Traveling Camera

My mother bought her first digital camera just before leaving for Australia. All 49 pictures from the memory card can be viewed by clicking right here.

These are a few of my favourites; if you knew my mother, you'd understand why.





I also like this one. My mother was once reprimanded at the San Diego Wild Animal Park for petting a giraffe while she fed it a carrot. (The carrot feeding was allowed, but for some reason you are not allowed to touch their heads.)


The last photo was of Picton. It would have been taken on Sunday (the camera says 10:46 AM, but I'm not quite sure what time zone it's set to).

You didn't leave me anything that I can understand

[Note to any customs or immigration agents that might be readers of my page: all of the items pictured below are used, and owned by me for more than 90 days prior to their arrival in this country. Nicole did not buy anything from zappos, and I did not go a little crazy over the last few weeks on amazon.]


I had asked my mother to bring a few hard (or impossible) to find items with her on her trip to NZ. As I got a little carried away on the things we just had to have (like a charger for my laptop, a flash for the camera, a tuxedo shirt, cleaning solution for my electric razor...the list goes on), I gave her a ranking of which items to leave behind if she ran out of room in her suitcase.

A few days before she left, she started worrying about whether her few electric items would work here (or rather in Sydney, as our house is well stocked with 5000W 240 to 120 step up/down transformers). She struggled to read the fine print on her camera charger, but eventually we decided all she needed was an outlet converter. I told her to bring a couple, as we always seem to be needing another one...especially if she wanted a lamp in her room. Four have now appeared here. As have a couple of tail lights for my PT cruiser that I must have mentioned to her the day before her flight. And a bag of tefillin that belonged to my great-grandfather that she found in her garage during a recent clean out.

All packed nicely in a Holland America canvas bag...I assume she meant to give it to us when her ship docked in Napier today. We were back in time to see it off.


Nobody ever loves you like your mom.

Today I stopped and shopped inside the walled city

Saturday drive out to Palmerston North to look at a sailboat. Palmerston North is the closest real city to us...and by real city: I mean there's a university and a shopping mall. It's been 9 months since I've been in a mall, and it sort of gave me a headache.


There really is not much going on in Palmerston. We stopped at the wind farm, as it's on the list of things to do. [I'll leave off the bit about the airport also being on the list...]


A nice convention of pre-1920s cars was driving around Woodville (a very small town on the way to Palmerston.


And yet another in the series, Nico having a pint (Note: I'm sure the Irish think Guinness anywhere outside of Ireland is bad, but it's just plain dreadful in NZ.


My apologies yet again for the lack of posting. I've been spending most of the time trying to tame the jungle that is our backyard. Here's a 200 kg weed that I have mostly defeated:

Just like Maui used to make

Unless you have a very nice friend or family member with a very large car, the best way to see Shine falls (Hawke's Bay's best waterfall) via the Boundary Stream Track would be to have half of your party start on one side and the other half on the other. Each group would walk in opposite directions, pass each other somewhere in the middle, and then drive the other group's car home. Did that make any sense?

Perhaps that would not be the best way, as one of the groups would be walking downstream (downhill) and the other would be walking uphill for 4 hours. So we went with a more complicated plan: Two cars drove to the finish, everybody crammed into our car, and we drove 15 km (over gravel roads) to the start. Here's a photo of one of the times we had to stop due to car sick passengers. There are 8 people scattered around the car.


Here's a little bit of Boundary Stream (taken while crossing):


Mi amigo Jason thinking about crossing the stream (and about to splash me):


Why yes, that is a giant boulder that nearly crushed the "Beware of Giant Boulders" sign.


A little bit of paradise (you have no idea how difficult it was to get this close after a few days of heavy rain)


Photographing water moving that quickly is challenging as 1)the heavy canopy of trees allows very little light through and 2) the falls are spraying a heavy mist on everything within view.


Like many reserves, this one is surrounded by farmland...or more correctly, sheepland. Get in line, you sheep.


In other news, here's my very Kiwi emergency repair of an old pipe in our garden.


In still other news, here's my brand new (to me) kayak:

With a Model A out front, and a 20s/30s band in the back, it was quite a party.



Nico and I didn't look too ridiculous as a few other people also dressed up.


Either the turnout was surprisingly good, or Kiwis drink a whole lot. (It is not evident from the picture, but that is a very big box.)


And to answer your question, the most white russians I have ever made at a time while wearing a top hat is: 10

We are officially unpacked.

Alternative title: And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.



In other news, I made a new friend in the garden. She has promised not to eat my brain.

The Big Laskowski

At our new address, we received invitations to open house events at two competing bowling clubs. [In case you didn't click that link, bowling in NZ is what one in the US might call "lawn bowling"...whereas what one in the US would call bowling would be called "ten pin" here.]

We were planning on attending the (closer) event at the Port Ahuriri Bowling Club, but as we walked down the 200 stairs to get there, it was evident that the members of the Port Ahuriri Bowling Club do not know how to throw an open house.


And so we opted for the Bluff Hill Bowling Club open house. Here's Nicole and our bowling coach, Rod. (Notice there are actually people in attendance.)


A little walk around downtown Napier turned up this gem: The Centennial Gardens.

Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun

Our new house sits on just about a quarter acre of land (AKA the Kiwi Dream). Fortunately for me, much of that land is taken up by the house and the driveway(s). Still, the backyard is bigger than anything I have ever had to manage, and as the previous owners apparently stopped caring for the place after they accepted our offer, I was left with a fair amount of work to do. I do not suppose that I will ever look forward to gardening; and after working on it for an hour or two everyday this week, I'm only half done...

The unpacking started with the important things.

Alternate title: Why yes, that is a wine cellar

How to avoid packing

One of the best things about Hawke's Bay: winery restaurants. Napa Valley has a few, but they are mostly too expensive to eat at; or at least they were when we lived there. Hawke's Bay has dozens. Unfortunately, they have become a little more posh in recent years, but none are particularly outrageous...unless you get carried away on the wine.

Friday night, we bicycled to Clearview Estates for their very first "Affordable Friday". Nothing over $20 on the menu, wine at less than their normal retail price (which is even cheaper than the normal restaurant price), and Rooster's beer on tap. Here's a picture of me near the guitarist, who kept asking if we had any requests. "The lady would like to hear Paul Simon," said I. "I'm only playing Leonard Cohen tonight," replied the guitarist.


Yesterday was opening day at the sailing club.



I'm racing on Big Bird again this year. Ian, Mathew, and Alan pictured here. Alan claims I took this same photo last year, and wanted to know if he had more gray hair this year. To the left of Mathew's head is the old hospital. Our house is just down the street; sadly it cannot be seen from the water.


In case you were interested, here's a better shot of the hospital.


And here's a boat that we appear to be ahead of...