arrow. Well, not bad overall, but the 3.0 up front is a little heavy and makes the nose push wide at the limit, and the lack of decent (electronic) throttle response, and auto, makes it hard to be precise.

By mid morning, the visi-screen was stuck on the weather channel, and the forceast was bleak. We drove around to Whitianga, which is the nearest town of more reasonable size, though not a very exciting place on the whole. Perhaps the rain and lack of seasonal holidaymakers took the edge off it.

By Monday the weather was even worse. We had planned to spend some time at Hotwater Beach, and we did go for a looksee and to dip the toes, but we weren't as keen as the small number who were mad enough to strip off to their cossies and lie in the warm (sometimes very hot) pools. The thought of spending a couple of hours in wet togs for the drive home wasn't that appealing either.

Monday was also Guy Fawkes Night, and sadly we hadn't bought any fireworks. Fortunately, everyone else in Auckland had, so we were treated to the joy of about 3 hours of pyrotechnics, and the suburbs sounding like a minor warzone. What a great way to celebrate a convicted terrorist. I wonder if in a few hundred years we'll be partying up for bin Laden Night, and introducing young children to the joy of coloured sparklers and third-degree burns? Despite some 800 tonnes of fireworks being delivered, apparently this was the quietest Night in several years... Fireworks have still been popping occasionally every night since.

Tuesday - ah, Cup Day! Sadly not a public holiday, though they are pretentious enough over here to call it "The Race That Stops Two Nations", and try to claim the winning horse as their own (via breeding, ownership, training, or whatever desperate connection they can manage to find. It would seem that if the jockey's cousin's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's sister once stopped over at Auckland airport on her way to LAX, then a winning horse can be regarded as a true Kiwi.)

Love to all, please stay in touch! (oh, and we're under "drjoking" on Skype if you want to talk...)

Visitors!

Well it's only taken what, 9 months for our first visitors to come over and see us!

First things first though, we have email up and running again. But until I can get someone at work to try working out the laptop troubles, our email archive and contacts list is gone, so please just send us a quick hello email and we can gather your email addresses again!

Jacqui and James turned up for a few days with us before continuing on to Rarotonga. Though cramped with 4 people in our little house we managed to survive! And either they're very polite or the spare bed we have is tolerable to sleep on, so that means the rest of you have no excuse to come stay.

Anyway, they being who they are, we managed to cram lots of activities with them into the short time thy were here. Restaurants, cafes, penguins, karting, driving around to the usual touristy places in town... not to mention plenty of the usual crude jokes, smut, and discussions of bodily functions, that defines our friendship.

Naturally, this coincided with a week of dismal weather... On Sunday we went to Kelly Tarltons Antarctic Experience, where they have a flock (?) of penguins crammed into a small fridge, and a few giant stingrays (cue Steve Irwin jokes) and miniature seahorses.

Tuesday night James and I went karting at what is apparently the fastest (rental) karting place in Auckland. Lots of fun ripping it up and getting sideways, though after half an hour straight I was in pain, and James still beat me by half a second. No excuses, I just wasn't fast enough. My shoulders and wrists are still feeling it several days later.

It's almost a relief to be back to just two of us now. We've got a long weekend here to recover, which also means that I'll have to make friends with someone who has Sky and visit them on Monday morning to watch the F1...

love to all.

postscript - wow to my parents, they just sold their big farm today for... lets just say... rather a lot of money. It will be a shame to see it go (and we need to clear out our stuff from the cottage), but it's gratifying to see all their hard work on the infrastructure of the property pay off.

Windoze

Well the computer decided to crack the shits with us on Sunday. I've mostly got it back to normal, but email is a bit of a mess due to Outlook. My regular ihug address isn't working, but my gmail one is so you can contact me there. Jo's email is still OK. I think.

miscellaneous

Just some random thoughts, too disjointed to make a regular post out of...


Good: Daylight savings has started here. We're an extra hour ahead.
Bad: But we're still 10 years behind...

Bad: Spring may be here, but it's wetter than ever.


Good: Casey Stoner
Bad: Sebastien Vettel (F%&@ YOU!)
Ugly: Neither are on free to air TV in NZ...


Good: Every single shop in NZ has eftpos, and no minimum transaction. Parking meters take credit cards. I haven't carried cash in 6 months.

Bad: Rugby. World Cup, League, local, etc. Bloody endless. Wake up NZ, there are other sports in the world!
Good: No AFL, ever. (though missing out on Adelaide getting pumped is always a shame. we still streamed Roy & HG's call live)

Good: More TV channels launched.
Bad: more crap that's not worth watching.

Good: Monteith's Zesty Radler Bier.

beans, beans the musical fruit

I mentioned a while ago that I had a breadmaker being geared up for something other than breadmaking...

Here's the teardown and modification session - I pulled out all the electronics and fitted a switch to run the motor continuously.

Then fill it with some green coffee beans, and whack a heat gun in there. Here's some decaf, so it starts quite brown rather than green in colour.

The cool down. A day or two's rest and it should be perfect for brewing. Yum, fresh coffee!

Napier and Taupo

Well it's been a few weeks since I've posted, mostly due to a lack of interesting things to report on: "Went to work, worked, came home, had dinner, went to bed" isn't exactly exciting news...

But anyway, we spent last week down in Napier, which is in the south east of the North Island, on Hawkes Bay. We stopped off in Taupo to break up the drive there and back. Down into Hawkes Bay is a very pretty drive (well, once you get past the endless pine plantations) - lots of windy roads (that I didn't get to drive, but Jo hustled along on pretty well), ever-changing scenery and mountains, spring lambs, and green, green hills everywhere.

Taupo has some interesting geothermal sites, including a hot spring that gets some use for bathing, and a weird valley of steaming holes, called "Craters of the Moon". Huka falls also run from Lake Taupo, cutting through a narrow gorge.

Down at Napier, we arrived to a couple of days of bleak wet weather, but it cleared up for a few fine days. Plenty of Art-Deco-ness to see around town, plus we drove around checking out some wider scenery (a daffodil farm with supposed views of the mountains, and a few wineries to gather supplies from, and sample a few along the way...). In all a nice little getaway, beats working for a week that's for sure!

Apart from overlooking the beach (and a carpark that hosted New Zealand's Crappiest Sunday Market), the apartment we stayed at in Napier was home to the World's Worst TV. Not that there was anything wrong with it once operational and set correctly, but I've never come across a TV before that:

• takes over 30 seconds to "boot up".
• Occasionally jams up and won't respond to the remote, if you try to do more than one command a second.
• responds to a volume change command by going all the way to minimum (or worse, maximum) volume.
• has a remote that also controls the heater (volume minus lowered the thermostat, channel 4 made it oscillate...)

Well, back to the excitement of work this week, so it may be a bit longer before the next update... here's some photos.

Love to all,

matt.

More random stuff

Hey all, what's been happening? It would be great if you could drop us a line or email and keep in touch! By the way, if you want to keep in contact with Jo, as a few of you have discovered already she now has a Facebook site. Her contact is via the drjoking@gmail.com address, but as I have no idea how to use facebook I can't give you more help than that...

Not much to report since my last post. Jo got really sick last week with a strep. infection and spent several days in bed and a week off work. Slowly recovering, but the best cure is apparently lots of rest.

We went down to the Viaduct (just west of the city) on Sunday to check out the New Zealand Coffee Festival. Not that I need another machine, but it was interesting to see what was on the market, and who some of the vendors and bean suppliers were. Free coffees are always welcome too.

The highlight for the day was a trans-Tasman barista competition between NZ and Australia, which involved several rounds of the teams producing copious drinks of high quality and artistic appearance in minimal time. Naturaly the Aussies dominated, much to the chagrin of the crowd (Kiwis don't like losing, particularly to Australians).

Since it was a clear day, we followed that up with a walk around the Viaduct harbour. After a several weeks of not getting out much, it was good to see some new ground for once, and get some sunshine.

We're planning on revisiting our Coromandel vacation in a few months, but in a few week's time we're heading to Napier for a week's holiday. More stories to follow I'm sure, hopefully not so dramatic as last time... (note to self: get car serviced soon!)

Cars - Part 2

As you probably know, I sold my little red car in February before we left Australia. So it was pretty unexpected to receive (last month) a rego renewal notice in the mail. Given that the new owner re-registered the car in NSW I was suprised to find it still in my name. Luckily I had some contact details for the him, and he said he'd look into it and sort it out.

But apparently that wasn't enough. This week I had a letter from the Sydney M2 tollway operators telling me that I had an unpaid toll journey to my name, and could I please pay it and the processing fee? This was pretty impressive given that I sold the car months ago, the new owner had new plates on it, and I wasn't even in the country at that time.

I would have loved to pull out the title transfer receipt to say that I wasn't responsible, but it's buried somewhere in a filing cabinet in the back of an overcrowded bedroom at the parents' farm. In Australia. From somewhere I managed to dig up the new owner's phone number, and we tried to figure out what was going on. Seems that VicRoads were holding up the title transfer whilst waiting for the plates to be surrendered (which he'd done and has a receipt to prove it). Certainly it didn't hold up the NSW RTA in issuing him with new plates...

I don't know whose car was photographed travelling through North Ryde on 29 June, nor if it had my old plates on it, but it certainly wasn't me.

Cars - Part 1

This was supposed to be the post about our weekend holiday to the Coromandel Peninsula (just to the east of Auckland). But shit happens sometimes, and so we have a different tale to tell.

We got out of town early on Friday afternoon to try to beat the traffic (still got a fair bit of it down the motorway), for a few days near Hot Water Beach. The weather forecast was pretty abysmal, but not enough to discourage us, after all, we could just dig a hole in the beach sand and sit in some thermal waters. But about halfway there, things went pear shaped...

Two hours out of Auckland, the car's battery warning light came on as we were cruising on the highway, shortly followed by Jo noticing the power steering had gone AWOL. We found somewhere to pull over (just as the temperature gauge clocked the top of the scale), which as luck would have it was right out the front of what we later found out to be the only open garage within about a 40km radius. So if we'd called the AA for roadside help, they would have towed us here. Diagnosis: a failed fan belt idler pulley bearing, and two thrown belts. No chance of getting replacement parts til Monday, but it was fortunate that we'd planned to take Monday off work anyway.

It was in a little town called Maramarua (from the Maori translation: mara - nowhere; marua - to be in the middle of). Naturally with a non-functioning car and dark closing fast, we were left figuring out what we could do for the next few days.

Whilst the idea of sleeping in the car was proposed, fortunately the place we were supposed to be staying called aroud and found a nearby B&B in Mangatarata (Maori: 10 miles east of the middle of nowhere) who could come and pick us up and accommodate us for the night. So we spent the night crashing someone else's dinner (which they were nice enough to share with us), and finding out about their little B&B and family story. By this stage we figured that a rental car would be good to see us through the rest of the weekend and we'd continue on in the morning.

At about midnight Jo had a nausea attack and dashed to the toilet feeling pretty unwell. That seemed to pass relatively quickly, but not before I was sent on a mission to find a bucket; a nice challenge in a strange house in the dark.

Then at about 2:30 a loud beeping noise started. The smoke detector in our room had at that moment decided that its batteries were flat and that we needed to know about it, so I had to find a chair to stand on and pull it down.

I don't know what all this means but sometimes you just get the feeling that you're not meant to be going somewhere. By the morning we had pretty much given up on thoughts of continuing our journey, and decided to head home for a couple of days of relaxing. Jo had a date with Harry Potter anyway. We did take the time to go for a walk aroud their little bush plot which was a nice enough distraction, then found a local rental car to get home in (a Toyota Carib - a car just as bland as its homonym).

I was waiting for some punchline/epilogue to this, like that the place we were supposed to be staying had been struck by lightning and washed away in a flood, but no such luck. I guess we'll just have to chalk this one up to a series or random coincidences. Luckily our car was fixed by Monday night, and we took a round trip to pick it up and drop off the rental.

Espresso heaven

My birthday present was finally ordered and promptly delivered this week. And frankly, who needs bench space? This is far more important...
Here it is in all its brand-new glory. Henceforth, it will never look so shiny as fingerprints and scratches start to develop, so enjoy it...

I've been practising pulling shots for the last few evenings - getting the technique developed, learning how it works, tweaking the grinder - so it's fortunate that the machine came with 2kg of coffee beans to start with, that will keep me busy for a while.

Meanwhile, we picked up a sofa bed a few weeks ago, so for those who want to go somewhere for a hoiday, we have the venue if you have the time...

Tanks for the memories...

...what's going on? Have I stooped to bad puns? Things must be getting pretty shallow here. Oh well, must be the weather. (Cold, wet, windy, in case you were wondering. At least it's not flooded like Northland; the cousins up north have no power at the moment...)

I spent a few days last week in Australia doing a vehicle survey in Bandiana, which is out the back of Wodonga (there's an engineering training barracks there). Started with an ASLAV AS4 (at Vic Barracks in Melbourne actually), then an M113, and finally an M1A1 Abrams and an M88 Hercules (which is in essence a big tow truck). The pictures linked really don't do justice to these things, the latter two particularly are bloody huge. Read the stats, then go pace out how big that is...

Unfortunately we spent a day and a half with the latter vehicles waiting for the proper security clearance (which had been promised in advance) to see inside the vehicles. This is a fairly necessary part of what we were there for! Even the staff accompanying us weren't supposed to look in them...

We weren't supposed to look in the engine bay either, but that's a bit hard when every Abrams we saw (about 6 of them) had the engine out and on the floor, and we were standing on top of the turrets half the time. (You can see what the engine unit looks like at the bottom of the M88 page linked above - it's a gas turbine, sounds awesome on startup, which happened a couple of times while we were there. Not as cool sounding though as the Herc's engine, which is a massive V12 air-cooled diesel; loudest motor I've heard this side of a top doorslammer...)

By the middle of Wednesday, we were given an official "no" (which was probably just a lack of an official "yes"...) so we cut short the trip a day and flew back to NZ on Thursday. I think by then we'd had our fill of huge country pub meals anyway... Not sure what they put in the water up there, but I'd hate to see the size of the chickens that those parmas came off...

Not much exciting to report since then. Jo caught up with Anne (the fellow Aussie psych) again last week while I was away. I've got some mudguards on the bike now, so consequently it's rained every day. But they do work very effectively. We hired a tip truck last weekend (it was the only thing on the lot) and picked up a sofa bed last weekend from up north a bit, so now you have no excuse to come visit! (except maybe that weather...)

love to all.
matt and jo.

Winter

Well, the shortest day of the year has come and gone, as has another birthday, and boy do I hate the proximity of those dates... It was a pretty quiet day for a birthday, but thanks to those who called, it was good to speak to some people back home.

Jo promised to take me shopping for the weekend - but I wasn't aware that looking at women's shoes properly met that criteria - apparently it does. Still, I did manage to get away with a Freeview receiver, which is a little set top box for the TV that picks up satellite free-to-air broadcasts and takes proper advantage of the widescreen TV (still not high-definition though, but very clear reception nonetheless).

Part of my main birthday present from Jo (the other half is coming next month) was already acquired* several weeks ago - a breadmaker that will be souped up for other duties (ask Steve). Still, to check if it was functional, we've baked a couple of loaves of bread and it works just fine - in fact Jo wants to get another for when I put mine to its "proper" use (that's deliberately vague, but I'll clarify in a few weeks).

*I say it was acquired because it was a $1 purchase on Trademe (broken paddle), and the seller didn't even take his dollar. Then another seller had a used bowl for that exact model for sale cheaply down in Wellington, so hey presto one $20 fully functional breadmaker, when most used ones are asking for about $70 :)

We also picked up a portable air conditioner/heat pump unit that will hopefully be a bit more efficient than the fan and oil heaters at keeping the house warm. We haven't properly got it fired up yet though, because we need to set up an in-fill panel in the wondow frame to keep the draughts out (it needs ducting out the window).

To keep in the shopping theme, we also now have (bought a week ago) a coffee table (the lowest thing ever, ony 18cm high), and a spare bed will be picked up next week, so now you have no excuse for not coming to visit us!

Well, that's enough for rampant consumerism! What else have I been up to? Work is as usual, and I often get a wet arse riding there. I'll be back in Australia next week, from 2-6th July, but I'll be up in Bandiana (out the back of Wodonga) for most of that time doing a vehicle survey (measuring up some tanks and armoured personnel carriers for equipment fitment). I might have some free time on Thursday night or Friday morning if anyone is around the Melbourne CBD and wants to meet up, but I'm not sure of the exact flight details at this stage and I'm travelling with 2 others, so it's a little tricky to plan. I should have my Aussie mobile switched on that week if anyone wants to call.

stay in touch! cheers all,
matt.

Matty gets licenced

I went and got my licence today, so I'm now officially a New Zealander, and I get a government issued pair of gumboots and the permission to keep up to two registered sheep on the premises.

Just kidding.

It's actually only one sheep. Nah, I took the test to get a NZ driver's licence, which coming from Aus is pretty straightforward - no practical driving test to do, just a theory quiz. The test form is a "scratch and win" type affair - you scratch off the box next to the right answer and reveal a tick; a wrong answer reveals a cross.

You need a minimum of 32 correct answers out of 35 - I scraped in with a score of 33. Honestly, who needs to know the minimum tread depth for tyres (that's what the wear indicators are for!), or how far overhanging the front of the car a load can be? (We don't have roof racks, so it's pretty irrelevant.) A couple of responses were an educated guess, and admittedly I hadn't looked at the Road Code website for a couple of weeks, but it was all fine in the end.

Ultimately, this means I can drive in NZ beyond the one year allowed on a foreign licence, and it also helps with insurance premiums and excesses. I'd scan and show you the goofy picture, but they post it out in the mail so it isn't in my hands yet.

Everything is pretty normal around here otherwise. The veggie garden is going berserk (particularly the lettuce, and we have a couple of little broccoli heads poking up!). I used a few herbs in the bolognese sauce tonight, should be good. The garden is doing well, the roses are coming on strong (we had to give them a pretty severe pruning when we arrived).

By the way, here's what we were in Australia for last week: to see Jo on a big TV!

Matty and Jo in Aus

Well it was a long week but great to catch up with everyone back across the ditch. As usual(!) we had a delayed flight to NZ, always fun when you've been out the night before and struggle to get up really early for an early flight, and it's delayed by 1.5 hours... better get used to those early starts though, back to work tomorrow. Thanks to the parents of the baby screaming in the seat behind us on the flight back. Needed that.

Oh well, we're back, and it's cold and wet. Not all that cold and wet, but moreso than Melbourne.

Congrats to Rob and Bec, we had a great time at your engagement party and you both looked fab.

We had a look through our house in Morton Rd on Saturday, and it all looks pretty good. Lisa and Rob are a great couple to have looking after our house, very friendly and easy to get on with.

I guess everyone who we caught up with has all the latest news from us, so there's not much point reliving every moment. Suffice to say, I had a fairly laid back week (though without enough time to really chill out), and Jo had a very hectic week and has been asleep on the floor for the last 3 hours...

Rules of the Road

Where have we been? Not much exciting happening at home, just routine life that's not very interesting to report on... We bought some more stuff on Trademe: a desk and a bookshelf thingy and a simple desk chair, which means that we can tidy up the spare room a little. We just need a spare bed and we're pretty much done for furnishings. Some more of the usual screwdriver work in assembling everything... Also, must add that the 3-series is crap for trying to transport anything. The boot access and rear doors are so badly shaped that anything boxy generally won't fit. Fortunately the boxy stuff was flat packed this time. Dare I say it - the old VW Polo was actually good for something...

-------------------------
So, in lieu of our life story, let me introduce you to the Road Rules in New Zealand:
Rule 1: Bigger is Better.
For example:

1. A truck has priority over a car.
2. A car has priority over a pedestrian.
3. A red Mercedes A Class pulling out from a side street has priority over a cyclist approaching at full speed, down hill in the rain.

Rule 2: You're A Pedestrian, You Don't Count.
Face it, if you were important, you could afford a car, and then I might give you some respect when turning into the street that you're crossing, you filthy peasant.

Rule 3: Turning.
3.1
A car turning left must give way to a car approaching from the opposite direction turning right into the same street.
3.1.1
Yes, this is true. Everyone recognises that it's this magical unique rule in NZ, but noone can explain why.
3.2
A car turning left does not have to give way to a car approaching from the opposite direction turning right into the same street, if said car is obstructed by a car travelling in a straight line.
3.2.1 Corollary to Rules 3.1 and 3.2:
If you're turning left, you must look to your right and behind you before deciding whether you can proceed. Fortunately you don't actually have to bother looking left (see Rule 2).
3.3
A car turning right into a side street must give way to a car turning right out of that side street.
3.4
Noone obeys Rule 3.3.
3.5
The centre painted lane or the bus lane is for pushing in from.

Rule 4: Smoke.
If your car isn't smoking, you must be looking after it too well. You should buy an old Magna, or a diesel, or a diesel Magna.

Rule 5: WOF.
5.1
So you've bought a nice new car, and it's in perfect condition? Well, we'll make you get a Warrant of Fitness (WOF, basically a roadworthy check, not a swear word) every year (or, if it's over 6 years old, twice a year), to make sure it's smoking just the right amount. Or still has 4 wheels. Or something. Doesn't seem to have any effect on the quality of cars on the road...
5.2
You can get a free tailpipe emissions test to check the actual filthy output of your rustbucket.
5.2.1
Even if your car is belching enough black clouds to make your eyes water, said emissions test can't actually be used as evidence to get your car legally removed from the road.

Rule 6: Jap Imports
6.1
The odder, the better. Face it, it's cheaper to buy another than repair, so you're not going to bother ever servicing it. So access to spare parts is an irellevance (though ironically, every garage has a fleet of loaner cars on hand, because they bought them just as cheaply too).
6.2
Your oddball car should have the oddest name badge possible. Bonus points for a Toyota Corolla II Super Windy G, an Emina (sounds as fun as an enema), or any Engrish on the stickers.

---------
Well, that should be enough to have you driving as badly as everyone else here. Glad to hear that you've had some rain back home, hopefully our garden is kicking on.

I won't be coming over for an extra week for work, so we'll only be around for one week (and even then probably fairly busy).

pull up a chair...

Another week down already? I hope the minutiae of our daily lives isn't too boring for you all...

As we've been pretty busy for a few weeks we decided it was time for a lazy weekend at home, watching a few videos. So it was perfect timing that the DVD/HD recorder that was a package deal with the TV we bought finally turned up on Friday afternoon. Luckily Jo was home early and could come to my work and pick it up in the car (bit hard to carry it on the bike!)

Lots of wiring, searching through menus and getting everything configured, adjusting the picture quality, and finally we slotted in "Cars" and sat down for the movie. A great movie, even if watched repeatedly, I love all the little esoteric details. The only drawback was that this is a movie which really needs a good audio system, and the tinny little speakers in the TV just don't cut it like my old subwoofer used to. Uh-oh, you can see where this is leading...



On Saturday we finally bought the dining chairs we had planned to (from a Balinese/SE Asian furniture shop just around the corner from us), so of course that night we ate dinner on the couch as usual. We have used them though, promise! :D Then we sat down for "Memoirs of a Geisha", which Jo thinks was pretty good, certainly not as bad as some people had led us to believe. I haven't read the book but I realise it's pretty hard to compress a massive tome into 2 hours, still it's well produced and filmed. Tonight we've got "The World's Fastest Indian" to watch, whilst simultaneously recording some TV shows. Pretty handy.


Today I found out that I might have an extended trip to Australia, work are considering sending me over the week before we have booked to come over anyway. Probably won't be around much though, the plan is to be up in Puckapunyal for a few days. We'll keep you posted on exactly when we'll be around and free.



Well, that's about us up to speed. Here's a picture of Jo's new style as promised, pretty cute isn't she?

cheers all, please remember to drop us a line!

The all new wife

First off, apologies that there's no photos to accompany this post - Jo refuses to let me use one until it's flattering. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Jo cut a long hairstyle short. The blonde is now gone, back to natural color, and the style is pretty short and funky. Promise photos soon!

We also had some socialising this weekend. Anne is another psychologist with ADHB (though works in a completely different department to Jo), and her partner Rob is a civil (boo!) engineer. We met them at the ADHB "new international staff" night in the first or second week after moving over, and as is usual when moving far from home, we latched onto a fellow Melbournian. At least Rob is English, so there's a bit of diversity, but it's taken this long to get around to catching up with them again.

We headed out for dinner at the Viaduct area at the bottom end of the city, which is (from what we saw on a wet evening without exploring very far) quite similar to the Docklands precinct in Melbourne. There's one of the old America's Cup boats on a stand in the forecourt (one of the really bloody big ones, I think the year that the Americans turned up in an even bigger catamaran...)

Can't remember the name of the restaurant we ate at, but their specialty is the hot plate meals, where you get your meat served on a superheated stone, so you can leave it on as short or long as you wish. I chose the tuna steak which was pretty good except that by the time I'd turned it over it was already as cooked as a good piece of tuna should be, and I had to whip it off the stone and find somewhere to put it on the edge of the plate. It still went down well with a couple of pints of beer though.

Speaking of food, there's some fantastic meat here (sorry vegetarians, might want to skip this paragraph). Even the cuts in the supermarket are two inches thick! Significantly, I haven't cooked a bad pork steak yet, normally the hardest meat I find to get right. Every time I've cooked one here, it comes out as soft and juicy as ever. Brilliant.

I also bought a line trimmer on the weekend for the lawn edges that the mower doesn't get in to. Cheap as hell, electric, and far too short for extended use, it's lucky that we don't have enough lawn for that to be a serious issue. It also only came with a very short length of line, which was barely enough to go once around the lawn before it ran out. I guess that's the cost of buying the cheapest thing in the store. (as an aside, it's in the news that Bunnings will start charging 10c for plastic bags. I wonder if I can manage to convince them to honour their "better the competitor's price by 10%" policy on the basis that Foodtown's price is exactly 0 cents...? Worth trying for a laugh anyway.)

well, that's enough from me, time for bed!
cheers all,
matt.

Snells Beach

Hi again readers! I heard that some people (OK, maybe only one) were waiting expectantly to hear about the family lunch last Sunday. We drove up to Snells Beach (about 45 minutes north of Auckland) for (my cousin) Jenny and Stuart’s housewarming. Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera, so these pics are off my phone.

As usual we arrived fashionably late, but it was a very casual afternoon and everything was still being set up. We last saw Jenny’s house when we visited NZ in November last year, and at that stage it was a bare frame. It’s almost completed now, just a couple of finishing touches to go. But it looks brilliant and I’m sure will be worth a fortune if they ever sell it – the view alone could do that, let alone the 3 bedrooms, huge living space, and full set of modern fittings.

Polished floors everywhere, so shoes off at the door. Claire was there with her clan, though Michael was down at Eden Park doing some rugby training. Gillian and Michael Harris were up from Wellington. Gillian prepared a huge feast in the kitchen while Michael Harris worked the barbeque. Jo took up the challenge of a game of Monopoly with the kids (which ended up disintegrating into sibling violence between Michael-Lydia and Moana), while Stuart and I retired to the home theatre (with huge projector) to watch the V8s from Puke.

Lunch was out on the deck. Very pleasant if you managed to get a spot in the sun, but a cold breeze kept threatening. Stuart cracked the top off a magnum of 1996 Manuwera(?) Antipodean, an awesome drop if you find it (and a wheelbarrow full of cash – it’s something like $300 for a (standard size) bottle). All in all a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

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I spent last night downloading several episodes of Supernatural for Jo on bittorrent, but it’s chewed through our internet ration pretty quickly (the torrent uploads count as part of the usage total)! Oh well, will just have to stay away from YouTube for the next few weeks…

It’s now ANZAC day, so I hope you’re all enjoying a pleasant day off. I did some gardening – gotta keep on top of the lawn! – while Jo took care of the inside. The hedgetrimmer took out the extension cord pretty easily, and blew a fuse in the process which took about half an hour to find. I tried to find a shop open to replace the cord (or at least the plug) and get some fuse wire, but they take public holidays pretty seriously around here. Guess I’ll have to wait til the weekend…

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For the tech geeks: NZ is just about to start free-to-air digital broadcasting next week, though initially only via satellite. Fortunately the previous tenants here had Sky TV so there’s a dish on the roof that we can plug straight in to. Just need to get a receiver box, and we’ll be good to go, finally justifying the widescreen TV! (for some shows anyway) Pity the signal won’t be in high definition for some time yet, damn backwards country this is!

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Melbourne
Advance notice to all: we’re back in Melbourne for a week at the start of June. We’re hoping a few people might like to come and see us on Saturday 2nd at Liz’s house up in South Morang. Probably just a casual afternoon drop-by-whenever afternoon, maybe lingering into dinner.

We might be around for the second weekend of June if Jo’s work organises some hospital/rehab centre attendances the following week, and we can rearrange the flights accordingly.

Well, that about brings you up to date (without boring you with too many mundane details). Send us your own stories if you’ve been doing anything interesting. (Frankly, any news from our friends is interesting!)

love all,

matt and jo.

Pets!

Everyone knows about the kitties, so here's a post about the rest of our animals.


Moths.
Little brown moths are everywhere, not sure of the breed, but they love gathering (in their hundreds) on the underside of palm leaves. Fortunately they seem to have stayed away from the wardrobe.


Bumblebees.
Jo got very excited to see a bumblebee for the first time. Unfortunately they're a bit elusive to photograph, but they love to buzz around the wild rosemary bush growing in the back yard.



Wetas.
I found a few of these guys when cleaning some dead leaves off one of the palm trees in the front garden.

Slugs.
They come into the kitchen on wet nights and lurk around the back door and rubbish bin. I've never seen such bloody huge slugs! Gotta be careful to watch where you step sometimes... (eww!)


Mozzie?
Not sure what this one is, but he's pretty damn big!

TV and family

We finally have a proper TV in the house, which means we're finally using some of our furniture (the TV unit) correctly. For the geeks out there: 40" wisescreen LCD, 720p high definition. Thank goodness for interest free loans! (which is amazing in this country where the interest rate is insane.) Don't worry, we'll have it paid off!

Part of the deal for the TV included an HD DVD recorder, but you have to send away for it so it's not here yet... and the salesman threw in some nice Monster cables and a little George Foreman grill (just what we needed!)

We had an experience getting the TV home - it doesn't look so big in the shop, but in all its carboard-boxed glory, there was no way this thing would fit into the back of the car! However at the same time we were at the back of the shop trying to figure out what we were going to do, someone else was there picking up a washing machine with a rented trailer. He immediately offered to transport it for us. It felt a bit weird loading our brand new TV onto a complete stranger's trailer and hoping he would follow us home without disappearing, but he was true to his word and we had the box home in minutes, followed by a bit more time unpacking, setting up, stashing all the packaging in the attic for when we need to move this thing again, and finally sitting down to dial in the colour from the usual overblown neon colours that make TVs lok so good in the shop next to 50 others.

Unfortunately having a big TV doesn't make the local programming any better. Local free-to-air isn't in high definition until next year, Sky have only just started digital transmission this month, so we'll consider if that's worth paying up for, but most of the channels are more of the same (ie crap), and it's extra for sports or movies or any of the good stuff. I'm sure there's more interesting stuff we coud do with that money each month.

(However, I'm sure there's some motorsport on there that I'm mising out on, such as the V8s from Pukekohe this weekend... I'd get down there, but we're going to see Jenny and Stuart's new house on Sunday. About the only motorsport that does get shown is the A1, not surprisingly Team NZ is doing very well!)

You can also see our new rug in the photo, which was cheap but very nice and fuzzy, feels great underfoot (if you're brave enough to take shoes off and risk the icy cold floorboards, the weather is turning very cold here in the mornings)

On Thursday night I went out to dinner with auntie Gilly and Michael at the home of Tim and Diana Shaw (Tim is Berry's cousin). Very nice people and a great house in Remuera, and Diana put on some great Moroccan food. We dug through some archival photos that Tim's sister had collated in a scrap book, got to catch up on some family history that I'm not too familiar with.

I'll have more family stories after tomorrow.

cheers all!

Roto-Vegas! - Part 2

On Saturday we took a morning walk in the Redwood forest, which despite being an introduced species seems to fit in fairly well. Certainly a good place to unwind and get away from the noise of the town, though it does get rather cold down in the shade.
We drove further south to check out a few of the local lakes - mostly volcanic calderra (extinct craters), each with a unique colour or attribute. This is Lake Tarawera, which until an eruption some 120 years ago used to come much closer to the viewing site.
We made it back to the other side of town for the Kiwi Encounter tour, which takes you through a kiwi egg hatchery. Very interesting little birds these, you can appreciate the need for a hatchery when you see an egg next to one of them - the analogy is like giving birth to a fully grown three-year-old...
More fun than the tour itself though was the outrageously camp guide Dion, who I'm sure could only have gotten more excited if he suddenly discovered a that kiwis came in hot pink velour rather than feathers.
We also stopped off for a look around some recent thermal activity in the middle of town at Kuirai Park. Feels somewhere between a movie set and a fantasy land.
We thought we'd be smart and hit the Polynesian Spa at dinner time, on the basis that everyone else would be at dinner. Unfortunately everyone else had the same brilliant idea, so it was pretty busy. Still, there was enough room to find your own personal space, and once we'd figured out which pool wasn't scaldingly hot we settled in for a good soak. Thanks to James and Jacq for the lovely gift, would love to go back again. Eventually the sulphur fumes got overpowering, so we retired for a home cooked meal. Could have passed on watching Vanilla Sky though, should have figured it would be dismal (exhibit A: Tom Cruise, your honour) but it kind of sucks you in at the start.
Apart from hiding all the chocolate eggs on Sunday and making Jo find them, Sunday was a return to normal - drove back early to Auckland to beat the traffic and take care of things around the house like more gardening. Oh - here's a fun one for you: the local councils don't collect garden waste. You have to pay for a private collection service to take away the contents of your garden bin, trouble being that they only do it every 4 weeks, and our bin is already full again after one week. So I'll have to slow down with those hedge clippers...
Love to all, please keep in touch and let us know what you're up to.
Matt and Jo.

Zorbing

It's not hard to picture the scene: a handful of local adventure tourism operators kicking back at the end of a hard day of scaring tourists, downing a few Steinlagers and trying to think up new ways of parting gullible, adventure loving backpackers from their parent's hard-earned Euro (or Yen, or dollars, you get the idea). Then one pipes up with:
"How about this: We get a giant inflatable ball, right, and we stick a punter inside. Then we push them down a bloody big hill!"
And to a chorus of "Choice!", "Sweet-as!" and other stereotypical New Zealander epithets, the group set off to establish the activity of Zorbing.
In theory it sounds brilliant, and Kiwis have an enviable reputation for adventure tourism - jet boating, bungy jumping, bungy slingshots, and various other bungy-related activites. The trouble is, with Zorbing, somewhere between that alcohol-fuelled concept meeting and the execution, things went pear-shaped.
For starters, the Zorb is so bloody big that it has the aerodynamics of a small barn, but inflatable, so it has the weight of a kite. Imagine skiing with a parachute attached. So even on a decent slope, it's just too damn slow. It takes about 40 seconds to get down a 200 metre hill. People can run that fast. (Other people, admittedly.)
Secondly, the balls are made of clear plastic, which is great for the first 10 minutes of use, but then they get scratched and hazy and you can't see in. Or out.
And finally most people take up the option to have a bucket of water thrown in with them, making the whole thing slippery. Personally I'd take the dry option so that you have at least half a chance to stand up, run, trip, fall over, and generally tumble your brains out in relative safety. I guess the aim is to experience what it's like inside a washing machine, if the washing machine were giant and padded and rolling down a hill. But they're not. So it ends up being like sitting in a cold bathtub, whilst going down an escalator. With your eyes closed. To very badly paraphrase Groucho Marx (apologies), a real washing machine would be much more fun.
So, in its current execution, Zorbing is a failure as a proper adventure activity. I was excited to try something unique, but after 2 minutes of watching I was ready to leave. We only stayed to take some photos.
Not to be entirely negative, I can see the potential of the Zorb. But it requires a few enhancements: One, make the hill steeper. Much steeper. You could probably drop these things off a cliff and they'd float down gently without hurting the occupants. Two, add some obstacles to the hill, so you have a more exciting trajectory than straight down, or down the lame "luge" course. A few bumps, jumps, bounces, and trees to hit would make it far more satisfying.
As an endpoint to this rant, the show "MXC" (which is an amusing US redubbing of the Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle if you've missed it) had a far more hardcore version of this activity, involving a small hard plastic ball (barely big enough to fit someone in) and a real obstacle course. No doubt painful, but genuinely funny and surely more adrenaline inducing.

Roto-Vegas! - Part 1

Happy Easter all, hope your holiday is as solemn and/or as chocolatey as you desire.

We've just returned from a few days in Rotorua, aka Roto-vegas, aka stinky town, aka... well I'll just let this ute sum up the place:

Actually, the smell wasn't as bad as my corrupted childhood memories had led me to believe, it's only in the really active (volcanically speaking) parts of town that you notice it.

First off, a big thank you to Jacqui and James for the gift of the entry pass to the Polynesian Spa. We'll get to that part later though.

Obviously the first part of the trip was getting there, and it wasn't long out of home that the smells began. Koba got a case of the nervous shits on the way to the cattery, thus adding to the fragrance of "ex-smoker's car" and vanilla car freshener. Fortunately the mess was contained within his cage, which was left with the cattery staff to take care of, hehe. Having cleared the mad Auckland holiday traffic, we stopped at Huntly for dinner and added Maccas takeaway to the olfactory composition. mmmmm.

@94 on Springfield is a fantastic B&B, and Jo once again proved her capable online research skills to pick a winner.

On Saturday we cruised around a bit seeing what was on offer. The Whakarawera village is a really odd site - basically a Maori village (not very traditional, but the residents do live right in the middle of a tourist park) set amongst a highly geothermally active site - boiling water and mud pools and geysers, etc. I think we were both most taken with a two year old playing on a porch about 10 metres from a deep boiling hole in her own front yard.
Side note - I want a grave with a steaming chimney:

We bypassed some of the other touristy stuff and took the car up Mountain Rd for a scenic look. Part way up this twisty climbing road I felt like John Batman, pondering "this looks like the place for a hill climb" (assuming he had fallen through a space-time warp and parked his ship halfway up a hill in the middle of an island, and suddenly knew what a hill climb was, let alone a car...). Half way up the road is closed off to traffic, so we set off on foot to see more.

Just beyond the gates it's obvious (from the burnout patch) that the upper section of road DOES get used as a hillclimb track! Known as the Ngongotaha hillclimb, it's run a few times a year according to some quick googling.

Beautiful views over Lake Rotorua, but not while competing I guess... also saw some farmed deer and this cute litte hedgehog.
Dinner was at Bistro 1284 in the middle of town - bloody expensive but very nice, it was recommended by the psychiatrist Jo works with. Top choice again.