Fantastic weekend on Great Barrier Island, an island just off the coast of Auckland. Started off badly when, after an extremely choppy, two-hour ferry ride on Friday, we arrived at the unsheltered port to torrential rain with no sign of our backpacks. We were all herded behind barriers, hair plastered down the sides of our faces with the rain getting heavier, children crying and people shouting: it was like we were prisoners of war!
Anyway, we all awoke in the Stray Possum Lodge in the same...
Sadly no further mice sightings but I haven’t forgotten and will set about my task with renewed enthusiasm when we come back from the Great Barrier Island. We’re staying at the Stray Possum Lodge over the long weekend - Aucklanders get a “statutory” holiday to celebrate its anniversary - and are leaving straight after work! It’s been a while since the whole gang has had a holiday together and it’ll be good to get away from tired evenings in watching Grosse Pointe, Shortland Street and all the...
I saw a mouse! Where? There on the stair. Where on the stair? Right there… Looks like we’ve got a small family of mice/rats living behind our crusty cooker and under the cupboards. Joanna, me and now Helen have seen the little bastards scrambling over the cooker rings and behind the cupboards. This is excellent news because it means I can buy a mouse trap and kill them! More realistically, given that I live with two vegetarian/non-red meat animal lovers, they’ll have to be evicted in a caring...
Look it’s me! I’ve finally managed to make my own cartoon character representation using the StorTrooper generator. Send me yours and I’ll put it up here.
I’ve also put a photo up of Rich, Dan and Stu at Kelly Tarlton’s, an underwater observatory museum with penguins and sharks and things. As you can see, they’re quite literally being eaten by a giant orca whale and are now dead. Honest.
Haven’t posted in a while and am even starting to lag behind Stu in the weblog stakes. Must try harder. Suppose it’s a combination of working hard and not doing enough fun things. Not selling this post very well am I?!
Anyway, Sue and I went to Muriwai beach yesterday to see some beaches and cliffs where a huge gannet colony roosts. It’s only about half an hour away but Sue’s map-reading left much to be desired. Well, she’s only female. At least I got to see Auckland Harbour Bridge four times...
Seems like Auckland’s finally back at work now. Stu’s working for NZ Blood, Helen’s working in a fertility clinic (sadly, she’s not helping any young men to choke their chickens…), “Young Man” Rich is at the YMCA, Joanna occassionally works at an Irish pub in Parnell and Westaff Temp of November Sue’s the receptionist at the Kiwi Dairies HQ.
Sue’s now seems to have recovered from having half the mosquito population of New Zealand bite her last week. Rather stupidly (given her propensity to react...
A brief explanation of the photos:
This is the view from our hotel window in Bangkok. It was weird to see how the towers and skyscrapers were surrounded by shacks and huts with a freeway flying above it all to separate rich from poor.
This is our BUNAC group in front of one of the many temples in Bangkok. This was the day after we’d been to Pat Pong and it was ridiculously hot and sticky, hence our tired, miserable faces.
Bangkok has countless temples but this is one of the more sacred. Sadly...
First day back at work in the “real” new millennium. Very hard to get back into the routine this morning after a fantastic Christmas/New Year. Christmas Day itself wasn’t quite the anti-climax it threatened to be. It was in fact Sue who masterminded the whole lunch (eaten at five!) which included a Kumara mash (Maori vegetable, bit like a potato), an enormous turkey and no sprouts. Rather stupidly, Helen decided to buy me a super soaker with which I’ve annoyed everyone with with my hilarious...
