This weekend saw us take our second outing in the van to Castle Point, on the east coast of the North Island, 67km from Masterton.  The van’s working name is now kiaoma – which we think more or less translates to ‘Escape’ in Maori – it’ll stick if we can actually remember it! The weather [...]

I’m lagging behind on blog posts again but last weekend we managed to get up for a short scenic HeliPro flight over Wellington for Ciara’s birthday.  We had to cancel on the big day due to the typical last minute windy Wellington weather but on the Saturday the weather was superb.  We departed from the [...]

Just incase you are worried we are unaffected by the earthquake that hit Christchurch last night.  It’s about 190 miles away as the crow flies but it’s in the South Island.  Our housemate felt the quake during the night but the rest of us in the house slept through it. Unfortunately Christchurch has been a [...]

It’s time for the weekly log, albeit a tad late this week! We managed a great weekend away last weekend and drove a few hours to Cape Palliser, the most southern point of the North Island of New Zealand.  Obviously we didn’t really care about that – it was the first weekend away in the [...]

Its been another week of little blogging and no photos so just a mini catch up before the weekend.  Last weekend we managed to get out and about a bit with a beach walk, and a kite fly, then some indoor climbing with friends on Sunday so at least we got around after Ciara’s first [...]

We’ve arrived in Wellington and are trying hard to make it ‘home’ after Ciara brilliantly got a short term contract and is currently in the office as I write this. I’m so looking forward to being a kept man while I hunt for vans, flats and the like     (Actually I need to up my [...]

We hired a car for a 5 day one way hire to Wellington to coincide with Ciara’s interview, and we had a planned weekend of skiing and boarding based in Ohakune in the middle of the North Island.  I was meeting a friend I met in Whister, Canada over ten years ago.  I had only [...]

  Well the blogging has been going downhill a bit since we arrived in NZ as well…the wifi situation hasn’t improved since I was here 4 years ago…there’s no free wifi access I’ve found yet apart from the odd coffee shop that gives you a code when you buy stuff. Anyway, we spent a while [...]

We’re alive in Wellington – blogging has been slow due to internet access…but Ciara has a job for at least a month, I’m still looking but things not looking too great for my normal role, and I’ll upload pics and more soonish…..

We’ve been in Auckland for a few days now and nothing much to report.  We’ve been looking at job sites (well, ahem, some more than others, and I’m not to be praised on that front), but we have set up bank accounts, applied for tax numbers, looked at housesits, help exchanges, transferred a bunch of [...]