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Well, I really need to take Polly out; it is 10.30 on Sunday Evening and I am determined to get an early night but our adorable “on loan” beagle, Polly needs to go out for a walk. She has been barking at the cats who sit tantalisingly on the fence out of her reach and look down superciliously at her knowing that she can’t get at them! I am feeling a little ragged round the edges after taking part in the Tough Guy and Gal Challenge at Rotorua yesterday. I entered months ago when I optimistically thought that my shoulder would be fixed and I would have had time to at least do some training. Vain hope! Nevertheless, I decided that I would go and do it anyway; Lachlan was doing the 12km and I only needed to walk and take it easy over the
obstacles – no need to race, after all there would be lots of people in crazy costumes just out there for the hell of it. But guess what? Old “Mrs Competitive” here can’t manage to just poddle round, can she? Once she is in a race, that is it, might as well go for it! I did walk up the hills – mainly – and I only used one arm (my good one) on the climby bits but otherwise went for it as much as I could. Bloody mad, I know! But I guess that Polly-walking twice a day for the last 5 weeks, even if it has only been 20 – 30 minutes must have done me some good because I did pretty well. The conditions were a million times better than last year; it didn’t rain for a start, the lake was about a metre lower and the grassy hills were, well – grassy!; not the quagmire they were last year, so that going up you could actually go
forwards on each steps and not two steps backwards, and going down could be done on your feet and not on your backside! Not so much fun, though I hear you shout, and you would be quite right, but I don’t have a bruised coccyx and am still able to walk! Shoulder is a tad sore though, but better than I would have thought.
I came round a bend I came across some geese all standing in a line, just looking at the water! Lovely shot! I was also delighted to see some baby Pukeko – they are so cute with their over large feet that they have to lift up quite high to move forwards – very comical! Couldn’t quite get close enough for a good photo, unfortunately! As I came back into Gallagher’s Hockey Centre I spotted a flash of blue swoop down from a tree to the grass and pick something up from the ground – when I tracked it back up to the tree I could see that it was a Kingfisher with a worm in its beak and could also see its pair on a neighbouring branch – beautiful!
Well, here I am in Rotorua, sitting in the restaurant of the Geyserland Hotel looking out on the geo thermal activity of the Prince of Wales Geyser and a huge bubbling mudpool on a very dark day for New Zealand; Christchurch was savagely rocked at 1pm today by a magnitude 6 plus earthquake. There are currently 65 confirmed dead and hundreds trapped in collapsed buildings. The iconic Christchurch Cathedral in Cathedral Square has finally lost its spire after miraculously holding onto it during the September 4th quake ,and multi storey office buildings have concertina-ed to the ground. The Canterbury TV Centre is no more and people are struggling to drive home through gridlocked streets to find out if their loved ones are safe and if they still have a home to sleep in tonight. There is liquefaction, dirty water, and huge cracks in the roads and people are huddling together to take comfort in each others’ arms. Despite seeing the images on television andlistening to the radio for an hour and a half on the way here from Hamilton, it is still difficult to believe that just a short way away people are struggling to comprehend what Mother Nature has thrown at them again just six months after the last devastating earthquake. I am reminded, though by the image of the geyser in front of me, the steam billowing from numerous holes in the ground all around and the strong smell of sulphur that hangs in the air and permeates everything, that the threat is very real of something similar happening right here in the North Island. Even in Hamilton, are we safe? Sandwiched between the volcanic cones of Auckland and the geothermal activity in Taupo and Rotorua and the volcanoes of Ruapehu and Ngaruahoe just a step away, we suddenly feel a little vulnerable. A friend (also an English immigrant) asked me today whether we would be better off back in good old Blighty… but we have also heard of earthquake activity in the North of England lately; what is happening to the world? Are the Mayan prophesies going to come true? I will probably spend a pleasant time wallowing in the thermal spa pools over the next few days, confident that my weary bones and stress tight muscles will benefit from the healing powers of the mineral rich hot water. I will also be extra conscious, though, that the fickle magic of nature that provides those benefits can also be a dreadful grim reaper.
We have had a quiet summer, a stay at home holiday; partly because we went away to Queenstown and Wanaka back in July, partly because we were just so buy at the end of 2010 to get round to organising anything, and partly because Aonghas broke his toe on December 27th and we decided it woukd be no good going away camping, walking, being active when he couldn’t really do all that! Anyway, having the chance to catch up on the garden, while away the days reading, pottering and generally relaxing was wonderful after the busy year I had had at school. In fact it took me until after Christmas to catch up on sleep and feel anything like motivated to do anything at all! It was a hot sultry summer, we didn’t go to the beach as often as we would have liked, but there is no shade at the beach, and boy, did we need shade! Anyway here are a few snapshots of our summer. Find more on Flickr.
Once Gus’ toe had healed a bit we headed over to a beautiful spot in the Limestone Downs called Waikeretu where there is a cave called Nikau cave. We had planned to go there last summer but went north instead. I had ended up going there with school on our Year 12 camp and was keen to geet back there with the family. A sheep farmer who has lived all his life in the valley bought the land a few years ago, and having been caving in the cave when he was a boy saw the potential of opening it up for wild caving trips and maybe an opportunity to move into semi-retirement from the hard grind of sheep farming. He and his wife have made a fabulous job of it – about 10 years on they have created a haven which sits in the natural beauty of the limestone valley. A large, airy, high ceilinged room makes a beautiful place to eat, with a picture window that looks out on the scenery and plenty of outside areas to sit and contemplate the surroundings. The food is mainly homegrown – they have a vegetable and herb garden a couple of hundred metres down the road, and all home cooked. They have a refreshing micro brewery beer on tap and delicious home made lemonade just like my Mum used to make! We stayed in their campsite – a small patch of mown grass in a meadow next to the organic veggie garden. It boasted a long drop toilet (which actually wasn’t such a long drop!) and a stream with a swimming hole complete with resident eels and stepping stones which led to a beautiful bush walk. It was pretty close to paradise! The cave is stunning, and although generally we object to paying to go caving, we had to admit that this was worth the $90 it cost the four of us. The formations literally drip from everywhere – white, pristine stals, curtains, long straws and even some gour pools. We waded through the clear, cold water of the streamway along wide high passages and then stooped as the ceiling dropped before crawling on hands and knees through a small archway that led to a continuation of the stream passage, less decorated but still with avens that went way up high and then more stal. We emerged to a Nikau strewn gulley much like the one that led into the cave and then climbed out and into the familiar limestone country that made me yearn for home – just for a moment! It was definitely a place that resonated with us – maybe because of the familiarity of the landscape. It was more European though, brighter, starker because of the clear blue skies and the bright sunshine that beat down unrelentingly, more like northern Spain or the plateaux of France. Later on we went for a walk through the bush and found some “Maori Holes” so called because the maori used to keep food in them. The stories suggest that the maori ground them out with long branches which is what cave them the tunnel like shape; in reality they are natural hollows in the rock, probably formed by water. Anyhow they gave us a wee playground for a while as we crawled through them and out the other side. We came across a promising looking entrance in a shakehole, a little loose underfoot, but a stream trickling into it and a hint of a draught ..tantalising! Onwards we went until we reached our goal – a waterfall under which we stood and basked in the warm water as it pummelled our heads and shoulders. Lachlan climbed round to the top of it and pushed more water over as Gus delighted in the waves. It was a beautiful stream of water warmed by the summer sun and we sat neck deep in the natural bath that had been formed by thousands of years of nature’s elements. From up there we could see an old farm building in a meadow which led down to the stream, a small cliff that you could possibly put a couple of climbs up and a hill behind to climb up and sit atop to watch the sun go down. We have found our perfect place. Nigel and I imagined a while what we could do with it, how we could make it work, live away from the rat race, self-sufficient and maybe supplement our incomes with organic veg and a little cafe….. Dreams are wonderful things but maybe someday we can make it happen, just maybe…
Words can’t really describe this walk. We managed to do it in November 2009 in pretty near perfect weather conditions and as you can see from the photos the views were spectacular. Even given the fact that I walked the route with 63 15 year old girls and several colleagues, mountain guides and outdoor instructors didn’t detract from the experience. I guess in a way it even added to it! We walked from Mangetepopo and it took us about an hour to get to Soda Springs. Our main guide, Sarah, was an amazingly enthusiastic and passionate woman despite having done the crossing hundreds of times. She was very knowledgeable and set a perfect pace to make sure that we all kept together but without anybody feeling that they were being held back or being left behind. 
The first part of the walk is a fairly gradual climb, sometimes on board walks, alongside a stream and around old lava flows, and as you climb the landscape becomes quite stark and grey. The reddish/yellow of the vegetation coupled with the grey/black of the rock was quite reminiscent of the high Lakeland Fells or Scottish landscape so I had a feeling of familiarity and a sense of being home!
At Soda Springs there is the ubiquitous long drop toilet, and the steps up
to it were a magnet to the girls who inexplicably felt the need to sit on them to eat their snacks despite the grandeur and beauty of the landscape around them!
The infamous Devil’s Staircase was next on the agenda, although it is seemingly considerably easier but longer now that a walkway with steps has been built. As we climbed higher the wind gained in strength and despite the bright sunshine the temperature dropped. It was a bit of a struggle to keep our balance as the wind gusted over the ridge but the views in both directions were stunning. We could see a white capped Taranaki in the distnace . Colin, one of the guides, pointed out huge boulders that he said had landed when Ngarauhoe erupted in 1975, and the ancient and newer lava flows made the going pretty uneven and rugged. Being so close to Ngarauhoe and given the great conditiions, it was frustrating not to be able to head to the summit, but we had to get everyone across safely so I’ll have to leave that for another day. We made it through the wind – all rugged up as the wind chill factor was poretty severe and then across what is called the Sothern Crater which apparently isn’t a crater at all. It is a pretty desolate spot – very desert like – a flat dust bowl with the sides Tongariro and Ngaruahoe rising around it. We traversed this with our heads down to avoid the sharp, biting grains of dust hitting our eyes, and as we came through a nick to our right was the most amazing array of colours in the rock. There is such depth to the scenery – the richness of the colours – a whole range of reds,oranges, ochres, browns. The brightness of the sun made them glow and the contrast with the blue of the sky was stark. We still had the climb up the ridge where I was amazed by yet more wonderful formations and colours – old but still active volcanic vents the form of which I was fascinated by. Then the the descent down a loose scree slope which gave rise to the opportunity for lots of shrieking and hysteria from 15 yr old girls, to get to the Emerald Lakes. The clarity of the colour and the contrast of the vivid blue/green against the barrenness of the rest of the landscape is just incredible. On the way down you have a tremendous view of Lake Taupo, another lake the name of which I can’t recall, and the land out towards the desert road. Apparently the lake who’s name I don’t know was the lake where the Haka originated; one of the guides told us an interesting Maori tale about it but I haveto confess that I only remember about half of it so I had better not relate it here. The last hour of the walk down to the car park is through a delightfully shady, but sunlit bit of bush, with a stream bubbling through it. It was lovely to cool down a bit and enjoy the birdsong and the smells of the bush.
Gus had to do a brief bit of research on an athlete from the Commonwealth Games to avoid having to do extra spellings at school so he chose Simon Childs – a Blacksticks player. Here is his Prezi created with a bit of help from Mum because he had to go to scouts before he had chance to finish it!
September 2010 Day Night Thriller 
Entered with Jane – another Leeds Lass and indeed that was our team name ( the Leeds Lasses) just did the 6 hour race and came 3rd in our category (teams with 2 or 3 riders) Lachlan was competing in the 12 hour race and his team came 1st – another gold to add to the collection! 11 pm, pouring rain, gusting wind and we were driving south to Ohakune so that Lachlan could meet up with the Hillcrest Ski Team for the North Island Champs. Sunday dawned windy but bright and I was tempted to stay and ski but the wind meant that the lifts were closed so my decision was made for me. Into the car and head north. An unusual situation – all alone, a new camera to try out 
and I realised that I could stop whenever I wanted to take photos. The light wasn’t always great and there was plenty of wate
r around, both falling from the sky and already on the ground! But the weather improved as I headed north to Hamilton and by the time I stopped in Te Kuiti for lunch – its worth calling in at Boscos, excellent food and a good cup of coffee – the sun was shining and I stretched 
my legs in the park behind the c
afe.
The spring lambs were bouncing around, skittish and playful, and the magnolia blossoms were so beautiful that I got a bit carried away! The light and shadow on the green rolling landscape just past the Big Apple was stunning and I had to stop and try to capture it. Then as I drove over the bridge on the way into Otorohanga the sight of the submerged trees in the river bed made me pull over again. By the time I reached Hamilton the sun was shining and ther was definitely Spring in the air.
I have finally got around to looking out the slide scanner and scanning some of the old slides we have from way back. What a trip down Memory Lane – good as well as some sad memories. Takes a bit of time though as the scanner only does one slide at a time!
Have also scanned some of the old photos so that we have digital versions of them. Here is one of our wedding in 2000 – who is that dashing kilt-clad Scotsman? He hasn’t changed a bit – just a little bit rounder! My boys have grown up and now I have a big 15 yr old who is taller than me, and all long limbs and angles – too big for public displays of affection but still secretly likes a cuddle! And then there is Big Gus who is still small enough to sit on my knee – but only just, and who loves cuddles as long as his friends aren’t around!
So what is it about holes in the ground that fascinates me so much? So… what shall I say. I could talk all night about caves I have been to, how tight that squeeze was and how immense that chamber was, how tortuous that passage was, or how high the water was… it’s a bit like asking a fisherman about the last fish he caught (or nearly caught!). the squeeze is always that bit tighter, the chamber even bigger, the passage even more tortuous… and you wouldn’t really want me to drag on about things like that, because you see, caving is one of things you just get passionate about – (or not), you either love it or hate it, you get hooked or you get clean away and never come back. So forgive me if I get a bit over enthusiastic, because I was one of the ones that caught, hook, line and sinker! Seriously, though caving has enriched my life and has given me so many new opportunities and a completely different perspective on life. It has given me the chance to travel and see parts of the world I had dreamed about and others that I hadn’t! Bio It was a dark and stormy night….. Well, I was in a pub in Leeds, England and just chatting to friends, generally about what we had been up to since we had last met up. I was doing my Post Grad teaching cert then in French and Outdoor Pursuits and we had been away all week on a camp so I had done quite a lot – and talking about kayaking and climbing and night navigation is a bit like talking about caving and fishing… I think I was waxing lyrical (well, exaggerating) about some of our exploits, one of the guys asked if we’d done any caving. I said no but that I wouldn’t really want to go caving because I didn’t like being in enclosed spaces (I gave lifts as the example as do 90% of people that say they wouldn’t like to go caving. He said that it wasn’t like that and you shouldn’t ever say you don’t like something until you’ve tried it, to which I had no response because he was exactly right. ( First way that caving has changed my outlook on life – a few simple words in a pub!) Then it was a dark and stormy night….there I was, getting changed at the back of a car in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, with the freezing cold wind whistling round the proverbial, into some vile smelling old overalls, wellies and various other well used grungy polypro. A tramp across the fell led us to the cave. Well I was completely bowled over, what an amazing world to enter into, how would you ever believe that so much beauty lay under our feet? The challenge of wading through streamways, crawling on all fours, climbing over boulders, negotiating a flat out crawl known as the Cheesepress and just seeing the form of the rocks was exhilarating. In the pub afterwards, my friend asked me if I had enjoyed caving and to be honest I had to think about it because I was still numb (with cold) but also the sheer effect it had on me had left me reeling! So began my life as a caver – I was reborn!
Well, after my brief sojourn in the English summer (!?) I am back in the midst of NZ winter, which doesn’t seem greatly dissimilar to the English summer! No that’s not really fair; it has been quite cold and very wet recently and I am sure that now July is here, England will be in the throes of a heatwave, especially since it external exam time and school doesn’t break up for two more weeks yet. We have just started our two week winter break and the last few days have been a real mixture of rain, wind and beautiful clear blue skies. It is currently 13 degrees C here in Hamilton and has hovered around that temperature most of the time during the day. There have been some spectacular thunder storms, though we are told that that is unusual, and the South Island snowfields are enjoying big dumps of snow. More locally the ski fields at Ruapehu have also had good snow this week so are looking forward to a busy school holiday. Unfortunately we won’t be joining the throngs as the Salaries Assessment Unit in Christchurch STILL haven’t sorted out my salary scale, and as a result I STILL haven’t been paid! Never mind, I keep telling myself that it’s a good way of saving and it should be a nice lump sum when I finally get it all back paid!
We can’t quite get our heads round the growth cycle of plants and the seasons – it is curious as the daffodils in our garden started coming out in June and are now looking glorious, the lilies in the pond have flowered and the lavender is in full bloom. Primulas are all out looking pretty and the Camellia trees are resplendent as the Rhododendrons start to sprout. Our oranges are nearly ready to eat (we think) – they are still very tart but very juicy. The birds are also starting to come back – the sparrows never went away but fantails are around again and we have started to see Goldfinches and tits. Plenty of blackbirds as well as the NZ magpies.
The boys continue to play rugby – after playing 3 grading matches against some big teams and taken heavy batterings Lachlan’s team are playing in a division 2 league and have so far won all their matches. He has been playing Full Back for the last few matches and is enjoying it. Picked up Player of the day on Saturday so he was very pleased with himself! Aonghas’ team have also been doing well though he is struggling a bit with the contact game. Having spent 3 years playing tag he has gone straight into tackling, hand offs etc and is finding it a bit intimidating. We’ll see how he gets on as the season progresses.
We have also started to look at houses as we will hopefully complete on our house in the UK soon – (all available fingers and toes crossed that it doesn’t all go pear shaped at the last minute!) Still not sure exactly how many dollars we will end up having to play with – a lot less than we had hoped due to the low price we ended up selling for. It is very interesting seeing how the NZ housing market works – very different to the UK. You don’t have to use just one Estate Agent to sell – the agents seem to work for a Real Estate company but once they build up a relationship with a potential buyer they will network to get you into houses which are with other agents. It seems that because the house market is in a dip here at the moment the agents are having to work doubly hard to sell properties. They have “open homes” when the vendor has to vacate the property for half an hour or so on a Saturday and/or Sunday (having spent hours making it spotless!) so that the agent can let prospective buyers look around. We have spent the last two weekends scouring the papers, compiling a list of open homes to visit and then driving round looking at houses. It is fascinating seeing the range of houses and really useful as you can see a lot of houses in a short time to make comparisons. We have seen a couple that we like but are not in a position yet to make an offer so we will keep looking! As I understand it this is what happens – very roughly as I am still getting my head round it. Once we make an offer it will be conditional – which means we will draw up a contract and will have certain conditions to meet such as doing searches, getting finance, getting a LIM report, builders checks if you want them, and you also have to pay a 5% deposit. That period usually lasts about 5 – 7 working days and the vendor can’t accept any other offers. Once you have et all the conditions the offer will go unconditional which means that we will agree how many days to complete and come up with the money etc. It typically takes about 6 weeks from an offer being accepted to moving in. It seems quite a lot simpler than in the UK but the best thing is that once you have made an offer (and paid your deposit) it is highly unlikely that the sale will fall through as it can in the UK. I guess that you have to be serious as the deposit is at stake if you default so people don’t tend to make offers without knowing that they can follow through.
Anyway, the sun has come out and the boys (and I) have been staring at a computer screen for long enough so I am going to try to prise them away and go out for a walk. Wish me luck!
