The run-up to Christmas

Greetings from the land down under.
Four pictures from the last week of excitement here in the far north.
Stuart and I went to a demonstration in Taipa last week. Andreas was showing a small group how he has been making fuel grade ethanol from plant wastes. He had a couple of very tidy sheds that had Stuart and I drooling. The demo was interesting. As the price of petrol rises, we will potentially start to use bio-ethanol in all of our cars. As an aside, Country Calendar, was filming us watching Andreas. This is a much loved long established series of TV programmes that features people in NZ doing interesting things in the country. It was doubly interesting for Stuart the aspiring film-maker to watch a professional at work. The bloke did not stop for long, filming from all angles.

Patrick finished school on Friday. It was his prize-giving on Thursday and he had been asked to give a valedictory speech. He shared it with a girl (whose name I forget). Paddy got to sit on the stage with the principal and guests. His speech was clear and amusing. We were proud of him. Now he is on holiday.

Stuart and I went off to Moturoa Island this weekend for a couple of days of bird watching with the OSNZ. We were hosted by CJ and Carol and had a pleasant time,exploring the island and conducting various surveys of the birds. One of my high-lights was looking for petrel nests on a steep slope. The birds leave a single chick in its burrow for days at a time as they catch squid out at sea. they return in the middle of the night, regurgitate a load of food and then fly off again. Apparently the chicks fledge themselves and know what to do and where to go once thay have flown off the cliff. Talk about looking after yourself!

On the Sunday, we scaled a steep cliff called Alcatraz. The view out to the mouth of the Bay of Islands is quite fantastic. The people on the island had decided that they wanted to encourage gannets to nest on Alcatraz, so they placed several plastic replicas on a piece of bare cliff. They also played gannet calls over a pair of speakers. Amazingly the plan was working to some degree, as a single real bird had landed amongst the decoys and was preening itself, oblivious to our presence 10 feet away.

 

 

 

 

Tom and Jerry plus prize-winner

Senior prizegiving on wednesday night. I was on stage as usual for 4 hours of bum numbing entertainment. Eric was in the prize winners enclosure for the first time. He won the Chess Trophy by beating everyone else who entered at chess earlier on in the year. Also an academic prize for the most improved at economics. Well done! Eric.

The cat watches the mouse.

 

 

Wedding anniversary

A couple of weekends ago, Chantelle and I went over to Mangonui to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary.
We checked into the Mongonui hotel. Old for these parts, comfortable with bar very handy, a double room at $100 a night and what a view! Drinks on the balcony watching the world go by and the birds feeding in the bay.
We trotted a few 100m down the road to our fave restaurant - the Thai Cafe, for a lovely dinner. The food is divine, the meals are cheekily named. The views are as good as from the hotel. My only criticism is that they pack 31 seats into a pretty small space.
Back to Hotel for Irish malt and to see the election results start to come in. National were obviously going to win again. Labour did poorly, New Zealand First made a surprise showing and the Greens did better than expected as well. Overall result = another 3 years of conservative government - good if you are in business epecially in roading. Not so good if you are a beneficiary or in the state sector.

We were awake at dawn and the weather was as calm as predicted. We were itching to get out in the kayak and made it just after 8am. Great conditions paddling out of the harbour and on towards Hihi. Graet views and good to explore, but the fishing was pretty uneventful. I got onto something big in the harbour that ran off a lot of line and then slipped the hook. And that was about it.