Mad dogs and Englishmen...

On Saturday afternoon Jo and I headed to a pet shop in Browns Bay to meet up with people and dogs from GAP - Greyhounds As Pets. They were holding a meet a greyhound day. I've long since had a thing for greyhounds, so to speak, and jumped at the chance to go and meet some in person.

Meeting them and speaking with an owner has whetted my appetite even further and I'll almost certainly get one when I'm in a position to do so. Not making any silly bets this time though.

Beforehand, Jo wasn't a fan at all, but upon meeting the dogs she changed her tune a little bit. Especially after one called Floyd snuggled up against her. After the pet shop, the dogs and their owners gathered on the beach to stretch their legs. Jebus they can't half shift. Although one got a bit overexcited when seeing a little dog being walked and was all over it. It was only being friendly and the shrieks of the woman and daughter walking the puffed up curly "dog" were a little over the top.

After this we went to the English shop. Just 1 day short of 18 months after I moved here, this was the first time I'd been. I'm glad I waited this long and made a few impulse buys of items I hadn't even seen for so long. I never thought I'd get teary-eyed over a packet of cheesy wotsits.

Ah Dandelion & Burdock. At the first taste I was transported taken back in time about 20 years to Saturday lunches. The morning was spent scoring freely for the church football team, then back home for a feast from Franks chippy, a bottle of D&B and Saint & Greavsie for entertainment. Perfection.

Weekend of booze...

For the first time in quite a while I had a boozy weekend. First up was a night out in town as Jo's sister Michelle was visiting from Sydney. It wasn't a major night but we saw a half decent covers band in the Empire Tavern, which is much more like my kind of bar than the usual ones in the viaduct.

After a short recovery period it was on to the 2nd night out - the Greenhithe FC fundraising quiz.

Prizes were bountiful (including $50 worth of Greenacres vouchers I'd managed to rustle up) and everyone was likely to walk away with a prize. Or so they said. Out of our team of 9 only one of us was a raffle prize winner - Rob's mum winning a duvet which Rob quickly bagsed.

Everyone chipped in with answers as we managed to achieve mid table mediocrity. It was a good night, and a surprisingly large number of people there, probably over 100. All of whom will have put good money in the kitty toward our end of season tour (piss up).

Most exciting part of the night for me was coming very close to winning a bottle of bourbon. The game was throwing dollar coins at said bottle with the winner being the closest one. I held the lead until right at the end when someone beat me by the Queen's nose.

A selection of pictures...

Me and Rob not doing much to dispell the ribbing we get for being gay (our team decided we were as we often arrive for the game in the same car)...

Jo steals some wigs from the neighbouring table. They work better on us...

Our team manager (having been decorated by Jo) and myself...

The team...

(L-R) Jo, her friend Gemma, Sonya, Dave, Mick, Jayne, me, Rob, Mia

Donny gets a bad press...

Old news this seeing as it was filmed about 20 years ago, but I happened across an episode of Blackadder last night. The following dialogue ensued...

Baldrick: [re: Edmund's unattractive bride-to-be] Why not make her believe you prefer the company of men?
Prince Edmund: But I do, Baldrick, I do!
Baldrick: No, I mean... the intimate company of men.
Prince Edmund: You don't mean... like the Earl of Doncaster?



Shocking. I didn't know that was a gay bar.

Birthdays galore...

Happy birthday to my 3 favourite ladies (not Destiny's Child)...


L'il sis Natalie turned 28 on July 4th, my mum turned 37 (plus change) on the 17th and Jo turned 23 on the 19th.

As with things like stag do's, which turned to stag weekends, to stag weeks, Jo is having plenty of birthweek celebrations.

First up was a party at her friends house. We arrived early to help set up, so instead of watching the All Blacks take on South Africa I was baking a cake with a bunch of girls, listening to Pink and slagging off ex boyfriends. It was a fun night though and I managed not to embarrass myself in front of her friends. I even nailed a few vodkas to prove my worth.

Then on Wednesday I tagged along on her family meal out at a restaurant called Art Ducko - a lovely meal, although I was a tad disappointed there was only one duck item on the menu.

This weekend saw the last All Black home match before the world cup. It was against the old foes, Australia at Eden Park - just up the street. All this would suggest that I'd get tickets in plenty of time. Alas, no. I left it too late and it sold out. So, to the auction sites. Just when I was beginning to despair at the amount of people who were 'unable to go, so I just want to get rid of my ticket.... for 6 times face value', I happened upon a genuine seller who sold his tickets for face value and Jo and I were in. Sweet.

What wasn't so sweet was the weather. We were on the terraces which, despite the name, are seated. They aren't covered though and we got soaked through despite the stylish ponchos Jo's mum provided us with...

The best atmosphere came during the haka...



To wrap up Jo's birthweek we went skiing at the local indoor venue. Jo hasn't skied since primary school but that didn't show as she took off down the slopes...



Good times.

Bledisloe Cup...

All Blacks vs. the Wallabies tonight just up the road. We stupidly left it too late to get tickets and are now scrabbling around on trademe (NZ's equivalent of eBay) without much luck.

I want to see the haka live.

To tide me over, this ad made the news here the other day. I like it...

Oop north...

I hadn't been much further north than Auckland since I arrived here. That is until this weekend. Jo's birthday present to me was a weekend away to Paihia in the Bay of Islands which is a few hours drive north of Auckland. Interestingly enough this is where NZ's first game of cricket was held (thank you Wikipedia).

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and after checking in to the imaginatively named Hotel Paihia we headed just up the road to Waitangi where a very important Treaty was signed in 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi is effectively the document on which modern day New Zealand was founded. The British chucked a few guns and blankets the way of the Maoris in exchange for the land. Or something dastardly like that anyway.

For the centenary celebrations a replica waka taua (war canoe) was built using traditional methods...

80 paddlers brought it to shore containing as many Maori warriors with scary war faces like this...

This is all that remains of the tree from which the canoe was fashioned...

One of the first Maori chiefs to sign the Treaty was Hone Heke. He was a bit of a monkey though and protested against the British by chopping down the flagstaff in the grounds on four occasions. The cheeky rascal. It's metal now though...

Chop that down with your little flint tomahawk.

After our cultural afternoon we went out for some food and a few drinks in town. There isn't a great deal there except a few backpackers which were too far to walk in the rain. We went to seemingly the only bar in the centre showing the All Blacks test against Australia. After a solid first half the ABs did bugger all in the second and lost to two late scores. Maybe the world cup won't be the walkover a lot of people expect.

Sunday was a day to get up early and head even further north for the surprise activity organised by Jo. We're in NZ so it had to be something adrenelin fuelled and it was...QUAD BIKING!!!

The weather was awful for the whole drive up to Ahipara which is just outside Kaitaia and the southernmost point of 90 mile beach (which is actually only 55 miles long... Global warming no doubt). But the rain stopped just as we got to the offices of Tua Tua Tours. Only Jo and I were booked on a tour so we had the guide to ourselves. We spent 2 hours hooning over flat sand beaches (reaching speeds of 75 km/hr), teetering over coastal rocks, skiding up sand dunes and sliding down the other side of them. Utterly fantastic couple of hours. I have some good video footage which I'll release soon. Here are a few pics...

Our guide Greg, followed by Jo

Taking a breather

In the background are the shacks of the many local seaweed scroungers. They extract the agar which they sell at market. They could do with buying themselves some dulux. Although seeing as they have no power or running water they probably have other things to worry about.

We make quad biking look cool

From the windy coastline to desert like conditions

This was steeper than it looks...lots of fun

Hands down the best thing I've done in New Zealand and if anyone fancies coming over here to visit we'll gladly join you on a quad bike tour.

With smiles embedded on our chops we headed back to the hotel stopping off at New Zealand's oldest building (1819 - snigger, my parents house is older than that)

And Haruru Falls...

The heavy rainful making the normally clear water a lighter shade of brown.

On Monday we caught the ferry over to Russell, the first major port of New Zealand. It's early population of ex-convicts and drunken sailors earned it the title "Hell Hole of the Pacific". Sadly Auckland took over as the main port and the country's capital and Russell became the quaint fishing village it is today...

On our way back home we stopped off at Kawakawa, a tiny little town with nothing to write home about except some unique public conveniences...

They are apparently "world famous" - here is why

Our final stop was the Kauri museum. I found this really interesting, with lots of interactive displays which kept my short attention span entertained. Here I am sat inside what looked like a portaloo, carved from a Kauri swamp log which was buried underwater for over 3000 years...

I look very pleased with myself. Although staff would probably rather I'd buried my own swamp log back in Kawakawa.