cricket shots

A few shots from Lords yesterday. NZ v England, final ODI.

Yeah mate, that was a cracking delivery...


This guy kept our entire stand entertained for a good 5 minutes looking for his friends. Half the icecreams had melted before he found them.


Just a nice action shot in the late afternoon sun.

Heaps more on my flickr set. And another couple of hundred still sitting unprocessed on the hard drive! Shot with a 70-200mm f4 L IS, from up the very top row of the Upper Grandstand, so about as far away from the action as possible - mostly around 1/640th, varying ISO depending on how much sun was about.

o for awesome

Friend of mine who I used to work with in NZ found this gem of NZ tv programming on youtube




David Tua, a NZ boxer, asking for an 'O for Awesome' on the Wheel of Fortune game show. Anyone know when this was aired? Looks kindof 1990's, but I'm not sure.

frodo...

Always good to see someone do a LOTR rip off.. and Flight of the Conchords rock anyway, so it's a pretty funny combo

paddling the fiord

A few weeks ago, we had some time to spare between our wedding, and flying out for the Cook Islands and London. On the spur of the moment we decided to fly to Queenstown in NZ and go on a 2 day kayak trip in Doubtful Sound, Fiordland. One of the best holidays I've been on, and I think K enjoyed himself too :)

I'm a kiwi, and lived 23 (I think!) years in NZ without ever going to Fiordland, which I always associated with Japanese tourists on coach trips, but turned out to be the opposite of what we encountered!

We went kayaking with Fiordland Wilderness Experiences, a company with years of experience in Doubtful Sound where we went. They provided a guide, all the equipment you could want, and most of the camping gear we needed. We had 6 other kayakers on our trip, so 4 kayaks in total.

So... we got up at some horrid hour in the morning on the first day, stumbled out of the Backpackers in Te Anau, and got picked up at 6AM for the first leg of the journey. After a 20 min van ride, we unloaded all the gear (all our personal gear + the camping gear) into a boat, and took a 1hr ride across Lake Manapouri, then got changed into wetsuits etc (as it was pouring with rain, and that was the last 'dry' spot to get changed and pack our dry bags). Then load up a second van, and a 45 min drive over a huge pass to get to Doubtful Sound, and about a hour to load the kayaks, and have the saftey and paddling demos.

It was pouring with rain when we left Deep Cove where the kayaks are stored, but that made for some fantastic scenery, with the famous Fiordland waterfalls in full flow. As the Fiords are so steep, there is barely any soil to hold water, so when it rains, it creates these beautiful huge waterfalls everywhere.

By lunchtime, the rain eased off, and it was dead still. The waterfalls dried up within a few hours, just leaving a few smaller permanent ones. We went to our campsite for the night up Hall Arm, set up our tents and dropped off our gear, cooked up some lunch, then carried on for another few hours kayaking. The guide was great, and just let us all cruise along at whatever speed we wanted. Then back for dinner, and a few tall stories and glasses of wine in the mozzie shelter.

Next day was sunny and calm, and we had time to kayak another 10-12km, with a stop for lunch. Sadly, no Dolphins showed up on the way back, and the normal tail wind didn't kick in, so no sailing back to Deep Cove. It was a beautiful day however.

Stopping for Lunch on Day 2

Over the two days, we saw about 10 boats, and one other kayak group on the other side of the sound, but nobody else. Totally unlike Milford Sound, which has been totally overrun by tourism (on the two hour drive from Te Anau to Milford, there are up to 300 coaches a DAY on the road!). A little piece of paradise which I'll be revisiting in the future.

Tons more photos are on my flickr set here.

Our route:

View Larger Map

I'm a married woman!

The wedding has been and gone - went by so fast!
The good:

• Outdoor ceremony - would have been ultra hot in the sun (hit 24-25 degrees, and no clouds. NZ is pretty harsh when there are no clouds). Also we had lawn games set up which gave some of the guests stuff to do - croquet and petanque, which was a bit different
  
  
  
• Getting the 'formal' photos done before the ceremony/guests show up, as that gave us about 30 mins to actually socialise with guests before going in for dinner
• My 'tealight' candles - looked great, went with our slightly 'English' theme, and got lots of comments! Idea was found in a NZ home decorating magazine (can't remember which right now), and the total cost was about NZ$30 for all the cups, saucers, teapots and jugs and another NZ$60ish for the candle wax and wicks - cheaper than buying nice candles in normal holders, and some of the cups and saucers are really nice (Queen Anne, Royal Doulton etc). Can't find many pics of them actually in the venue tho.
  
  
  
  
  
• Paper parasols for outside - still got a bit sunburnt, but they looked nice and worked well!
  
  
  
  Got three of them in Wellington, NZ at a store called redcurrant I think (I'd buy most of the store if was living there! Gotta find a link for them), but Lucy and Abi forgot to use them! Never mind :)
  
• Having the bar open when guests arrived - got heaps of good comments from people that they could sit with a beer/wine while the ceremony was on!
• The cake! It was HUGE (probably still some of it floating around Nelson), and tasted great. Thanks to Chocolate Velvet in Nelson for this.
  
  
• My dress! Thanks Vera Wang, and The Wedding Shop at Selfridges. And thanks to my sisters and cousin for making the matching sashes on the dresses (sorry Vera, I wasn't paying £400 or whatever for a bit of taffetta silk!)
  
  
  
• Four days of no carbs for the leadup! Didn't really loose much weight, but lost some of the fat on my face (yup, chubby cheeks!). Might try to keep up the no or low carbs in the future if I'm not hard out exercising, as I felt pretty good. Was hard tho, as I pretty much live on pasta and rice!
• The 'first dance' song... 'Let's stay together' by Al Green (ya know, the one from Pulp Fiction). And since our wedding, I've heard it played at least 4 times in different places, spooky
  
• And so much more that I can't remember!

the outlook for thursday...

Check out the London vs Wellington weather forecasts.... London should be just about kicking into summer, while Wellington should be diving into mid-winter, yet they are both pretty similar - mild, wet and a bit depressing. And Wellington actually looks nicer! What's up with that huh?


(post title taken from a great dave dobbyn song)

nz schools vs microsoft

...Microsoft Office programs have been ordered to be removed from about 25,000 Apple Macintosh computers in schools.
The Ministry of Education did not renew its deal for the programs, meaning that students using the Apple computers will not have access to common programs such as Excel and Word unless the school buys the software independently. ...

NZ Herald article via slashdot

It's about time Microsoft *really* started supporting education, by giving schools free or almost-free licences of Office etc. All those kids will probably go on to use Office in their jobs/home PC's so help grow the user base.

But there's also a great argument for this being a good opportunity to switch over to NeoOffice (an OpenOffice implementation on Mac), or other 'office' type apps (the google suite?) - and show them there's not always just one solution available. I've used NeoOffice, and while it's features aren't as strong as MS Office, or 100% compatiable, it's still fully usable for doing most word processing/spreadsheeting functions.

So... should schools be teaching the 'mainstream' apps to make life 'easier' in future, or teaching concepts they can apply to any application/solution? Personally, as a trained scientist who was taught concepts, and had to figure out how, where, and when to apply them, I'ld go for the second option, but that's just me. :) As a Software Tester, the same principles apply, so I can walk into almost any Testing job and quickly get up to speed on the systems/processes/applications in use. Brings to mind the old "teach a man to fish" proverb huh.

My sister on the Front Page!

My youngest sister has got an article on the front page of the Dominion Post - the main newspaper in Wellington (NZ's captial city), and also on the Dominion post homepage.

Hilarious! She's imported some special dyes from overseas somewhere, and dyed the ears and tails of some bijon dogs... not something you see every day.

Dominion Post Article

Outrageous Fortune

Outrageous Fortune, a NZ series (drama I guess?!) about a dodgy family in Auckland, is going to be showing in the UK soon. I saw a few episodes of the second series when I was in NZ last, and it was pretty good.

Madness on the streets of NZ

This post from the NZ govt rss feed kinda scares me...

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=27945

"In 2005, Labour promised to abolish the mandatory driving test for those
aged 80 and over. The new law delivers on our promise and is good news for
older drivers who, like all New Zealanders, wish to be independent," Helen
Clark said.

Readin more, it seems the only thing an over 80 yr old needs is a medical
cert to prove they are 'able to drive'.

Crikey! Being able to walk and see doesn't mean you are competent burning
rubber around the motorways and city streets. I know a lot of physically
competent oldies that I'm scared to get in a car with... and they've
passed the mandatory driving tests!

Maybe I've read this wrong?? Hope so!

KiwiSaver

NZ IRD have some info here on the new KiwiSaver scheme being launched in NZ. Basically a 'semi-forced' pensions savings plan that comes out of your salary automatically.

After being in NZ for two months watching some of the news/information coming out about it, I think most NZer's are totally confused about it and how it works. I know I am!

It's strange that it's acutally going ahead, as it sounds pretty similar to the compulsory Pension savings scheme that Winston Peters tried to set up a few years ago, but a national referendum rejected the scheme by like 90% of voters...

[Edit: the NZ Treasury website has posted a whole lot of info today as well here.
A couple of strange looking points:
1. The employee contributions are taxed - surely the government would offer a tax break on these contributions to encourage more people to join?? Employer contributions seem to be tax-free as far as I can see.
2. Personal savings become part of 'relationship property' - so if you get divorced/break up, this is counted as part of the relationship assets. Do ordinary pension schemes get treated this way also? Seems rather strange to me!]

Fav pics from NZ

Took heaps and heaps of pics in NZ... so here are a few of my favs.

We did it!

Finally! Got the apartment. It's really nice, and we've got some good tenants in there who want to stay to mid next year which is fab. Pic below is of the dining area - poor Andrea the tenant got in the photo and is being splashed around the internet :-)




More pics on the flickr set here. Now to figure out how to pay that mortgage...! :-)

Mission complete

Well, almost complete! We have had an offer accepted on an apartment - is all unconditional, deposit paid etc, just waiting on finalising the mortgage and sorting out the current tenancy before the completion date rolls around now!

Really nice place - right in the centre of Wellington's business district on The Terrace. One bedroom, big lounge/dining/kitchen and balcony, secure carpark, shared pool/gym/movie room, secure entry/lift, really nicely fitted out and fully furnished so great for corporate rentals.

Have a few pics up on flickr, will put some more up when we do the pre-completion/new tenancy inspection(s) :-).

Back in the 'homeland'

Back in NZ for six weeks or so, house hunting.
Have spent three days meeting agents (mostly crap) and looking at houses/apartments (mostly overpriced), but not getting depressed about the overinflated prices (yet...).
Weather was good for the weekend, then turned pretty ugly, so can't even go out and take any photos... got a few goodies.


Flickr set is here.