Phew, another week passes in a flash. Now it’s only a four day countdown until the Easter long weekend. Can’t wait to step off the executive grind for a few days and seek out some warm weather up on the East Coast. We’re off to Hawkes Bay www.hawkesbaynz.com for some r&r with hop along in [...]

Seems that the failures of the new BBC Castaway programme are making the news here in NZ. Based in Great Barrier Island off the coast of Auckland it is certainly a long way from England but I wouldn’t necessarily class it as remote. Certainly not like the first Castaway Island in the Hebrides. It seems [...]

Crikey how time flies. Last time I blogged about the countdown it was 30 weeks to go until the end of my contract at work. Now the last 7 weeks have passed in a flash. I apologise that blog has been dominated by house stuff and the interesting side of New Zealand had disappeared, I’ll [...]

No, this is not a picture of our building site but rather the remnants of a lahar that sent 1.4 million cubic metres of water, mud and volcanic material out of Mount Ruahpehu yesterday. This event has been predicted for many years with civil defence systems on stand by. By al accounts it was a [...]

If I could put these pictures side by side you’d be able to see the light and dark of NZ’s microclimates in one place. Today it started wet, dark and miserable but by lunchtime the wind had started to blow the clouds away to leave a stunningly beautiful sunny day. I don’t think it had [...]