Friday 30th January- Picked up the car

There are lots to do today. We have to go to Kaitaia to collect our hire car and also go to a shop called ‘The Warehouse’ to pick up some stuff and also change some Travellers Cheque for cash now that the pound has strengthened a bit.
The sun is shining today and quite warm and we needed to visit the recycling centre on the way to Kaitaia to drop off our rubbish so as to leave the house clean and tidy.
The car was ready when we arrived, it’s a Mitsubishi 3.5 litre Diamante four door saloon, and as usual with Japanese ,cars loaded with gizmos and all for about £13.00 per day, quite cheap really. Mind you the car is six years old and has done about 50000 miles. But we don’t care as it’s big enough for all our camping stuff and, most important, cheap.
There is a new road section on the way in to Auckland and it saves a lot of time, see earlier Blog on payment difficulties, anyway we have been able to buy online our two trips on this Toll road and hopefully avoid the queues of people waiting to pay. It was quite easy really.
We have just about finished cleaning the house and packing the car when 5 pm arrived and so, providing we get up early we should be able to leave by latest by nine am
We have a Hotel booked in Hamilton which is about 250 miles from here and then intend to go to the cinema and see the film called ‘Australia’ which has a good write up for the scenery.
So that we can pack up the car fully including the laptop we are writing this Blog early and whatever we write now we must do later to ensure accuracy. We are planning to pick up some Fish and Chips for four people and then go to Robin and Lorraine for dinner and also to wish them a fond farewell.
Over the next five or so weeks we shall be travelling quite a bit and the update of this Blog may be a bit slow sometimes and is very much dependant on the availability of an internet connection.
So we are off from Taipa after three months, where the Hell did the time go??

Thursday 29th January – Clean up day

Today was all about cleaning the house and getting ready for us to leave Taipa on Saturday 31st. Noel gave the Toyota Previa a good clean and then together with Jennifer we gave the rest of the house a good going over so it should still be nice and clean for when Brian and Sheila return from their extensive South American trip.

It rained a bit today and also a bit overcast and although we are due to do some last minute food shopping Noel is loath to use the car just in case it rains and the car gets dirty again. But we need food for the evening and so a trip is unavoidable.

All of our camping gear and other stuff has been moved up to the lounge for final sorting and so that we can pack the hire car tomorrow afternoon. Actually the pile of stuff is not as much as we first thought it would be and so hopefully it will all go in the car boot.

So what with getting exited with the tent and getting ready for our long awaited South Island trip it has all been somewhat overshadowed by some bad family news we have just received.

We have done most of the packing up that we need to do and also leave the house looking clean and tidy.

Noel cooked the steaks tonight and they were quite good as usual.

Wednesday 28th January – Let’s erect the new tent

It was a lovely morning, yet again, and the sun was shining on our morning beach walk. It’s a lot quieter here now and you don’t meet many people.
A latish breakfast followed by a period of R & R and then we started sorting out our stuff for leaving the house.
Later in the afternoon, we went out on to the back lawn to practice putting up the new Colman Geo 5 tent as we needed to check it is all there and how to put it up.
As usual the description or instructions of how to erect the tent are pretty much gibberish but as we have quite some years of erecting tents it was not too difficult to work it out. We took it slowly so as to check everything and pretty much erected it apart from putting the last few pegs in. It’s a very nice tent indeed and simple to put up and we guess after a little practise we should be able to do it in about twenty minutes or so.
There is a built in groundsheet and also very fine mesh for the biting bugs called ‘no-see-ums’, which is of course an Australasian word for those little blighters that you cannot see as they are very small but bite like a bloody rabid crocodile in heat.
So overall what with fiddling about and repacking etc it took us under two hours to fully understand how it all works.
Later in the afternoon Mary (Brian and Sheila’s friends from across the road) invited us to dinner on Saturday night but regretfully we had to reject as we leave Saturday morning for the South.
As the sun came down over the hills and the sunset got brighter we ate a nice chicken salad for tea and then watched some TV. Not an exiting day but we are both pleased with our choice of tent. We also have a little gas stove and table, but most of the good sites have a proper kitchen which campers can use complete with cookers, refrigerators etc, etc.

Tuesday 27th January- A lot to do in Kaitaia

No walk this morning as we wanted to leave for Kaitaia a little earlier than our usual time. If we do the walk along the beach and with not getting up too early we end up having breakfast around 1045 to 1100 hrs which we both admit is a little late but bloody good.

Over the past few weeks we have visited Kaitaia quite a few times and looked in the various shops and so we knew that we needed a lot more time in town to collect all our things.

Apart from the tent and bed and many other things we needed to obtain we also needed some pillows, a small chill box etc. We had lunch at our usual place and Noel had his usual Ham and Cheese Toasted sandwich, he always has the same, and then we continued our shopping.

We had agreed with the shop that supplied the tent for an across the board ten per cent discount. We actually think they were a little surprised when we asked for a discount however they did agree. So when we came to collect they tried to renegotiate which Noel would not accept. We think they must have made a mistake in the first place and therefore now offered only five percent. Anyway we got our full discount and then head off home.

We stopped at the BP Station to fill up the car and noticed that petrol prices are on the rise again and then in to the little shop in Awanui for an ice cream. Whilst passing through Taipa we went to the Bakery for some cakes as we are due at Robin and Lorraine’s for afternoon tea and hopefully sort out a small computer problem for her.

In the meantime Brian and Sheila have just emerged from the Brazilian Forest and so we spent a few minutes discussing their adventures and also bringing Brian up to date on local building matters.

A very pleasant afternoon and then we came home for a relaxing evening. In the meantime it had started to spit with rain and so we were glad that we had not attempted to put up the tent. That challenge is for tomorrow.

For the last couple of days we have been watching the local ‘breakfast ‘programme. The male host is quite a character and apart from occasionally going in to fits of laughter he is often quite outrageous with his comments and most of them would never be accepted by UK television. He is quite rude sometimes and very direct but well worth watching.

This morning there was an article on the new road toll tunnel going North of Auckland where the ticket machines were not working correctly and refusing to give change. Because of this people started kicking the machines in frustration and that made them much worse as they would then freeze. Wardens were despatched to sort it out and then could only offer a written IOU to which our male host said, are they bloody mad these idiots, why don’t they make it free whilst they sort out the crap, oops, problem. He was right of course as the problem created a major hold up for many people. It’s not good when you put in a twenty dollar note for a two dollar fee and get no change.

Sunday 25th January- Taipa fishing contest

Wow, where to start.

Boats were fighting for access to the boat ramp by 0700 hrs and there was a steady stream of boats being floated right through till about 1000 hrs. The parking place for trailers was jam packed and with very little space left.

Not much happened in the morning as most contestants were on boats rather than shore fishing. We saw about half a dozen or so shore fisherman spread out over the length of the beach.

Anyway we did our walk and watched some of the contestants and also a few tourists that had turned up and then we read until about mid afternoon when the Master of Ceremonies started to use the speaker system. The event had been organised by the combined Lions Club of Kaitaia, Mangonui and another town we can’t remember, possibly Whangaroa.

So off we went at about 2.30 pm, there must have been at least 150 people there and people were parking everywhere.

Some of the boats have interesting names as well, some are not publishable at all.

The fish weigh-in was to finish by 3 pm then the winners would be announced and also various raffles take place.

However, the fish auction was the first thing to happen and we were very surprised at the amount of fish that had been caught with the largest red snapper weighing in at around 12 kilos. This large snapper was sold for around NZ 50.00 (about £19.00) but you could feed half the Chinese army with this fish. Even after cleaning you would end up with at least 8 kilos of eatable fish and more if you liked the head.

The auctioneers were also very good and fast and certainly not amateurs.

The auction went on for about ninety minutes again and there was also a place where they would clean and filet your purchased fish for a mere NZ 3.00 (£ 1.50) per fish. There was a large queue for this service as some people had purchased huge quantities of fish either for restaurants or private use. To watch the guys do the fish was an interesting experience.

The amount of fish caught by the roughly 50 contestants was truly amazing. As mentioned earlier the time the auction took to finish was considerable when you consider that sometimes they sold three fish at once and even basket loads of Kawai. They were also well organised so that people used salt ice for storing the fish in their boats and then immediately after weighing the fish were repacked in large boxes, again in ice, and then held in a cold chiller van until the auction.

There were tents and stalls selling food and drink and also t-shirts, hats and similar and of course the fully licence bar selling beer and wine, all chilled down.

The sun was beating down and it was quite hot, you could get burnt very easily but the crowds came prepared with umbrellas, chairs and chilly bins to sit on while they downed cold beer and then they were ready for the prize giving and raffle.

The prizes were excellent with the top one being for $ 5000.00 cash and also there were TV’s and DVD’s. Jean, the wife of Gary who took me fishing, won one of the ladies prizes and received a DVD and a ‘Breville’ toaster or something like that.

Of course all the prizes had been donated by the various companies in the area. The children’s prizes were always very good with new fishing rods and associated equipment, wet suits and also life jackets. Some kids struggled to carry all the prizes they had won.

One poor girl of about 10 won a prize supplied by the local battery supplier of a ‘Leisure battery’ which must have miffed her a little compared to what the other kids won but I guess she will negotiate with her Dad to swop it for something else.

One of the other star prizes was a black ‘Lazyboy’ recliner which many children had tested during the day whilst holding their hot dogs and onions with tomato ketchup and so god knows what state this was in by the time it was presented.

As six pm came around we headed off home to have our roast chicken. What was amazing really is that by 7.30 pm you would not have believed anything had taken place as all the marquees were down and removed and all the cars and trailers had left and the place looked quite deserted.

And so a pleasant day was had by all and as tomorrow is a Bank Holiday we shall take it easy. We had arranged to collect our new tent on Monday but the shop phoned on Saturday to remind us they would be closed on Monday and would Tuesday be OK. Sure is.

Quite appropriately, I thought, they were showing the very old original ‘Jaws’ film tonight.

All the photos for the day are on the following link

http://albums.phanfare.com/5194780/2944783_3621493#imageID=59234742

Saturday 24th January – Nah let’s go tomorrow

Our morning walk was followed by a discussion about should we go to the fishing competition weigh in and prize draw today or tomorrow.
After a pleasant day on the balcony reading and watching the activities across the bay we decided that tomorrow might be a better day, besides we were both deep into books that neither of us wanted to put down.
It was a glorious day today and the sun was as bright as ever and the temperature about 26 degrees centigrade. But here you have to be very careful of the UV rays which are extremely powerful and sunbathing between the hours of 1100 and 1600 is not recommended. But if you do, make certain that you have a strong sun cream on, factor 30 plus.
Skin cancer is very easy to get both here and in Australia and the health adverts on TV show clearly the dire consequences of not using proper sun protection.
From across the bay we could hear that they were auctioning fish, this went on for about ninety minutes
Noel's morning gaze
and so they must have caught quite a lot and no doubt it will be the same on Sunday. We shall see.
We were just getting in to bed last night about 1030 when the phone rang with a lady trying to book the studio apartment for
a date in May. She apparently could not make the website work and decided to phone, But at 1030 pm, wow.

Friday 23rd January – Thank God it’s Friday

It was an easy morning with Jennifer going to the hairdressers in Mangonui whilst Noel did his walk along the beach.

The hair cut is in preparation for our camping trip, the last thing Jennifer needs is to have to find a hair dryer and style her hair so it’s back to the convict cut. No not really, the hairdresser Lynley has done a very nice feathery cut that looks good under Jen’s new sunhat and requires no care other that a wash and towel dry.

Noel spent a certain amount of time on the internet finalising the last few hotels on our trip south and also looking at activities. We have looked at Bungee jumping, cannoning, rafting in the rapids and then decided on a nice, picturesque train ride from Christchurch to Greymouth via the beautiful Arthurs Pass. We will save the hectic fun things for other people much younger and more stupid than us.

It was a nice afternoon to read on the balcony and we finished the day with some fish and chips from the Coopers Beach fish and chip shop. Boy these are good.

We watched Anthony Hopkins in a film called ‘Fracture’ and he really plays the slick and horrible villain extremely well and you hate the character he plays and you are glad when the good guy wins.

We have discovered that Monday is a public holiday in this neck of the woods and that means there will be a number shops closed. But no doubt the beach will be busy whilst the fishing competition takes place this weekend.

If you have not seen these Aussi Adverts then you are in for a treat.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RenRILqwhJs

Thursday 22nd January - Time is flying by

In about nine days we shall be leaving Taipa and heading south.
So apart from the usual morning walk a little time was spent on the internet looking for Hotels/Motels in Wellington and Christchurch.
We have been using a good website called WOTIF.COM which gives perhaps one of the largest choices of accommodation in the area. There appears to be lots of Hotel rooms available and room rates have dropped by at least fifty percent. The only place where there are fewer rooms available is Wellington where a couple of days after our arrival the ‘Rugby Sevens Weekend’ is on and so no doubt there will be hoards of people in town. Having seen the adverts on New Zealand TV for the event it would appear that dressing up in crazy costumes is the name of the game. Men dressed as nuns, I just wonder what team they are supporting.
The weather is still good and warm and so we also spent time reading on the balcony and catching the fresh air. We decided to go Italian for food tonight and pasta with a bolognaise sauce was the order of the day and most enjoyable.
This weekend in Taipa Bay and on the beach is the annual fishing competition with huge prizes. Total prize money is about $40,000 all for catching a few fish. If you catch fish here you are not allowed to sell them unless you have a commercial fishing licence. But I bet there is a lot of skulduggery going on as one day we saw a boat loaded with fish passing it over to a guy with a big van with cold boxes inside. Most people seem to give the excess fish to friends and neighbours and store it in their freezer. Even we still have enough fish for the next month or so even eating it three times per week. You are also able to take you own fish to the Fish and Chip shop and they will fry it for you at a small cost.
We watched Ramsey’s Kitchen nightmares in the USA. There are some real jerks out there that think they can manage a restaurant. This guy last night persuaded his girlfriend’s family to buy him this restaurant which he turned in to an Italian food place. He was only twenty five years old and he had never worked in an Italian Restaurant kitchen ever. Needless to say it was a disaster.
Talking about disaster I believe there is a cruise liner leaving some time in April which follows the route the original Titanic took on its fateful voyage. I believe they are having difficulties getting passenger for this trip, I wonder why. It must be the current economy causing the difficulty. On the other hand why not offer free passage to the Bankers and City money men as a thank you for their past efforts and then hope for an iceberg. Trouble is what with the world heating up and knowing our luck they won’t find a suitable ship sinking iceberg anywhere. Prophetic justice indeed.
Oh dream on Groves!

Wednesday 21 January- Kerikeri shopping

It was quite a pleasant day as we left for Kerikeri. No walk this morning as we decided to watch the Obama Inauguration on TV and particularly the parade which the Americans are usually very good at.

So we waited and waited and just as the parade was about to get under way, after the Obama’s had done their little walkabout, we had to leave home to meet Robin and head for Kerikeri.

After Robin had dropped his watch in to the repairers Jennifer briefly visited a dentist as she thinks she may have damaged a tooth but they could not see her today. As it is not hurting in anyway she may just leave it for a while.

The Posh Nosh café was pretty much packed but the food is worth waiting for albeit there was a delay to Robins when they admitted they (the chef) had dropped it on the floor and it need a wash to clean off the dirt and then re-heat. No not quite but they had to create a new plate for him.

We decided to visit the very good looking butcher called Churchill’s, we bought a selection of steak, ribs, sausages and chicken breasts. It all looked very good indeed and they have a huge choice of products. No wonder the place was busy.

After shopping at New World, (we needed to buy some stuff to replace what we have used at the house), we headed off to the Makana Chocolate factory.

This is quite a small operation where all the chocolates are made by hand by a small handful of people. You are able to watch them behind a plate glass window. They have only two shops with one in Kerikeri and the other one down south at Blenheim in the Marlborough wine district. For women this shop is ‘sex in heaven’ and they have a great selection and as we arrived they were giving away sample Chocolate Ginger bonbons which immediately felled Jennifer and so that was one pack. We also bought Macadamia Orange Biscotti which Noel likes and also some for our hosts to replace those that they had left in the house.

We arrived back in time to watch the last bit of the Obama’s attending the ten balls and dancing the light fantastic, actually a very, very slow shuffle.

The steak we cooked was excellent and our friend Gerry from along Wey Road would have been impressed I am sure.

We watched the end of a Yugoslavian film on TV, very sad, and were just about to turn it off but Noel always wants to know what film is on next that he will miss as he goes to bed.

So the opening credits came along showing Ealing Films, we thought that this must be an old comedy film, but it turned out to be a film called ‘I want Candy’.

It stars Carmen Electra and a host of other unknowns. It’s about two students who end up making a porn movie for a school film competition and as a result get thrown out of school but win an award. It’s very funny indeed and was actually filmed at Brooklands College Weybridge. All details are on the IMDB data base.

So it turned out to be a late night but worth staying up for and perhaps the funniest film we have seen for quite some time.

Tuesday 20th January- Dear Mr George W Bush, I am writing

I am writing this letter too you today as you board the plane back to Texas. I would like to congratulate you on what you have achieved in your eight long years in office. I am disappointed to find that you have achieved absolutely nothing. The only exception to the rule is that you have made America the most unpopular it has ever been and around the world they do not like you and your policies at all.
With almost the lowest rating of any departing US President it’s a real pity that intelligent people in the country did not kick you out. You may have overlooked the fact that the reason that Mr Obama swept to a huge result in the last election is purely down to your failure to govern. Had you been a success in power nobody would have thought of handing the baton to Mr Obama.
Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan positions have got worse since you came to power whilst you governed the US population by fear. It’s a known fact that if you put the fear of god into your people they will listen and obey. No difference to Mr Mugabe’s rule I think.
Whilst it is not possible to blame the failure of the world economy on you there was considerable help from your internal lack of financial controls. Mr Blair followed your lead like a little lapdog and you have rewarded him recently with an honour which he does not deserve. This is apart from the job that you conjured up for him which gives him personal TV coverage and money but no benefit to the people in the Middle East.
Time has shown that if you meddle in somebody else’s back-garden that the guard dog will get you somehow. Protect you own lands by all means but don’t try to bring down dictators who actually control a country even though you may not appreciate their methods. Just take a walk in your own backyard and you will find that many improvements are necessary to improve people basic standard of living and health, and what did you do, absolutely nothing.
Let’s now hope that the newly elected President can sort out the mess you caused in the last years together with your father.
Finally, to say that you were disappointed that Iraq does not have WMD is just another load of rubbish. You should be pleased that they don’t and it’s frightening that dear old Sadam could make the largest nation in the world believe there were WMD, Go home and learn to play Bluff like a child, you may learn something.

Well and finally, we are enjoying ourselves in New Zealand in the sun and low prices whilst escaping from the winter of discontent in the UK. Let’s hope Mr Brown and his hop-a-long Mr Darling join you on a mule and ride into the sunset.

This blog was written as we did not do too much today and I felt strongly about this matter.

Here ends the Party Political broadcast for today. Paxman eat your heart out.

Sunday & Monday 18/19th January- Basically a quiet couple of days

The two days of Sunday and Monday pretty much rolled into one when you consider what we did which was not too much.

The weather has been a little unkind with it being quite windy with occasional sun and the temperature not really warm or cold. So apart from the usual walks along the beach and watching the tourists arrive for their morning coffee breaks at the Taipa Resort and also the Taipa Bakery we have just taken it easy, having said that, we did do a little gardening by removing some of the overgrown plant life from the driveway entrance, as it was beginning to impede our access to and from the garage.

We did some shopping and also finalised our Hotel in Wellington as we remembered that the Rugby Sevens are due to take place a few days after we are there and therefore hotels were getting pretty much booked up. By contrast, Hotels in Christchurch seem to have plenty of room and so we will leave booking there until later when the prices drop some more.

The crowds that previously came to the beach have now all but disappeared and life is slowing down again. We watched the local council men taking a break by standing in the sea for some fishing before going on to finish up some long overdue work.

By following the UK newspapers the country seems to be broke and they keep blaming this on a global problem. It know appears that UK banks have lent as much as 80 per cent of their total cash to foreigners and foreign institutions thus exposing the UK to much higher risk than lending it to a young couple who need a house in England.

The Government is now blaming the banks for their stupid mistakes in lending out money on a risky basis and then proceeds to follow their example by lending even more money to the Banks. If they had given all this money to me I would have ensured that it was well spent.

In the meantime all of the Bank Management staff that had allowed this bad practise to happen have got away ‘Scot free’ so where is the justice in that. I wish that we had a ‘Scot free’ government as I bet an English only government would not have bailed out BOS and RBS. Let’s rebuild Hadrian’s wall I say or charge toll fees from those Scots crossing the border on the motorway. Trouble is they have oil and natural gas and of course Whisky so perhaps forget the wall.

Saturday 17th January- Lots to do

We are meeting Chris and Jan in Kerikeri at the Marsden Winery for lunch today which should be nice. However we needed to change some Travellers Cheques as the exchange rate with Sterling has improved a little. So we visited the Post office in Kerikeri and got a reasonable rate, we will need to cash some more soon but hedging our bets for the moment. Kerikeri seemed very quiet today and although the shops close at about one pm it was pretty quiet at midday when we were there, a sign of the times we think.

Lunch in the Marsden Winery was very nice indeed and together with friends of Chris and Jan we spent an enjoyable couple of hours out in the garden restaurant. The ducks here seem very friendly, or more likely after food, as they wandered around the restaurant occasionally being chased away by the staff. Even the house Alsatian dog seemed completely bored with them.

The food and wine were excellent and so was the company. What could be a better way of spending a Saturday lunch in a nice outside restaurant with sun beaming down sipping at a glass of wine?

In the evening we had been invited over to Robin and Lorraine for dinner together with another couple and we had a great evening and got home around midnight. I am afraid Noel rabbitted on quite about English Politicians and what poor knowledge they have and that most of them go in to politics as they could not hold down a real job in industry. “Bla bla bla”

Still it was a most enjoyable day.

Friday 16th January- Almost jogging

Jennifer was having a problem with her left foot this morning, it could not get out of bed I think, but she said it was something else. Anyway Noel left on the usual walk and it was a lovely day, the tide was out and there was plenty of room on the sand.
Prior to leaving for New Zealand Noel had been suffering with Arthritis in the left knee and was often finding it difficult to walk long distances and certainly not without a limp. In Auckland in early November he needed painkillers to enable him to get around. Our earlier blogs did comment on this and the efforts made by the physiotherapist and the instructions on what exercises to do. Well Noel has followed those instructions to the letter and walked and did all the things that he should do so much so that on his walk this morning an attempt to jog took place. Well he was able to achieve jogging for about 150 yards split in to two sections which is absolutely brilliant compared to the past few months of struggle.
Anyway, there was no pain apart from the usual dull ache and so hopefully it should stay good from now on providing he keeps up the exercises. This is important to us as our friends are planning to do the Thames Walk and we would like to join them but in Noels past condition it would not have been possible.
The rest of the day was quite simple really and we decided to cook up some of the fish previously caught and we decided to thaw one side of the very large snapper. It was far to big for both of us and there was enough meat for five or six people so we ate more than we should have and saved the rest to make a fish pie. The fish was excellent on rice and cooked by you know who.
Jennifer has a new book and so hardly talks anymore when not doing anything else so Noel has rediscovered his Ipod and the Various Podcasts recorded before we left home. It seems strange listening to Wogan whilst watching the swimmers in Taipa Bay.
Finally Noel spoke to a friend in Florida and discussed the ‘Bush’ Era. My friends view was that Bush tried very hard to do his best, but was a totally incapable human being. Says it all we think.

Thursday 15th January- A little late this morning

Tokerau Beach

Somehow we completely overslept and Jennifer woke me up with a cup of tea asking, do you know what time it is? It’s almost eleven o’clock she said.

We had planned to forgo our walk on Taipa beach this morning and visit several other beaches and walk there. So after a slow breakfast we headed off and then realised we were getting low on petrol and needed to go to Awanui to the BP station. This was good as it meant a technical stop was required on leaving the petrol station at the ice cream shop thirty yards away.

Finally we made it to Tokerau Beach which was devoid of humans and we walked along the beach for about a mile and half in each direction, and only saw one person. Although it was around two pm it was not too hot. We then headed off to Rangiputa, which is further around the coast and what a lovely place this turned out to be. We would like to rent a house here, it has a lovely bay and views and just round the corner from the village is an even nicer little bay which would be great for swimming.

Rangiputa seaside village

It was time for a cup of tea and so hoped to find the café at the Karikari Winery open but it closed at three thirty pm and it was now past four. We did find a little café but it did not look clean and the people behind the counter looked even less clean than the café.

So we headed back to Taipa and stopped in the bakery and purchased two nice chunks of carrot cake which we demolished with a cup of tea on the balcony.

Rangputa Beach

This had been a very pleasant afternoon indeed and so a little zizz on the balcony before dinner.

TV was not too good last night although we watched Kitchen Nightmares USA with Gordon Ramsey. I wish this guy could keep his hands still, he is worse than the Americans running Italian restaurants in the US of A.

We must get up early tomorrow.

Here's looking at you kid!

Wednesday 14th January-Blue nose and chips-lovely

Not a lot going on today, Noel caught up with some paperwork and Blogs and also fiddled with some photographs otherwise it was a pretty much unconstructive day.
On the news was an interview with the darling of American Politics Mr George W Bushy who uttered the immortal phrase to the waiting reporters that during his reign he had often been ‘missunderestimated’. What sort of word is this?
He was also saying that in his last few years that one of the biggest disappointments was not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What sort of comment is this, he was disappointed, surely he should have said pleased.
Anyway, the weather was a bit changeable today, one minute it was bright and sunny and the next it threatened rain but we had considered having fish and chips from the local shop.
Noel had looked on the internet about ‘the best fish and chips in New Zealand’ to see if there was one near us, but not so. Actually the best fish and chip shop in New Zealand, according to a recent poll/competition is one in Lyttelton on the outskirts of Christchurch and guess what, it’s owned by a Chinese couple.
We had a choice of two fish and chips shops, one the self-called ‘The world famous Mangonui Fish shop’ or the ‘Fish Shop’ at Coopers beach which we finally elected to go to.
So we purchased our Blue Nose (fish of the day) and one portion of chips and headed off, after a ten minute wait whilst they cooked it, to a little park with seats overlooking the bay to eat them. We were equipped with utensils and Tartar Sauce, napkins and a hunger.
As soon as we opened the packet seagulls from around the bay started arriving and sitting quietly watched us for a good fifteen minutes to see if we would feed them as well, no luck here.
Then it started to spit with rain and then a little harder and so we sat in the back of the Previa and finished them off. I must say they were really excellent and so we will return
Rather than rush home we took a trip through Mangonui and the ‘Famous’ fish and chip shop was packed to the gunnels with a huge queue so we were glad with our decision to go to Coopers Beach.

Tuesday 13th January- Still in shock

Noel still cannot get over how poorly Chelsea played yesterday and on the way in to Kaitaia with Robin that’s all he could talk about. This is getting boring Jennifer thought.

Not much shopping to do today but over lunch we watched a very, very large Maori lady and also her friend devour perhaps one of the largest big breakfast we have ever seen and followed by Chocolate Brownie covered in cream. Quite disgusting really and this lady will soon be in hospital or severely ill from her poor diet. Too many Maoris eat junk food all the time and it clearly shows.

Anyway, we headed back home and for a cup of tea and a snooze and watched the sun go down over them there hills. It was another great sunset tonight indeed.

We are planning to go to Kerikeri this Saturday to join Chris and Jan for lunch at the Marsden Winery and so Jennifer spoke to Jan to make the arrangements. We look forward to this as the food in the wineries is very good.

We decided to have an early night as the TV was a bit boring tonight except for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall River Cottage programme which we both enjoyed and it was a new programme albeit made in 2008.

Monday 12th January- I can’t believe it!!

Noel awoke early at around 0600 hrs and then remembered that the Manchester United versus Chelsea game was live on the television this morning from 0500. Anyway he missed the first half and then realised that he should have missed the whole game and stayed in bed. What a dismal performance from the so called Chelsea superstars. They really did not turn up for the match although I do understand that yet again the team hotel set off the fire alarms at about 0600 hours on Sunday morning, this has happened nearly every year that Chelsea stay in a hotel for their Man United games.
Anyway this is no excuse and someone should dock their wages for the way they played and I feel sorry for the supporters who travelled up to the Northern wilderness to witness such a damning sight.
It was so bad that Noel then went back to bed again for about one an a half hours to recover from the shock.
So our walk was a little later than usual and as it was also a full moon last night there was such a high tide that it was not possible to walk on the sand and so we walked along the grass next to the sand instead.
The afternoon comprised of a quick trip to Coopers Beach for Noel to visit the chemist to get some pills, which took much longer than expected as he got chatting to the nurse and learnt almost her complete life story.
The roast sirloin joint was enjoyed with a good bottle of Merlot and put us in a good mood for tonight’s big film, whatever it was. In the end we watched the Bruce Willis film DIE HARD this film was made in 1988 and no doubt has just reached this part of the world. It looks quite old fashioned now and with some glaring mistakes throughout on continuity. One minute the cop is on the floor covered in blood and shirt stained and a minute later he has a clean new shirt and no blood anywhere. Wow the powers of recovery for Hollywood actors are absolutely amazing.

Sunday 11th January- Its Sunday and time for a fry up

We decided to have a ‘brunch’ today with all those things like eggs and bacon etc etc that are not good for you. After the mornings walk you do need a little pick me up and as we were running a little late we converted breakfast in to brunch and Robin and Lorraine came over to join us.

It was pleasant in the sun overlooking the crowds of people in the sea and on the beach, about twenty five actually, and just let the day go slowly by drinking coffee and idle chat.

We ate brunch so late and also had too much so much so that the Sirloin roast we were going to have was put back in the fridge for Monday as neither of us could entertain it after our extremely large breakfast cooked by “Supraman”.

The rest of the day was spent reading and not doing too much although Noel fiddled with the photos from yesterdays car show and put them on the web which took a little while.

Early to bed was the form tonight.

Saturday 10th January- Taipa Auto Spectacular Car Show

It was a grey morning with the promise of rain later however this was better for the car show as it meant you didn’t get so burnt. Last year the sun burned down and people did not want to walk around for fear of getting sunburnt, so today was much better.
There was a very good selection of cars from all over North Island combined with a jumble sale and also old bits of car for sale.
Most of the cars were in absolutely excellent condition and the owners must have worked very hard and spent quite a bit of money getting their cars up to standard.
From Rolls Royce to Cadillac and from Austin A40 to a plethora of Ford Zodiacs, Zephyr’s and the like it was great.
There was also a line up of Chevrolet cars as well as some motor cycles including a Californian Kawasaki Police Patrol bike with the owner togged out in the full gear.
The BBQ sausages and onions on bread were excellent and there was a reasonable choice of food including the national dish of Chips.
On the back of a large 40foot truck a mother and her unwilling daughter were doing a series of dances from country and western to Hill Billy through to Maori. We understand the mother is an outgoing individual who likes this type of event and her daughter is the opposite and she did not smile at any time. There was a large trampoline for the kids to play on and the complete show was well organised.
Noel took lots of photos, most of which are on the Photo Blog, if you are interested in historic or vintage cars.
We just about made it back to the house around two pm when it started to rain and we were so lucky to not get caught. In the evening Lamb chops plus multiple vegetables was the ‘daily special’ and enjoyed by both of us.
We did a fair amount of walking today and Noel’s knee is certainly much better and almost back to normal, wow let’s hope this continues.
We think the weather will improve tomorrow with some cloud and sunny patches.
All the photos can be seen on following link
http://albums.phanfare.com/5194780/2944783_3547345#imageID=57994763

Friday 9th January- I knew it couldn’t last

Of course the good weather could not last. It was grey today with a hint of rain but still very warm indeed if not a bit muggy.

Apart from the usual walk and look at the tourists on the beach waiting to finish their coffee and get back on the bus for their trip to Cape Reinga we didn’t do too much today.

We are looking forward to tomorrow when we can go to the Taipa Auto Spectacular which promises all sorts of great things but we do understand that it will be busy.

We had fish this evening cooked by the master chef (Gordon and Jaime watch out, there is a new man in town) it was great and this fish although from the freezer now is extremely good.

Thursday 8th January- It’s still sunny

Surely this good weather cannot last. On Thursday evening when we finished up the blog it was still very warm at nine pm and whilst typing I was wearing only shorts.
The usual walk started the day and it was so nice and warm we really did not want to do much but just enjoy the weather. We noticed that the anti-booze police gang are encamped over in the Taipa Resort, two police cars and a paddy wagon, or whatever they call it here.
This coming Saturday is the Taipa Auto Spectacular which should be interesting with lots of old cars and all sorts of things are promised.
We did a quick dash in to Kaitaia to visit an electrical company and apart from that not much really hence the long blog from yesterday.
The builder who promised to come on Wednesday has still not arrived so I will give up on him and let Brian sort it out when he gets home in early February.
Whilst researching for yesterdays blog and looking for statistics I noticed that the land mass of New Zealand is about ten per cent larger than the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has about 63 million or so people whilst New Zealand, at the last count, about 4.2 million people and that is why density of living is not a problem here. Of course in the South Island there is a huge wilderness area where nobody lives and it’s pretty much the same in the United Kingdom in Brixton.
Only about 3.8 million cars are registered in New Zealand which is about the same number of cars on the M25 on a Friday night, or so it seems. However the number of cars registered compared to the populations does seem out of proportion and I cannot find out why unless it’s because so many cars are left lying around (see yesterdays blog) that have not been taken off the register list.
Another amazing sunset tonight, see photos.

Wednesday 7th January- I regret to inform you……..

that the weather here in Taipa is perfect. We are having continual blue sky and warm temperatures of around 28 degrees but we have to watch out for the UV rays which are showing as ‘Extreme’ at the moment.

Nevertheless, we are putting up with it quite well.

Today we needed to replace a few things in the larder and so went shopping in Kaitaia. Most important was the need to buy some more sunscreen as we are running out and you defiantly need it here.

We also called in to the car hire company to give them copies of our driving licences for them, no doubt, to check them out.

We shall be getting a Mitsubishi Diamante Saloon car, this has not been sold in UK to my knowledge, but it is a few years old and quite large and all for about £17.00 per day which, compared to the main car hire players, is very cheap indeed.

I have found this web site which gives a good overview on this area where we are staying and also some history of the place. It’s a good site with plenty of interesting stuff.

http://www.doubtlessbay.co.nz/index.htm

Jennifer made cottage pie for dinner last night and that was excellent as the mince we got from the butcher was really good.

We also tried a bottle of Oxford Landing Cabernet Sauvignon & Shiraz which was really quite good.

We tested the water in the Spa for a while and then headed for an evening of TV etc

We are also trying to assist Brian (our host) to get some of house repairs on track but the builder is very unreliable. I think his fishing rod may get in the way of work. Builders here have a terrible reputation, most of the houses are made of wood and there are thousands of homes with leaky roofs, so much so, that the government is now reviewing building procedures

The Maori people seem to like keeping their old cars, although they don’t work and are rotting away in their gardens. I thought at first it was down to laziness or cost, but I have been informed that it shows a type of wealth where you can see the previously owned car’s and the later most expensive and bigger model which is the one they now use. It’s not unknown for some families to have as many as six cars rotting away in the garden. It does not look good to our European eyes but here is a little different.

The Maoris are also waiting for the proposed ‘disagreement settlement’ which in their eyes means ‘loads of money’ and therefore schooling and working are not important. The figure being banded around right now is between one and two billion New Zealand dollars which when divided amongst the indigenous population will only mean a handout of about three thousand dollars per head. So a family with five kids will get a lot more than a married couple and so birth rate for Maoris is increasing sharply. Almost 9 per cent of Maoris don’t work which is twice as high compared to the national average but their salaries are much lower as they cannot hold high positions due to lack of education.

Recently, in the North part of NZ there was a Maori township of about 40 people which had to drive over two hours by bus to get to a local health centre. They campaigned for a health centre and the government awarded them a chunk of money to pay for it. The money was received and instead of building the health centre which was sorely needed, each family purchased a top of the range 4x4 car so that they could drive the two hours to the original health centre that they used before. Needless to say there was a lot of upset over this

Please see the following article published in a NZ paper.

Why are so many Maori not doing so well compared with other New Zealanders?

Why do so many Maori smoke? More than double the % of European New Zealanders that do.

Why do Maori have almost twice the prevalence of obesity of European New Zealanders?

Why are so many Maori on benefits and not working? Maori account for approx 14.6% of the population but make up 41.7% of all Domestic Purposes Benefit recipients (aged 18–64 years), at the end of September 2008 from a total of 98,473 on the DPB?

Why do so few Maori attain an upper secondary, let alone a Tertiary education? Is it really a cultural thing? If that’s the excuse then why do new Asian arrivals have an even higher educational attainment rate than even European New Zealanders and 4 times that of Maori %?

Why are so many Maori in gangs and in jail (approx half the jail population are Maori and yet they make up only 14.6% of the New Zealand population?

And do I even need to mention Nia? What’s happening in the Maori family unit as a whole that causes so many cases like Nia's?

Why so much under achievement? and why is everyone afraid to tackle this? Why is it that anyone that brings up these facts is so quickly called a racist?

Note

Nia’s case is all about a father who continually beat his daughter whilst his wife was drinking down the pub. The father then got his two sons (19 and 17) to kill the three year old to shut her up. They did not do the job right and so they took her to the hospital and the nurses and doctors went mad trying to save the little girl’s life whilst the mother left the hospital and went to a night club.

This apparently is not an unusual case.

Clearly it is a big problem here which the successive governments cannot seem to resolve but do they think that paying large amounts of benefits will help reduce the problem??? I don’t think so.