Stonehenge pictures

More pictures, this time from the last few days of our holiday which, as is always the case, seems very distant now that we are back home.
There are 2 pictures of the rocks at Stonehenge. No explanation needed for these.
The frying pan contains that great British delicacy: black pudding. I am informed that this can be purchased from Kaitaia's infamous Saturday market.
The picturesque village green was at Crawley just north of Winchester, near to our campsite.
Finally, we have Ian and Paddy. I cannot remember what the joke was....

Meanwhile fast forward to Kaitaia and we are enjoying a spell of good weather. Atropical cyclone went over on Tuesday but we were not badly affected, just a bit of overnight rain. We all went for a fish last night at Aurere beach. The low tide was at 4.30pm which was perfect as it was cooler. We had suggested going overnight and camping on the beach, but this got a big thumbs down from the boys, so we compromised with an evening fish. We certainly had some fish, taking home 3 kahawai, but more significantly caught several snapper. I had assumed that snapper are not caught off accessible rocks any more. Chantelle caught the first but it was a bit small, so after some discussion we put it back. We reckon now that it was well over the legal limit. We caught some more undersize ones. I had a large one on but it dropped off as we tried to land it - rats!

The rest of the days have passed by in a whirl of cleaning, washing, lawn mowing, floor painting, cooking etc etc. I personally looking forward to going back to school - too much multitasking going on at home!
Til next week.

More Southampton Pictures

Here we have Granddad Ronald at lunch in a Romsey pub. Chantelle is making an interesting hand gesture!
Eric worked out how to use the timer on the camera and took the shot of evryone gathered around Grandma Anna.
Uncle Richard was a hit with the boys and he gamely took two of them off for the night. He still seems to be smiling in this picture, so has not suffered major psychological damage.

Southampton Pictures

Some more pics. Of rellies in Southampton. South coast of England.
These were taken early on in the new Year.
Current news in Kaitaia, after scorching hot weather since we landed a week ago, the weather is now turning and we are expecting the remnants of a tropical cyclone to pass over us in the next 24 hours. batten down the hatches.
eric and I were up at dawn to go for a fish before the weather closed in. We went to a new spot near Mongonui and it was very windy. I hooked into a good sized kahawai which slipped the hook just as I was landing it. the one that got away!
Pictures are of Stuart walking back from his trek round Wicken with Horace.
Sitting down for a meal with Chantelle's Aunty Barbara and Uncle Bob and their children James and Emily.
The D-day museum in Portsmouth - boys inspect a tank and the Overlord tapestry (picture especially for Clare!).

Catching up on pictures

The pictures got left out in the last few holiday updates. Here are some from New Years Eve.
Eric and Stuart in front of King's Chapel in Cambridge.
Eric pleased about his score at bowling.
Margaret tempting Patrick with yet more sweets! (They are all in withdrawal - oh yes Nick and Karla, have you found the Haribo stash behind the curtain in the guest room?)
Stuart is determined to simulate a Hawaiian holiday even though it is frezzing outside. Plus Karla snapped in the background.
Finally a walk in Thetford Forest on New Years Day.

Back Home

Just a quick post to let people know that we are now back home. Enjoying the sun and good weather and taking ourtime to get over the jet-lag.
The journey was long but incident free. We looked after ourselves better than we did on the way out, watching less tv and getting a bit of sleep. Dubai was as horrible as it was on the way out. Very very busy and overcrowded.
But the planes ere all more or less on time, not much turbulence, good neighbours etc. etc.
We stayed in Auckland last night, that was like being on holiday - sat out on the pavement in the warm sun waiting for a takeaway. We were on the road at 6am this morning and got home by midday.
Bliss to be home. Catching up on all the animals and plant growth.
Picturesto follow.

On our way out

7.48am at Gatwick best Western hotel. Last day in England before we fly out tonight (fingers crossed!). We have been enjoying the luxury of having 6 square metres of floorspace, a BATH!!!, hot water not dependent on turning the gas on and taking the vent cover off, sleeping in a bed that doesn't make you feel seasick because it is windy outside or Eric is shifting about in his sleep.
Very nice ... we like hotels.
Kinda sad to get outta The Beast at the same time. It has served us well and taken us to some whacked out places. The last few days we have been exploring the highways and byways and industrial estates around Stonehenge. The stones themselves were a bit of non-event for me. When we first spotted them from the very busy main road that goes along each side of them, my first thought was "Is that it?" My previous images of them had always involved large open spaces and they seemed a lot larger than they actually were. All the same, big ups to the folk who brought them there 4000 years ago. Apparently some came from a fairly local quarry about 40 miles away and the smaller bluestones that go on top came all the way from Preselli in South Wales. I did not get any spiritual feeling from the place at all - mostly in fact I got a very cold feeling as the wind was strong and very biting. They had some nice sheep grazing in lines. Some were wearing raddles, so it must be mating season. One ram was sniffing a ewes urine which reminded us of Skippy at home.

That was the day when everything went a bit pear shaped. We left Folly Farm and drove west through heavy rain. Found a lovely village called Stocksbridge. Lots of nice art shops, a fantastic butcher's shop that did black pudding and pasties. Also huge trout in a very clear stream that ran along the street. Very tempting to dangle a worm in and catch our tea, but judging by the flyfishing shops it would be the sort of unsporting behaviour that would get us arrested.
On to the Hawk Conservancy Trust for a wet weather look around ... closed. Then onto Amesbury for a swim, couldn't find the Leisure centre as the signposts stopped. Tourist Info told us that there was a pool in Durrington 3 miles away and that it was open. Had an interesting drive round most of Durrington looking for said pool, again the signs took us so far and then stopped. Eventually found it down some back streets attached to Avon Community College. Yes it was open - for 10 minutes then closed to the public so that the kids could use it. The only thing that cheered me up was that all the kids and teachers here are back at school and we are still on holiday!

We ended up having lunch at Pizza Hut because we couldn't be bothered trying to find a pub open. The campsite for the next few weeks was Salisbury Touring Park in a little village called Orcheston. It was adequate; toilet block a bit dark and dirty, didn't fancy the showers, the chem toilet place didn't have a functioning hose and the site itself was a bit squashed for a vehicle of our size. However it did have WiFi, so we could at least go online for a fiver.
In the night, Chantelle and Patrick came down with a bug, good old V&D! I will spare you the gruesome details apart from saying that pineapple puke and liquid squit smells really bad anywhere and when it is in your mobile home you cant get away from it. I saw my job as keeping things normal for Eric and Stuart while letting the 2 sickies sleep it off. We had a hearty breakfast of black-pudding and bacon, went for a successful swim at Salisbury Five Rivers Leisure Centre and went to see "Enchanted" at the Odeon.
Yesterday we packed up, cleaned up and met Grand-dad Cambridge at Fleet Services to drop off all the bedding and stuff we had borrowed for the trip - thanks folks, you kept us all warm for a month! Big thanks to N&K also for the fan heater which kept us all toasty through the coldest weather.
Well thats it for now, we are basically killing time before our flight and seeing what entertainment we can find for a few hours here between being turned out of our room and going to the airport. Our windows give us a view of the end of the runway so we can see all the planes as they head off into the clouds - statrting to get that pre-flight stomach feeling.
Later g's as they say in Kaitaia

Heading Sarth

Blog update Wed 7th January

I am writing this from a small campsite north of Salisbury. We are within earshot of an army firing range and before it went dark we could hear a series of explosions. It might go on for several days as our visit probably coincides with a 48 hour NATO exercise. Most of our plans today have gone awry so I would not be surprised.
Anyway here is the news from the last few days for those who are following progress closely.

We left Cambs on Thurs January 2nd, starting the day with a dawn walk at Wicken Fen with Nick and the dogs. Stuart came along and it was bitterly cold. The Fen has expanded over the years and we went round a part that I had never visited before. Lots of thrushes and a few new ducks and waders for the checklist: shoveller, knot plus the first sparrowhawk of the trip. They seem to be less common than they were. Buzzards are everywhere and so are kestrels. House sparrow numbers are well down. Why is that then?

We left Stretham having said our goodbyes to Margaret and Ian and headed down the M11 to Sussex. There was a bad crash that held us up for an hour but we made it to Barbara and Bob’s house by sunset. They fed us well with winter stew and dumplings ….yum-yum. Even Patrick asked for more. The boys met Emily and James again and they all seemed to get on well.

That night we stayed at Sumner’s Pond just down the road. A carp fishery apparently, but no-one was fishing in the morning. Good toilets and amenities, no complaints at all. We even went on a morning trot to the shop for bread and milk. Then on to Netley near Southampton. We went via Portsmouth and the front at Southsea. Had a pleasant lunch at Mozzarella Joes café on the front. Very good fish and chips. Biting cold wind coming in off the Solent along with a hovercraft and a couple of cross channel ferries. We visited the D-Day museum in the afternoon. Very moving descriptions of the invasion and local effects of the war. Also the Overland Tapestry that was commissioned as an English version of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The campsite at Netley was next to a busy road and in a large featureless field. Toilet block under construction so showers were in the main house and toilets were in a Portacabin with very little room. Not too impressive.
We went off to see Great Grand-dad Ronald the next day (Friday). We went out to a pub on the River Test for lunch and the boys had a good chat about life in New Zealand.
On Saturday morning we arranged to meet Chantelle’s Uncle Richard at Marwell Zoo at 10am. At 9.30 we found that the van was bogged down on the grass. We had parked on a grass field having not parked as advised on an area of hardstanding as it seemed to be part of the roadway around the site. Chantelle went in search of the owner for help and was told that we would have to wait until her husband returned from work at some time in the future. Well, we could have waited like helpless people or we could have used some newly acquired Kiwi ingenuity and helped ourselves. I saw a pile of road material nearby and put a few loads under the back wheels. The owner rushed over saying that we couldn’t do that because we would ruin the grass. I replied that we had already done that – picture a long skid mark with a huge double rut in it! I asked her when hubby would be back and she said his ship had to dock then he would be back as soon as he could. She flustered off and I looked at the bucketful of tarmac. I dutifully put it back on the heap. There were already 3 buckets under the wheels and it seemed a shame not to see if they would work. Chantelle drove slowly in reverse and we all gave a shunt from the front and out The Beast reversed. We left a note apologising for the state of the grass and resolved to find a new site for that night!

At risk of going on a bit – I will anyway! Just skip this paragraph if you are irritated by my soapbox rantings, but hey – what is a blog if not a soap box? This little episode sums up something fundamental I have noticed in a lot of English people that you don’t get so much in our new home. In England everything has to be done by “The Expert” in whatever field you can imagine. People are discouraged from sorting things out themselves. In some cases this is understandable – if I have a heart attack I would rather be treated by a heart specialist than a dentist or a tree surgeon. When the car breaks down we phone the AA or the RAC. When the bog breaks we get in a plumber. When our hamster dies we get the Hamster bereavement service in and the Hamster Funeral director. Far fetched? I am pushing the point and those who know me will know that I am not the most practical minded of people. I have noticed that when we have hit hitches on this trip I have attempted to sort them out myself before calling in the experts. I was deeply impressed on a trip in a remote part of Spain with Ruth and Rory by the way that they fixed their radiator with a bit of roadside wire when the radiator hose split. There was no AA round there and even if there was they weren’t members. Going back to the episode that sparked this off – two final points. One: we should have listened and parked on the hard-standing in the first place, so sorry for spoiling your grass. Two: are people more or less important than the grass? Perhaps it should be a field or a turf farm instead of a camp-site? End of rant.

Where were we? Oh yes, meeting Uncle Richard. Which we did at the zoo. And had a rare old time looking at all the animals. I hadn’t heard of half of them but there were some fine specimens. As far as zoos go it was well laid out with natural looking cages. Kind of sad to see a mountain leopard in a rocky cage staring longingly at the red panda up a tree in the next enclosure. We had watched a programme about them the night before. The TV crew had spent 8 weeks in remote Pakistani mountains trying to find one in its summer habitat. It took us 1 minute to spot it in its enclosure. Sorry, nearly got into another rant about zoos ….
Eric and Stuart went off to stay with Great Uncle to talk planes for the night. Chantelle Patrick and I went off for a quiet night on a new campsite near Crawley.

That brings us nearly up to date so I will stop there. Eric is busting to have a go, probably to check out the price of laser sights on TradeMe.

Happy New Year

Happy 2008 to all our readers!
The pictures and posts have got away from us/me a little as the tour continues.
We left Lumb the day after Boxing Day to spend 2 nights in Lancaster. It had proved difficult to find a campsite anywhere near the city that was able to take us, and we couldnt think of anyone who had a drive big enough to fit the van, so we ended up at Hollgates in Silverdale. It was pricey at nearly #40 a night, but the site was well placed in the limestone woodlands witha view down to Morecambe bay. Even better for the boys was the reception complex which held a large indoor swimming pool, along with a spa pool, steam and sauna room. That made up for the extra cost as we swam every day we were there. The weather was truly awful with howling gales and driving rain. The van rocked so much that it was hard to sleep.
Stuart went to stay with his old school friend Matty. We were all treated to a little party in the Cathedral library by Fran, Barbara and Sheila. Thanks ladies, it was a really nice gesture.
We spent a bit of time in Lancaster city centre on Friday - not pleasant- very busy and shops full of useless tat! The boys needed a dose of cheap crap though. Then onto the Greggy to meet up with Alastair and Roger. Didn't get a pic of you Roger! Good to catch up on all the news of lancaster and Scotland.
We returned to Lumb on saturday for a family party. I met up with all my siblings for the first time in maybe 4 years. There was not enough time to really catch up. It felt a bit like we had all met up at the same bus station before our paths whipped us all apart again. Not that I am comparing Mum and Dads house to a bus station - he adds hurriedly. Still even a brief meeting was better than nothing. The boys got to meet their cousins again. There was a bit of hierarchy settling as Patrick discovered that he is the youngest cousin and could not throw his weight around in the manner he is used to with his older brothers. Stuart seemed impressed by the musical abilities of his cousins. I certainly was impressed by Tom's songs. Check out his webpage: http://www.myspace.com/theshybairns
It was good too see all my sibs and nephews and neices and in-laws.
On Sunday I went for an excellent walk at dawn (8am!) up to wheathead again and over the tops along paths that I used to tread when i was living there 20 years ago. The woods were taller, some farmers are looking after their walls and some have fallen down any more. The grass was bitten pretty short with lots of sheep grazing.
We took off back to Cambs after taking our leave of Mum and Dad.
Now it is New Years Day and we are in Stretham. We had a plaesant party last night at Nick and Karlas. I took the boys into Cambridge for the day. Eric had been very desperate to go on a train. I had hoped to go to the Botanic Gardens but it was closed as was the Fitzwilliam Museum and the public Library. We had to make do by eating danish Pastries at the Copper Kettle. Went bowling in Ely and then back for the party. Tres fun ... 2007 all over ......