vegie garden

Hi readers! Happy Australia Day to all. We're having a holiday on Monday too, it's coincidentally Auckland anniversary day. It's been fairly warm here lately, though I say that in local terms - 25-27 is about as hot as it gets. Nothing like Melbourne lately.

We finally have a decent microphone for the laptop, so we can talk clearly on Skype if you want to have a chat/video call. Search for "drjoking".

The sale process for the house here has begun, so we have had to tidy it up on the weekends and vacate for 45 minutes while people wander through. There seems to be a bit of interest so hopefully we won't have to do this for too many more weekends.

We spruced up the herb pots late last year (about November or so), planted some basil and tomato seeds. And after that I remembered to actually water it every day. So things went nuts growing quickly.


After the pots became overgrown, I replanted half of their contents to the empty patch in the garden of the house, and they took off again. Like I said, most of these were only seeds about two months ago:

And we have some little green tomatoes growing rapidly too! The biggest of these is maybe 4cm diameter now.
Hopefully they will be fully grown (and not eaten by bugs or birds) before we leave!

Movies

Something I was going to write in the last post, but forgot. (That doesn't sound anything like me does it?)

"I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the point
when he made 'Pearl Harbor'."

So was sung in a lament in 'Team America: World Police'. Sadly I now know what that means.
This 4-hour turd was squeezed out over two consecutive nights on TV here recently. The upside of this is that I completely missed the first night's screening, which meant when the bombing started in the first minutes of the second night's screening, I knew I had missed out on two hours of... well, probably nothing important. Apparently there was something about a love triangle in there that has nothing to do with the Japs, planes, ships and bombs which (call me simple) would appear to be the most important ingredients to this story.

"I need you like Ben Affleck needs acting school
he was terrible in that film."

Again, an accurate summary. The 'acting' consisted largely of Affleck grimacing and shouting. With Bay directing, I think actors are probably superfluous anyway (they get in the way of all the explosions - ref: Bad Boys, Armageddon, Transformers...).

The summary concluded that a high risk invasion revenge bombing raid on Tokyo was the "turning point" in the war, and the start of the ascendency of the US over Japan. Hmm.

Last night's movie made up for it - Pink Floyd The Wall. Though I still have no idea what it's about (should probably have paid a bit more attention).
I think I need to see this again in a theatre with a good sound system. Hmm, wonder when it's on at The Astor?

Bay of Islands

The holidays are nearly over! Almost time to go back for work... Jo and I spent about 10 days up north staying in the town of Paihia. Accommodation was a supposedly luxury hideaway self-contained apartment, but its proximity to the adventure park (next door) and the main road to the nearest large town, right where the 100 zone started, belied the serenity...

The weather was up and down - certainly never as hot as Melbourne has been thankfully, but a few wet days thrown in as well. We usually spent those days relaxing inside and reading.

On the drive up (about 3 hours) we stopped at the Winiana household, to say hi to the cousins (whilst avoiding the sick ones), and drop off some Christmas gifts.

Christmas day was one of the quietest on memory, for the first time I can remember we didn't have any family around. Which left more champagne for just the two of us.
On Boxing Day we went over to Waitangi, to the grounds where the treaty between Maori and pakeha was signed. Not a very exciting place, but nice enough.
We took some short trips on subsequent days, to Kerikeri for some shopping, and to Russell to check out the scenery. Russell is visible across the bay from Paihia (accessed by car ferry), but a world away in terms of vibe. While both are predominantly waterfront holiday towns, Paihia is filled with cheap motels, boat-trip package tours and backpackers, and Russell manages to maintain some sense of small-town style, particularly along the waterfront.

The 30th was of course our first wedding anniversary. We didn't do much for the day itself, but for dinner we took the car ferry across to a winery (Omata). Spectacular views and excellent food (and wine of course).


New Years Eve, and Jo's 31st birthday. We got up early (relatively speaking!) and rented a little motor boat to go explore the islands themselves. After a while of being screwed around by a dive shop (we'd arranged to rent some snorkelling gear, but they were late to open, then didn't have the gear there anyway), we finally launched and made our way out to the nearest island (Roberton). The views are impressive from the peak, and there's a shallow lagoon to swim in, where I managed to teach Jo to breathe through a snorkel long enough to see some fish. But the water was pretty cold, so we didn't last long.

We'd arrived at low tide, which meant that by the time we left, the boat was only accessible by swimming out to it. We should have left it stuck on the beach where it ended when we'd first arrived... gotta work on those boat piloting skills.

After an adventurous day we didn't even make it to midnight.

The trip back to Auckland was very slow - with a couple of sections of gridlock on the country's main highway, over 100km from Auckland. We first stopped at the Kawiti caves to see some glow worms hiding in the darkness, then at the Andersons (Jenny and Stuart) to catch up with more cousins.

Life otherwise has been fairly busy: lots of preparations for returning to Melbourne, trying to sell things (anyone want a car?), arranging shipping, kicking our tenants out, applying for jobs, and so on. It will be good to get home and back to a steady routine!

Love to all!

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.