1st time to taranaki...

Taranaki (otherwise known as The Naki ) is north west of Wellington, and I've just got back from my first trip there! I went up for a science conference (my first one!) but it was a good opportunity to see some of the place too :)

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Famous for the mountain, dairy farms (on the fertile volcanic plains around the mountain) and surfing on the coast, Taranaki is definitely a small piece of the South Island on the North Island...

The Conference went really well. I was a bit scared because it was my first one, but there were lots of familiar faces there which was nice! Met some new people too, and definitely learned a bit more about whats going on with freshwater science in NZ... There was also a presentation given about the Trout Eradication Trial which I helped out with earlier in the year, if you are interested you can have a look at it here.

On the second day, I skipped the 'poster session' to go and visit the mountain with Jess and her boyfriend. It had been overcast the day before, but it clouds were starting to clear!!

The forest on the mountain is beautiful, lots of ancient trees


Go Fishy go!

Lots of Mountain Cabbage Trees

And lots of them were flowering too, which look very different from normal cabbage trees...

Me with the mountain

The clouds over the summit were awesome!

It would have been nice to climb to the summit, but it's an 8 hour walk, and it was already about 4pm so we only went for a little walk up the track to see the forest.After that we headed back into New Plymouth, to check out the famous Botanic Gardens.

This is me sitting on the trunk of a (very) old wisteria...

The Mountain in the background - this was the view a century ago

There were heaps of ducklings about too, and this duck had 16 all to herself!

Cool waterfall

That evening we had fish n chips on the beach

And watched the surfers too

Cool beetle!

That night I went back to the Botanics, and there were lots of lights in the trees, very flash

Same view over the lake with the Mountain in the background

On the last day we went on field trips. I did the Wetland Monitoring trip, and felt right at home in the Raupo!

We had dinner at Yarrow Stadium that night, and most people dressed up. The theme was 'provincial and proud' but I don't have any Hurricane clothes, so wore my Scotland rugby top and painted a St Andrews cross on my face :)
Half way through the meal the fire alarm went off and we all had to wait outside until the fire brigade arrived and gave us the all clear...
It was a good trip!

Cool VW!

I left my car with my mechanic for the day yesterday - the only possible problem that it had was a chance that it had oil pressure issues... Thankfully after some tests my pressure is 40psi, with the minimum being 28, so I'm happy :)

This is a car which he had in his workshop, its very cool and I want one for summer!!
(Dune buggy style beetle, the floor pan was cut down 4.5 inches, and full fibre glass body and everything else stuck on top)

Lane did however show that he gets up to mischief when I leave him with my car!

Suffolk & trip home

I'm feeling a bit jet-lagged today, so I'm not going to write much, mainly pics...
So I got to Suffolk, where my Dad's sister Trish & her husband Peter have got 2 daughters, and they have 5 kids between them...
This is Josh, 9 yrs old and apparently good at any sport he tries - I was very impressed with his Tennis!

While Josh had some tennis training, we went for a walk around Southwold.
It was pretty windy!
These wee beach huts sell for over 80,000 pounds! Pic of Megan, Clare's daughter


That afternoon we played some Wii - Peter nearly took out the TV playing bowling - Trish was scared...

Church at Brandeston, where Trish & Pete live

Family gathering - Jo & Clare's kids

Jo with Harry, Katie & Tom

Tom can eat, like his God Father!!

(except not today... I think it's because I'm jet lagged...)

We had a bomb fire & fireworks that night, several ninja worriers appeared out of the night...

Jo, Katie, Tom and me

Harry & me

Clare with a cool old building!

The day I left, Grandad & I went to Oxford, to see Hugo (cousin) play Rugby.

His team played well, making much fewer mistakes than the opposition... but they were all much bigger and unfortunately won :(

I had 8 hours in Sydney on the way home, I took the train into the city and had a walk round

After about 4 hours I was really tired though, so went back to the air conditioned comfort of the airport! I had a close encounter with a new A380 though which was pretty cool!

So there you have it, that is/was my holiday.
I had an AWESOME time, but today I really do just feel knackered!
I tried to go to work today, but I've come home early cause I'm just exhausted...

Scotland pt 3 - trip south

This is the Corran Ferry which is the fastest way to get to Dad's (or from Dad's, which is what I was using it for as I was on my way south). It runs back and forth across a small gap in the Loch, have a look at what its doing now! (keep in mind the time difference if you are in NZ!)
Rainbow from the train, just before Spean Bridge (which is the closest stop to where I used to live)

Part of the train trip, though the middle of nowhere, and the second part is round the 'Horse Shoe' which is a nice bit of track - you go over several bridges, and the sheep always run away from the train as it goes over - you'd thought they would have realised by now that its not going to hurt them!

There are several relict building on Ranoch moor

On the plane down to Luton, it was a clear night. Flying over Leeds I could see heaps of fireworks out the window! (hard to see in the video but you can see them!) They were going off all over the place, but from the plane it looked like they weren't going over high at all!

Scotland pt 2 - the highlands

After driving up with Sarah, Anna and Bret, I spent the first few days staying at Sarah's parents place. They've got an AWESOME B&B with a great view of the Ben, and Heather is a great cook too! Thanks so much guys!


We had a few nice sunrises there!

The Commando Memorial is just up the road - it's there as the Commando's used to train in the area during WW II

This is the view from the house I lived in when we had the fish farm (you can see Ben Nevis in the background on the right)

And this is where our jetty used to be - but its gone now...

This is the same view as the picture that's in my room! (for those who have been into my inner sanctum...) You'll notice that the lighting isn't very good in lots of these photos - that's because it's winter and the sun hardly rose more than a third into the sky!

This is the Kaig Falls in Achnacarry (the estate where the fish farm was)




They shot a few scenes from Rob Roy here - great movie - MUCH better than Brave Heart!






Sarah and I went for a walk up the hills behind

And this was the view from the top!

It's called the Two Tree's, after the two Mountain Ash trees at the top.
(notice the height of the sun - this was at about 1 in the afternoon!)



That evening, there was a great sunset. This is 30 mins of it squashed into 20 seconds:

This first star over Ben Nevis (although its probably actually Venus!)

You can see the moon that's in the video here, along with Ben Nevis, and Anoach Mor to the left (where the ski field is)


The next day, Anna, Sarah and I went up to the ski field for a trip out.

It has the first Gondola that was built in the UK, and is also now world famous for the down hill mountain bike tracks which are used for the UCI Mountainbike World Cup every year.
There was lots of snow about...

But the ski lifts weren't working...

We had the obligatory Hot Chocolate and Macaroni Cheese with chips at the cafe at the top!

This is a vid of the trip up there, with a song which we had listened to lots as we got drunk on Halloween night - sort of the anthem to that part of the holiday! (it probably won't interest you much unless you are Anna or Sarah, but I've shortened it for everyone else!)

The next day I got my hire car and headed out to Strontien - the place where Dad lives now.
One last view of the Ben on the way - I had awesome weather!

Dad and I went for a fishing trip on the first day

And caught some Mackerel! (only 3, but they tasted good!)

The next day we went to Skye. We tried to get the ferry there, but it was full unfortunately, so we had to drive all the way round!
This did mean we got to see the Glenfinnan Viaduct though (yes - its the one in Harry Potter)

And we had to drive back through Fort William to get there. This is what the fires from the night before do to the suburbs in the morning!

This is the Skye Bridge. It was built high enough for the Royal Britannia to get underneath, so it's quite high!

On Skye we found a beautiful derelict church with a grave yard, and several (very) old Yew Trees.


Nice view of Skye - it was yet another awesome day weather wise!

Me with The Cullins behind (famous mountains on Skye)

We went for a walk up a hill. You can see my hire car slightly to the left of centre, and the ridges in the fields are where people used to grow potatoes - they grew them on the ridges so they didn't rot in the peat!

We saw two stags at the top! Unfortunately they didn't stick around...

And even though I chased them - by the time I had cleared a few false summits after them they were a good 1.5 k's away I'd guess - which is pretty cool though cause it looks like I took the pic from a helicopter like in Planet Earth!

Dad and I at the top, with the Cullins behind

View from the top (the deer ran to the hill side which is on the right of the picture, to give you an idea of how far they were once I spotted them again!)





Getting dark driving home - the Skye Bridge to the right
The Corran Ferry on the way back to Dad's that night - we were the only passengers!

Needless to say, I have about 200 photo's from that part of the trip! But I didn't think you would like to see all of them as it would take about about 5 hours!! :P

Next - Down to Suffolk to see my family there...