Swim at the beach

I took the dogs down to Petone beach today, Jake was being a water baby as usual, and Fenn is actually getting quite brave!
She's well past her tummy there, what a brave wee doggie!
She changed her mind then though, it must have been a bit cold for her!
Jake looking very regal with his stick

This is what a bad photo looks like if you are a dog!! CUTE!!

Went again today, she's definitely getting much braver and much wetter!












There's nothing like drying out in the sun after :)

Toast is toast

I should have realised that agreeing to let Andy name my car Toast a few weeks ago wasn’t a good idea, and now Toast is, well toast!

Short version: I crashed and wrote it off…

Long version: I was driving back home from Gav’s at about 10.30pm, down the Nauranga Gorge, and driving off the slip lane on the left to take SH2 to Petone. It had been raining earlier but the road wasn’t overly wet and perfect visibility.

I was just driving under the rail bridge just before the slip lane and something fell off the bridge and hit the centre of my windscreen! It hit pretty hard and to start with I actually thought it was a bird or something, although I quickly realised it was a lump of slushy icy stuff and cleared it with my wipers.

By then I was pretty much on the corner, and saw that the road was covered in something – this something turned out to be hail! I’m sure you can guess how it went from there – first the car started slowly spinning round to the right (with the corner) then I compensated and then the car started spinning to the left, and I hit the concrete barrier. It was a pretty big smack…
There was a guy who was about 200m behind me and saw me impact and slowed down as he realised there must be something on the road. He didn’t crash cause he’d slowed down, and gave me his card in case I needed someone to vouch for the really freak road conditions – The hail was only on the road on that corner and nowhere else, it was very odd…

When Gav came down to help me out, he described it as being like there had been a stream wash out lots of gravel on the road – that’s how much hail there was!

While waiting for the tow truck to come, I went and symbolically picked up my VW badge off the road, very sad :(

So here it is now, State has written it off…

Lane decided it would be funny to write on the bumper, such a funny guy… not…
This isn’t the end though!

Even though the car was written off by State, the car still drives really well, all of the damage seems to be cosmetic (apart from the power-steering lines but they were on their way out anyway!) and the Chassis damage appears to only be on the part which holds the bumper… So we are going to get it onto a proper chassis machine and get it checked out by the pro's, IT’S NOT OVER YET!!

Oh, I just realised I didn't say that don't worry - I'm ok! My back and neck are a bit sore, but I've been to get some Physio and have some exercises to help me heal. The worst thing I did was strain my hamstring which had been getting worse as I've been riding my bike lots due to not having a car - thankfully with some aid from a compression bandage I think that is also well on the way to getting better now (I had the accident over a week ago) and I even rode my bike today and it didn't hurt (don't tell my physio people though!)

Time to modify my bike

How to modify your Hyosung GT250R break lever...

The time had long past to make some modifications to my bike. As you can see from the pain in my face, the high angle of my break lever has been giving my hand cramps since I got the bike, poor me!! Gav and I adjusted the other side (the clutch) a few weeks ago, but because of the break fluid reservoir on the right side, modifications were required!

First we had to get to the part, so we removed a few bits of metal to get it off...

You can see the section of aluminium which we had to remove so that the break fluid reservoir could slide round to the right angle...

Then Gav cut off and filled down the rouge bit of metal (I did help!)

As you can see it looks pretty neat and tidy too...

And there you have it, now the lever can be angled down so that my fingers don't need to strain to use the break, LOVE IT :D

(If you can't see the difference have a glance at the first pic again!)

Thanks for helping Gav, you are a star :D
(a G-Star even)

Trip to Mana Island

Yesterday we went on a field trip (with over night stay - woop) to Mana Island. Mana is totally rodent and pest (animal) free. Rats have never even made it there and it's a pretty special place. Best known for loads of species of reptiles, Giant Weta and the Takahe, Mana also has several sea bird species nesting on it (ie Petrels etc) and are aiming to restore the ecosystem by restoring the natural nutrient cycles which the seabirds create (ie bird shit)

To get to Mana its a half hour boat trip, we saw a seal but no pics sorry, it only looked like a log in the water anyway!

The Shore Plover's welcome you to Mana, there are only around 200 left on the planet and 17 of them live here, very cool :) This one is either a female or a youngan... the guys have red bills

Just after we arrived, a helicopter dropped off a new water tank and quad bike, and took away the old one - apparently it's destined for the institution that is Trade Me

You can't go to Mana Island without seeing, and of course taking millions of photos of, the Takahe. 20% of the worlds population now live on Mana (less one, cough cough) and they are pretty much everywhere you go. Their shit, however, IS everywhere you go!

This is a bit of a before and after shot, the new wetland looks pretty, but according to Murray he would have done it differently! (if you are interested one big lagoon would suite the teal better)
(for a reference point look for the roofs of the 2 houses to the left of the first pic)


If you want cute, there is no way you can go past the Brown Teal, they are SOOO CUTE!!!
JUST LOOK AT THEM!!!!!
Ok I'm done, but they are pretty cute... you have to admit it!
The male is slightly darker, more handsome and has the duck version of dimples (so I'm told) - white thighs. Males are SO much cooler than females, and I can say that cause it's my blog :)

Mmmm that Peanut Slab was good, thanks Sascha ;)

Yellow-crowned Parakeet's (Kakariki) loved the flaxes up on top of the island, this one struck two poses for me, very Zoolander.

Geckos shed their skins all at once, we found lots of these!

Common geckos are pretty, well, common on Mana Island! We probably saw well over 200 over the day! We even found some gecko on gecko action, although unfortunately the action Sascha and Amelia found was actually cannibalism... not so hot but equally interesting! Here is what was left once we'd scared off Hanibal:

Very Dinosaur-like pose!

Talking about Dinosaurs, the Giant Weta were pretty cool - and giant too!

This one is a female - you can see her ovipositer on her tail which she uses to lay her eggs

A few Views from the top of the island - above the South Coast of Welly, below the Marlborough Sounds
Once it was dark we went back up the hill to see the Diving Petrels. The second pic is me holding one, and in the video you can hear them calling back to us from their burrow - the male has the constant call and his fish-wife sounds a bit like Anne from Little Briton (Ehh ehh ehhhhhhh)

There was even a great sunrise this morning as our boat launched into the water, what an awesome 24 hours!

Weekend at the bach

I've just got back from a weekend away with Gav, Andy, Nev & Jason. We went up to Waitarere Beach for the weekend and stayed at a friends bach. Such a flash place! We has awesome views onto the back dunes with the sea beyond, and a great fire and lots of movies to watch too :)

Click here for a webcam of the beach!

View from bed, the sound of the sea was so good!

Gav, Andy and me. For those who are wondering, Andy is 'cute and foreign', and is also good at the tank game on Wii!

3 horses but only one hoof on the sand!

This is an old ship called the Hydrabad, it used to look like this:

Now it looks like this! After loosing sails and a hope of escape from the coast, it was foundered on the beach in 1878, no one died in the incident but the ship could never be refloated and has been slowly absorbed by the dunes ever since.
On Sunday I took the opportunity to do some sampling for my thesis. Thanks Andy and Matt for helping out :)

The cow was a bit shocked that we wanted to drive were she was standing!

It was windy but not that cold, and thankfully the waders don't leak!

If you look at the colour of the Raupo (ie it looks a bit dead!) you can see why I got a bit freaked out when I got there - the whole 5km square ish of wetland is covered in dead looking Raupo... I thought that DoC had sprayed the whole lot and killed it or something cause it looked so bad! Thankfully I am only naive, and its actually just winter die-back! (I knew that it did die back, just not that much!) Even so its looking less and less likely that I will do my thesis here now, as DoC seem to add an extra barrier to the project every time we talk to them... We'll see, fingers crossed!

After taking the samples we added ethanol to 'fix' (kill) everything I collected :)