First two weeks in our new home

Our six chooks (hens for international readers) arrived today making us start to feel truly part of the village. Hopefully after a week or two in their coop, our chooks can wander round like the other free-ranging chooks in the street. Hopefully they will survive the attentions of our two dogs, who seem very keen to investigate the new occupants further. I doubt they would, so we will have to keep the dogs under firm control.

We've also joined the local canoe club - or at least Chris and James are members and we go along with our own kayaks and just have a "play" and swim in the river while the boys do a more a serious paddle several kilometres down the river.

I (Bronwen) have even managed to get myself out of bed by 5:45 am three times a week to get down to the local sports oval for a fairly rigorous exercise session with a group of people from the local area. It's been fun and hopefully will be having positive effect on my general health.

Work has started again for both Rob and me, so we are getting used to working in the same office and on some of the same projects.

Weather has been really warm, but cools down in the evenings so is quite comfortable at night. Today was our first rainy day and was pleasantly cool - made it easier for Rob to work down at the farm, although it was getting a bit slippery on some of those steeper slopes while he was slashing grass.

Photos to follow...

On the move again

January 2009

Just in case you haven't caught up with the news, we are up in Dunoon, NSW for a 6 month work contract with the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme. Rob will be project manager for ADAS, while I continue to work in my consulting role to ADAS - means we might be working together some of the time!

We arrived in Dunoon late on 3rd January. We moved out of our house in Glen Waverley on 1st January and drove up in 2 cars to Dunoon after spending a really pleasant New Year's Day with wonderful friends in Castlemaine, and with family in Gisborne. Left on 2nd January for the two day drive - nearly 1700 km - the length of New Zealand - roads are straighter though! Except when you take a wrong turn - ask Rob about that one. Furniture trailers on dirt roads are not a good mix - glad I had the computers in my car after seeing the dust on some of the boxes!

We are nearly settled in and now have internet and phone working. New phone number is 02 66895659 (international +61 2 6689 5659).

Much hotter than Melbourne here - first purchase was a portable air conditioning unit and 4 fans.

We're settling in fast and will be ready for visitors very soon, so start booking in! House is not huge, so can only accommodate one set of visitors at a time, so we'll have to set up a booking calendar! Look forward to seeing you here!

Regards to all,
Bronwen

New Zealand x 2

Two separate NZ trips this year - Bronwen and kids at Easter and Rob in December

December 2008

Hi all, well it’s happening again, the travel bug has hit, actually I’m not sure that it ever really left. It didn’t take long after we got back from Europe (in fact the concept was hatched while in Singapore on the way home). The plan was to go to New Zealand and finish a climb that I had tried many years ago, Mt Aspiring, but had been unable to complete because of bad weather.

The team was put together the week after we got home and a picture of the mountain has sat on my screen saver at work since February this year. (Helped me get through that which I do between holidays)

This NZ trip has been split into three sections, climbing, fishing and family, basically a week of each.

The first week kicked off with catching up with my sister and brother in-law Claire and Darryl and nephew Allan and niece Rhianna (who I had yet to meet). They helped me get my gear together with Allan trying out everything including ice axe and crampons, looking quite the part!

Once Colin and Martin arrive from Singapore and Melbourne respectively we were off to Wanaka with the objective of getting into the mountains as quickly as we could to make the most of the weather for the coming week. With a major front moving across the mountains in a couple of days we knew that that could mean another week of no climbing and no summit! Fortunately our travel day was fantastic and we were not only able to get to Wanaka (6hrs drive) but jump on a helicopter up to and walk across the Bonar glacier and make ourselves at home in Colin Todd Hut by 9pm that night, quite an effort. Well to cut what could be a very long story short we reached the summit of Mt Aspiring after three attempts, two of which were cut short by weather or snow conditions. Our summit day was absolutely magnificent and all three of us enjoyed the magnificent pyramid summit of Mt Aspiring with its sheer drops to the glaciers below. A long but beautiful two day walk down from the glacier saw us safely back in the Matukituki valley.

The next day saw us at the Christchurch airport with me waving goodbye to Martin and Colin and at the same time welcoming my fishing partner Graeme from Melbourne. Off we set to the rivers and lakes of Arthurs Pass for those monster NZ trout. Fly fishing is one of my other passions and has also taken me to some magnificent places. This trip was no different. While the weather wasn’t very kind to us (lot of rain and muddy rivers) we still got some great fishing in. The highlight for me was no doubt landing this brown trout in the Matiri River near Murchison. This area offered a heap of rivers for us to fish and we ended up setting up camp for several days.

On the way out we treated ourselves to a night at the resort at Maruia Springs. Quite a Japanese experience complete with kimonos and Japanese bathhouse. This was topped off by the chef preparing the trout I had caught for us. Three courses for two out of one fish, all delicious!!!

The last week saw me spend some time with Bronwen’s family in Nelson in the lead up to Christmas. Again a fantastic opportunity to catch up with my nieces who I don’t make the opportunity to see anywhere near enough, something to change in the future…

All in all a rather action packed 20 days and all emerging from a brief, non committal discussion on the verandah of Colin and Cathy's place in Singapore,. What a wonderful thing dreams are, especially when you make them happen!!!

March 2008
Bronwen, Chris, James, Liam and Breanna all headed back to NZ for a family reunion at Easter. Fantastic to see the whole family together, even the UK branch!