Life in the Land of the Long White Cloud

An Oscar for Bret McKenzie

2012-02-27T17:46:00.006+13:00

Bret McKenzie, who with his sidekick on Flight of Conchords, has done so much to put New Zealand - not to mention consular work - on the map, has won an Oscar. He also gave a very relaxed and unpretentious acceptance speech. He won for his original song, "Man or Muppet," for the new Muppet movie.

Bret McKenzie's duet with his idol.

McKenzie talked about how he grew up in New Zealand watching "The Muppets." He said he was star-struck when he first met Kermit the Frog but, once he got to know him, soon realized that he was just a normal frog. He also said that, like many people on hand at the Kodak Theatre for the Oscars, Kermit was a lot shorter in person.

I've always thought "Flight of the Conchords" was a lot better than it was given credit for in the United States; perhaps it struggled because it was in the musical genre. Still, now that I've been in New Zealand for a while, the humor the show portrays is a wonderful and gently poking portrayal of life in this country. The humor, so understated that it can sometimes be missed, is really spot on.

Many New Zealanders were thrilled with McKenzie's honor. There were lots of excited phone calls and proud social media updates. It really couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

McKenzie is not the first Kiwi to win an Oscar. Peter Jackson won the Best Director and Best Picture award in 2003, and Anna Paquin won a Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Piano in 1993. There have also been awards for makeup, adapted screenplay and original writing. And Russel Crowe, who was born in New Zealand, won the Best Actor Oscars for his role in Gladiator in 2000 - not that many New Zealanders would claim him.

In a nice, Conchord-type touch, McKenzie had only one competitor for the statue, so he always had a 50-50 chance. Still, nothing could take away from people's excitement here.

Welly doesn't do doldrums for long

2012-02-26T18:31:00.012+13:00

There have been many days in Wellington when I begged for the wind to go away. Today was not that day. When I wanted wind, I got flaccid. Pretty as it was, it was not ideal for a sailing lesson. Still, we headed out into the mirror-flat harbor, our sails grasping for any hint of gust. (Slight seas is the technical term, because I'm all about talking Sailor now.) Instead of leaning dramatically over the hull against a tipping boat - the sailing of my imagination - we had knot-tying lessons. Important, I'm sure, but classroom stuff.

While our instructor told us that, after Antarctica, Wellington was the second-windiest place on earth, it sounded even more of a stretch today than it usually would. At least we didn't have to scale the mast today; that would be a little more sailing class than I wanted.

Still, as they say about fishing, a bad day on a sailing boat is better than any day at the office. Now, at least, I know how to tie five knots.

This being Wellington, though, the wind just didn't know how to stay away for long. Soon it had kicked up to 15 knots and a good sail was on. We learned how to gybe, turning with the wind behind us. The harbor does present the best view of Wellington; she's good as a backdrop. Even though this is just a training class, the competitive juices soon kicked in and we found ourselves racing our classmates on the other boat. A little knowledge, as they say, is a dangerous thing. We are constantly reminded of our amateur status by the fact that, while our instructors told us we didn't have to wear flotation devices, they most certainly did. ("We don't trust you guys yet," we were told.)

Another little trick of the trade we were taught today had to do with tell tales. These are little pieces of wool known as woolies that are attached to the sails. When you learn to read them correctly, they will tell you if you are using the wind properly. The fact that our instructor made it sound like we were watching "the willies" and the strips of wool look like little sperm made this a bit of a giggle exercise for me. When the woolies on both side of the sail are horizontal and look like sperm with a purpose, that means you are getting the right amount of wind on both sides of the sail. That's when you're making the wind work for you. Every little sperm, as Monty Python would say, is sacred.

After another wonderful day of sailing was over our instructors took us out for a beer at the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club. They did at least take their life-jackets off for this. Perhaps that meant we'd made some progress.

The Sea Shepherd comes calling

2012-02-25T07:19:00.001+13:00

Sea Shepherd's MY Bob Barker, one of the stars of "Whale Wars," was in Wellington last week, bearing an intimidating new coat of paint and raising funds.

The three Sea Shepherd ships have been carrying out a long-running and high profile campaign against Japanese whaling. Last year, trying to interfere with a Japanese whaling boat, the Bob Barker was involved in a collision, causing a large gash to the boat.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was founded in 1977 under the name Earth Force Society.

Picture from The Taranaki Daily News.

Speaking of protestors, Kiwi Actress Lucy Lawless - otherwise known as Xena - has been making a bit of a nuisance of herself recently. Or, as the Taranaki Daily News put it, she's evolved from warrior princess to eco-warrior.

Lawless was part of a group of seven Greenpeace activists who boarded the drill ship, Noble Discoverer, at Port Taranaki and scaled a 53-metre drilling derrick, unfurling banners.

The Noble Discoverer was due to depart on a 6,000 nautical mile journey to drill three exploratory oil wells in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska.

Those plans, obviously, changed with the protestors suddenly on board. Apparently they're still there.

The patterns of earthquakes

2012-02-24T19:08:00.001+13:00

The new hope gently taking shape in Christchurch is that the aftershocks continuously rumbling the city are getting less violent and heading inexorably north and east. Away from the city and out to sea.

The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has put together a pretty interesting infographic about the Christchurch earthquake in particular and the history of earthquakes in New Zealand in general. This shows how the more than 10,000 aftershocks since the first, 7.1 quake in September 2010, are patterned. I'm no scientist, but this does indeed seem to show that there has been a trend of movement.

The 7.1 September quake was west of the city, near Darfield. The February 22 quake - dubbed the Lyttelton quake - was virtually right under the city and, at a depth of just 5 kilometers, very shallow. This quake was so strong it generated its own series of aftershocks. Since then the big ones have been moving east, and all the recent earthquakes above 5.0 have been in Pegasus Bay.

Of course none of this really means anything, as seismologists freely admit. Progress for them is learning more about how little they know and how limited their predictive skills really are. Until then, placing flowers in cones may be the best way for Cantabrians making the best of a bad - but improving - situation.

That's what you call a bad landing

2012-02-23T17:28:00.003+13:00

Wellington Airport is built on land that was lifted out of the ocean in the 1855 earthquake. (Coincidentally, my morning started when I was shaken awake by an earthquake in Christchurch.) It has water on both ends, hills on both sides and, even on a calm day, acts as the perfect wind tunnel. As you know, Windy Welly doesn't have many calm days.

Adding to the general discomfort, the runway is also short and only for the smaller jets. One 747 that had to make an emergency landing here a few years back had to be crated up and shipped over to Australia. Approaching aircraft fly hard by houses on the hills.

Yeah, it's a scary kind of airport.

To be fair, though, while I've picked up many ashen-faced passengers, I've not really had that many problems landing in Wellington. Well, by the sheer law of averages, today was my time.

Damn. The wind was howling in off the Cook Strait, with gusts so strong they nearly knocked Amy over when she was crossing the street - and, no, I'm not calling her fat. As we started our initial approach and saw the white-capped cauldron of the Strait we knew we were in for a rough one. The wing dipped dramatically first one way then the other, the engine howled as if trying to catch up. Nervous glances were exchanged.

Adding to the general terror was the fact that the flight from Christchurch is so short there is no alcoholic beverage service. Yes, it was that kind of bad.

We were tossed about by angry gusts, not just bumped by your average turbulence. Still, the pilot controlled everything marvelously and landed as best he could. There was no applause. This is New Zealand, after all.

But when the flight attendant said over the PA, "That landing deserves a DB (a beer made in New Zealand)," everyone laughed loudly in relief.

I believe more than a few of the passengers took her up on her suggestion. Then again, maybe she was talking to the pilot.

A hard but hopeful day

2012-02-22T16:48:00.018+13:00

A military band played in the early morning in front of where the CTV building used to be. One hundred and fifteen souls died there on February 22, 2011.

Christchurch remembered her dead today, but also took another step on the journey towards becoming a new city.

It was a heavy day for Cantabrians, as they cast their mind back to the day that changed everything for them. There were many tears and emotional embraces. Many thousands filled Hagley Park in yet another show of unity in a community that at times felt as if it had nothing but itself to cling to. But there were also uplifting songs and messages from citizens of Christchurch who reminded everyone what it was they love about their city and of their dreams for a stronger future.

On an emotional day that began with a service as the sun rose, Christchurch struck a delicate balance, as Prime Minister John Key said, of looking backwards respectfully and forward hopefully. The name of every one of the 185 victims was read out. Monarch butterflies - one for each of the lost souls - were released. There were also songs about rising up and rebuilding. One hundred and forty heroes - from the people who ran into the collapsed and collapsing buildings to the urban search and rescue teams - were honored.

And flowers. There were flowers everywhere. Borne to the most deadly sites by family members of the victims, or in front of the stage in Hagley Park, or placed in thousands of traffic cones around the city or floating down the Avon River. Their sweet scent was in the air, replacing the heavy smell of dust and flames and death of a year ago.

At 12:51 the whole of Christchurch, it seemed, held her breath - and remembered. There can be no more powerful sound than the silence of a city. For two minutes everyone in Hagley Park and at every commercial establishment in the city paused. The silence was a powerful reminder of the vacuum left by the earthquake, but also of the power of what people can do when they come together and decide to act as one.

It was a potent symbol of the city's resolve and of the nation's unity, for the two minutes were observed all around New Zealand.

The official day began early and finished late for Cantabrians. The first service was held in Latimer Square, across the street from the CTV building, which has been called Christchurch's ground zero. It was also the square the international search and rescue teams used as a base in the dreadful aftermath of the quake. Speaking to one member of the U.S. team, it was apparent how difficult it was for him to come back to this place. His time in New Zealand, the camaraderie and the single-mindedness of the first responders, had made a profound impression on him, as had the utterly changed center of Christchurch today. He simply did not recognize it.

While the city as a whole paused for the commemorations, the work of cleaning up after the earthquake did not stop. Just minutes after the end of the civic service, work crews were back at the task of knocking damaged buildings down, of completing the devastation begun a year ago by nature's foul hand.

People around me gasped when the butterflies were released. It was such a touching, powerful gesture - even if not all of the Monarchs soared into the sky. Hearing the beautiful music of the day wash over me, and seeing the talented children of Christchurch and looking out over a sea of red-and-black clad Cantabrians allowed me to put my own dreadful memories of February 22, 2011, if not behind me, then at least in context. Christchurch has been dealt many powerful blows, her people were sent reeling, but the magnificent spirit so powerfully on display that day, remains strong. Christchurch will rise again.

Remembering the Unfound

2012-02-21T21:34:00.011+13:00

Photo by The Christchurch Press.

One year ago today, when Christchurch was still whole, there was no hint of the catclysm to come. Everybody was going about their business innocently. Christchurch was still known as the Garden City - and not referred to with a sigh and a shake of the head - and was gearing up for a big flower festival.

This evening, with everything changed, a small group gathered to remember four of the victims whose bodies were never identified - the unfound. Family members of many of the victims were there. The ceremony at Avonhead Park Cemetery was short and respectful. A plinth was unveiled. It stands amid a round garden blooming perfectly. It states that the memory of the unfound dead will never be forgotten by Christchurch.

It had been raining solidly for two hours before the ceremony began, but by the time the prime minister and the Governor General had arrived the rains had ceased and God Rays came down from above. The flowers of the Garden City brightened. It was a solemn, but meaningful dedication, the first in a series of commemorations of a grim year. When 12-year-old Taylor Loche sang "Amazing Grace," though, many began to weep, for Christchurch is still a city whose emotions run close to the surface.

The remains of the four unidentified earthquake victims had been laid to rest at Avonhead Park Cemetery in a communal grave in a single casket earlier in the day.

Shawn Lucas, 40, of Christchurch, Rhea Mae Sumalpong, 25, Philippines, Elsa Torres De Frood, 53, Peru, and Valeri Volnov, 41, a Russian-born New Zealand resident, were all killed in the CTV building collapse that killed a total of 115 people.

The plinth reads "Etched in our City's memory, never to be forgotten. The City of Christchurch." The words are written in English, Filipino, Maori, Russian, Spanish and Braille - highlighting the international scope of Christchurch's disaster.

The family members did not wish photos to be taken of the ceremony. So I can only tell you how beautiful the little circle that will be forever tied to February 22 is. It is a peaceful spot in a place untroubled by liquefaction. (Bones in some of Christchurch's other cemeteries have been forced to the surface by recent earthquakes.)

For me, it was impossible not to think back to that awful day. When I closed my eyes during the prayers I could feel again the violence of the earth and hear the noise of the twisting metal from AMI stadium where I sat. The sirens and the screams came to me too. It all came rushing back, the rumblings of the aftershocks, the rubble, the dead and the injured, the vile goo springing from the earth, the buckled roads. And, of course, the horror of not knowing where my wife was, of realizing only that the last place she had been was covered in the miasmic dust cloud that rose from the Central Business District of Christchurch as I watched from my perch high up in the AMI Stadium.

We were reunited, of course, and left Christchurch. But Christchurch never really left us. We did not lose a loved one or a home, but life has nonetheless never been the same. Tomorrow will be a hard day for many Cantabrians. I will be attending five services and paying my respects to the city that was while dreaming of the city to come; the city these wonderful people will make.

Amy and I were talking the other night. No matter where we end up, she said, we will always be bonded to Christchurch and to her people who showed such grace and strength in the immediate aftermath of February 22.

And that is the truth. Today, all along side streets and around the Red Zone, traffic cones have been decorated with flowers. It is such a simple and powerful and hopeful thing. It was the only thing that made me smile today.

What goes around comes around

2012-02-20T14:38:00.009+13:00

Kiwis have a long and well-documented respect for paperwork. More than a century ago Rudyard Kipling said New Zealand had "more machinery for running their little handful of people than we [the British] have for the whole of the 300 million people of India."

Kiwis are also a trusting lot.

These twin traits created a bit of an embarrassing situation for me recently. My lovely wife presented me with a gift certificate for sailing lessons as a Christmas present. All I had to do, she said, was to make the arrangements for myself.

Turns out the laugh was on me.

So, when I called up to book my place in the four weekend-long course I gave the guy my name. Naturally I also told him I had a gift certificate, which had pictures of sailing boats and everything on it. I could hear a bit of a shuffling of paper over the line.

"Was it signed by Nick?"

I freely admit to being a bit grouchy that morning due to a severe lack of caffeine.

"I don't know who signed it," I said, implying he shouldn't be asking such questions. "It was a present from my wife."

"Oh, OK." Another hassled silence followed.

"Is there a problem?" I said, a little pompously.

"No, no worries, Mr. Pratt, you're all signed up."

Excellent. I'll start reading Patrick O'Brian books to begin the long journey to becoming a man of the sea.

I went home and told my wife that I was all set.

"Cool," she said. "How did you pay?"

"Well I didn't," I said, looking at her quizzically. "I told him all about my gift certificate."

Amy looked at me oddly. Then she smiled.

"I just designed that thing on the computer so you'd have something to open on Christmas Day," she said.

"But it had pictures of sailing boats on it," I said.

"Yes, that's called clip art," Amy said, as if talking to a youngster who had just discovered that Santa Claus was fake.

Even if it wasn't free, it was a very cool sailing lesson.

"Hmmm, that's a little embarrassing," I said. "I may have been a bit rude to the guy."

"Well, I'm sure they'll discover their mistake," Amy said.

But e-mails confirming my enrollment and attendance time kept coming. So I showed up over the weekend, expecting to be presented with a bill. But, no, I just sat down in my seat, listened to the lessons and then had a wonderful afternoon sailing in Wellington Harbor.

"How did you pay?" Amy asked me again after I was finished telling her what a grand time I'd had.

"Oh dear," I said, now feeling a bit shameful. "I'm afraid I totally forgot to bring up the subject."

So we crept into the offices of the Sailing Academy rather sheepishly today to explain the misunderstanding and tell them about my gift certificate.

They were delighted to take our money.

"Wait a minute," I said when they announced the grand total. "My gift certificate says I get a 40 percent discount."

They laughed. A little bit.

The thing about being trusting is that you always assume the best in your fellow man. Nine times out of ten that is a self-affirming circle that makes living in New Zealand so pleasant. People usually do do the right thing. This assures bundles and bundles of good karma.

So, my apologies. But it really was a very convincing gift certificate.

If you can sail in Welly ...

2012-02-19T17:24:00.016+13:00

The fact that Wellington is known as "Windy Welly" took on special significance for me today, the day of my first sailing lesson at Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club. As the instructor said, telling other boaties that you learned to sail in Wellington carries with it a certain panache. I like panache; it makes me swagger.

It was a moody sort of day, a day that threatened to do whatever it wanted. Nor was it the best marketing approach for the instructors to leave a brochure entitled "Hypothermia" on the top of the stack of reading material for us. The woman in the picture is decidedly blue and looks as if she is about to depart this mortal coil. Gusts of 35 knots, which is a lot more than it sounds when you're in a boat, were called for. Not by me, you understand, but by the forecasters. That did not add to the general joy.

But Gordon, our instructor, had that certain Kiwi calm about him. When he told us that our Keelboat, a Muir 8.2, can't really capsize it settled the nerves of a few of us newbies. No one asked what he meant by "really." A fake capsize could be as unpleasant as a real one to my way of thinking. But I let it pass.
First up was a quick tutorial in the new vocabulary we'd be dealing with. The importance of this became obvious when we were out on the water and Gordon said, "Adrian you're the lazy sheet." I could easily have taken offense, as I thought I was working quite hard. But yachtsman, whose ranks I'm hoping to join, talk differently. One of the crew positions is known as the keyboard, right. But there's a whole slew of new and quite Dickensian-sounding terminology that gets bandied about: Barber haulers, tweakers, cringle, bouse, windlass, pushpit and kicking strap, to name but a few.

Soon enough we were out of the classroom, in our wet weather gear and onto the water, which is where we wanted to be. To begin we went on a "boat envy tour," whereby we putted around the marina learning to park our 27-foot in whatever open berths (see how I'm learning the lingo?) that we could find. We were slipping past million-dollar boats and, being newbies, perfectly capable of ramming into one. Wasn't our boat after all. None of us used our inexperience for a cheap shot at the 1 percent, though.

So it was out to the open seas, well at least Wellington Harbor. My first job was to raise the main sail. I did so with pirate songs in my head. When the sail was up and filled with wind, we cut the motor and, by God, we were sailing. The boat came alive, bowing to the wind and making the water sing in a most calming way. Sailing around Wellington Harbor is a thing of splendor. The city shows her best side, and to be a part of her nature was marvelous.

Being on the water revived long-buried dreams of owning a sailing vessel. Not even our instructor's reality check - "a boat owner's two happiest days are when he buys his boat and when he sells it" - could dampen thoughts of life on a boat. When he started comparing boat ownership to years of taking a cold shower and stuffing hundred dollar bills down the drain, though, I began to take his point. I decided to just live in the beauty of the moment.

And beautiful it was. Phones were switched off. There was nothing out there but the wind and water and the sweet concert of the waves on the hull and the mainstays strumming on the breeze. This is a four-week course that should make me somewhat competent in an enterprise I haven't taken part in since I was a teen-ager on Loch Ard in Scotland. It was good to feel a part of the water that so graces Wellington.

Thank you, Amy, for a great Christmas present.

That's just not cricket, mate

2012-02-18T09:53:00.016+13:00

Twenty20 Cricket is a sort of gateway drug to real cricket for people with short attention spans.

While normal international matches last five days, in the 20 over slogfest each team receives just 120 deliveries (that'd be pitches for you baseball fans). What ensues is something resembling sporting pornography to cricket puritans - if such creatures still exist. The batsman basically throw defense to the wind and just come out slugging. Swinging for the fences.

Last night the New Zealand Black Caps were playing the South Africa Proteas (as opposed to Anti-teas?). There's a large South African ex-pat community in Wellington, sometimes referred to as the capital of South Africa, and the crowd was into the game. At a traditional test match - long white trousers, cucumber sandwiches and restrained dignity - the occasional raucous clapping might be heard. A Twenty20 match is all loud music, the Mexican wave, huge roars and derisive jeers. It's just not cricket.

It was a glorious night for cricket in Wellington and, no, that's not an oxymoron. The match was held at Westpac Stadium, known affectionatly as the Cake Tin. It's a small ground for cricket, meaning it's easier to hit sixes - the baseball equivalent of a home run. Last night one of the balls hit the roof of the stadium, never to be seen again.

Now, as an aside, I have absolutely no idea what was going on here. I do not know why this guy was wearing fishnet stockings. I do not know why he's upside down or why his friend seems to be trying to shove a bottle of beer into his nether regions. I only know that he was like this for quite a while and when he stood up he received a large roar of approval. I assume drinking was involved.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, the cricket. While this shortened version of the game is very exciting, there's still plenty of time for the batsmen to have mini conferences at random times. I don't know what they talk about. Perhaps the guy in fishnet stockings doing what I can only refer to indelicately as butt shots. Perhaps they're arranging where to go for beers after the game.

For the few cricket lovers who actually care about the game, here's what happened. South Africa set New Zealand a target of 147. One fellow hit four sixes in a row, which even had the Kiwi fans cheering. It was never going to be enough. Even though New Zealand made a heavy go of it, they scored the winning runs with four balls left. It was good stuff. No, really. It was good stuff.

One additional benefit of the game being played at Westpac, known in Maori as the Keki Tini, was that it is a very wobbly stadium. Designed, I'm sure to the most modern earthquake standards, it moves like a drunken sailor. It's a little disconcerting. But the good news was that when a 4.3 earthquake hit during the game last night no one was any the wiser. There was too much beer being consumed, in any case, for panic to ensue.

A good time was had by all. Yes, it is possible, as I keep telling my dubious sons who had boycotted this outing, to enjoy an actual cricket match.

Always look on the bright side?

2012-02-16T19:56:00.012+13:00

I guess I was the "e" on the edge of the universe today.

Some days the universe just gets out of the wrong side of the bed and wants to throw its bad karma around.

Some days you've just got to duck and cover.

As someone who always tries to see the good in people and the humor in messed-up situations, it is difficult to throw up my hands and admit that perhaps the doom-and-gloomers may have a point, that someone's good nature really can just become a dumping ground for other people's toxic indiscipline.

But, you know what, today was such a day. No good deed went unpunished. No smile was worth the effort. And optimism was flayed on other people's petty and vindictive vanities.

Don't get me wrong, I tried, as I do, to look on the bright side. My colleagues' good humor and kindnesses were appreciated. The small familiarities from store owners and acquaintances buoyed the mood a bit.

But they did little to stem the flow of bile from a generally hostile sentiment in the air. Sometimes niceness is a mere grate on the storm drain of crap into which you are being swept.

The only refuge is the family you come home to and their gentle smiles and little kindnesses that are magnified by the general foulness of the day.

I hope you'll forgive me this cleansing but isn't that, after all, what a blog is for?

D.P. and Welly up a tree ...

2012-02-16T06:17:00.005+13:00

The Dominion Post ran this editorial to its town on Valentine's Day:

Dear Wellington,

How do we love thee? Let us count the ways. . .

We love the feeling when we emerge from Ngauranga Gorge to see the sun sparkling off the sea and the city spread before us. 'Yes! We are home'.

We love that you take coffee so damn seriously, because so do we.

We love that we can't walk down Cuba Street without bumping into someone we know.

We love your rocky little coves, with water so clear it could be Fiji and temperatures so cool, it could be Iceland.

We love that we can wear what we want and no-one sneaks a sideways glance.

We love the gritty cool of your spunky suburbs. Newtown, Miramar, Petone, as you gentrify do not forget your past.

We love that we are closer to the South Island than Auckland. If we perch on the edge of the south coast we can squint our eyes and on the clearest of days see the snowly peaks of the Kaikoura ranges.

We love that a sign on the hill was biggest thing we had to worry about last year (Christchurch, Greymouth, our thoughts are with you).

We love your mood swings, the way you can be so calm one minute, and the next howl in our faces at 100km/h. You screech through the streets in a window-rattling fury, only to relent during the night and greet us the next morning with a sunny smile as if nothing had happened.

We love you even though you're a tempestuous cow. We've left you before, congratulating ourselves at the airport for escaping your steel grip. But we always come back. We can't help it. It's those damn good days. You flash one of those after a tantrum and we're back. We're in love all over again.

Happy Valentines, Wellington - we love you.

Better early than never

2012-02-14T18:05:00.013+13:00

This time last year Amy and I postponed Valentine's Day. We were going to have a make-up night later in the month in Christchurch. I made reservations at what I think is one of the best restaurants in town - Rotherhams of Riccarton. Then we were going to play a little blackjack at the casino before going to a few watering spots around town.

Amy flew into Christchurch, where I'd been working for a couple of days, at noon. It was February 22. At 12:51 the earthquake hit and everything normal went out the window.

While Amy and I were not hurt, it was a hell of a day.

This year we decided to do Valentine's Day early. Actually, we didn't really decide. We happened to find ourselves in downtown Wellington, a place I haven't been able to get Amy for a year because of all the tall buildings. So we just thought, "Well, while we're here ..."

We had been at an event with some University of Georgia students. Amy loved it (one of the students asked her if she was a graduate student; one of them had reminded me that she hadn't been born when I was at Georgia).

So we "hit the town." We went to a nice restaurant (not Rotherhams nice) and ordered some surf and turf.

"You know you have to cook that yourself?" the waitress told me.

"What?" I said eloquently.

"It's our thing."

"Well, when I take my wife out for dinner, I like to have someone else cook," I said. "It's our thing."

The waitress looked at us as if we were the dullest old people she'd ever seen. Their stone self-cooking plates were apparently an important part of her life.

"OK, then. I'll see if we have someone who can cook that for you."

When the food came, it was good - though we wanted to tell the waitress we could have done better ourselves.

Then it was time for a bit of a flutter on the poker machines. We won quite a bit of money. (When I told an American female co-worker that Amy'd had 'got lucky on the pokies,' she said 'Eww, too much information.') Well, Amy won quite a bit of money. I only won enough in two dollar coins to weigh my trousers down in a most modern manner.

In the end we had a lovely evening, giggling and people-watching and reminding ourselves why we like each other so much.

There were flowers and cards on Valentine's Day, too. We've decided not to pass up special days anymore. You never know what's around the corner. So Happy Valentine's Day, Amy. Whenever that is.

The humble cone as art object

2012-02-13T10:18:00.000+13:00

What a great idea. Making art out of the very tangible and ubiquitous symbols of Christchurch's dislocation. Of course, as someone who's been accused of being obsessed by cones, this represents a sort of communal support group for me.

The Christchurch community decorated cones to great effect at Christmastime. Truly uplifting.

I am planning to be in Christchurch for the anniversary and can't wait to see this. It will pretty up what's going to be a fairly heavy day for the folks in Canterbury.

Further validation of my cone fetish has come from two U.S. cone artists (please notice the 'e' on the end of that) who have asked if they can use my post, Of Pelicans and Cones as part of their proposal for what an exhibit they are calling "The Traffic Cone Occasional." They might even use the essay as part of the show, one of the artists told me. Erik Sanner and Peter Emerick's work in this field is exceptional, elevating the humble cone to a form of high art.

Emerick's exceptional conage can be seen at his website.

A South Dakotan in New Zealand

2012-02-12T14:45:00.016+13:00

Pheasant hunting in South Dakota.

The world, as we are constantly being reminded, is a small place.

I was just speaking to my friend Rick Christopherson from South Dakota about his father, Darrel, a Pearl Harbor veteran (see below post) who recently died. We were reminiscing about Darrel and his life when Rick let slip a corker.

After telling me what a great and fulfilled life his father had led, Rick confided that Darrel had had only one regret: that he hadn't gone AWOL in New Zealand.

It turns out that my good friend Darrel had spent seven months in Aotearoa during World War II. Rick took me under his wing when I moved to South Dakota, which can be a strange and discombobulating place to people from other parts of the States, far less a guy from Scotland. We hadn't been in touch since I moved to New Zealand in 2010. The last time we'd talked, though, he'd told me he was doing an oral history project involving his father.

While recording that, Darrel mentioned that the only time he'd considered doing something bad (militarily, at least) was when he was in New Zealand. He described it as a paradise from which he did not want to depart - this from a South Dakota boy who was based in Honolulu. Being from South Dakota, of course, he'd done the right thing and gone back to his ship and fulfilled his duty. But, he'd told Rick, he sure had given it a long consideration.

With 2012 being the 70th anniversary of the arrival of U.S. troops in New Zealand, this bit of information hit me hard. To think of a young South Dakota lad like Darrel all the way over here during the war powerfully reinforced to me the sense of dislocation so many of those young men must have felt. To hear of his love for the place forcefully underscores the narrative that, for many of these Americans, New Zealand was the last friendly place they visited before being shipped to the hellish battlefields of the Pacific. For many of them New Zealand was the final time they received a friendly hug or a home-cooked meal. Many of them never returned from those blood-soaked isles and atolls.

Rick has promised to send me all the documentation he has about Darrel's time in New Zealand. He can't remember where, exactly, Darrel spent his time in New Zealand. I eagerly await information about where he was stationed. It would be wonderful to try to discover if any of his bonds to this land are still alive - and to reconnect. Rick deeply respects his father's service and is a man who would honor the ties of history. And I know, having been around civic organizations in this country, that memories are long here too. It might just happen.

Darrel did not like to talk about his time during the war. I had to drag his Pearl Harbor story out of him. So it does not surprise me that I knew nothing about his time in New Zealand. Hell, when we were in South Dakota together, New Zealand might as well have been in a different galaxy; Minneapolis seemed a long ways off. Having known Darrel and the sort of man he was, to think of him having been here just emphasizes the meaningful linkage between our countries. If we were shipping blokes like Darrel to New Zealand, I believe New Zealand was seeing the best of America: down home boys, respectful, appreciative and, no doubt, more than a little scared about the fate that awaited them.

Now if only I could get Rick out here.

We spent a long time talking today, Rick and I. He told me of the efforts made to get his kids out to Pearl Harbor for that last visit with their grandfather - lots of people helped with the fund raising. He told me about the funeral, about how people came from all over the country and how the American flag was flown around the town of Vermillion. He told me that Darrel knew his trip to Hawaii was going to be his last trip.

And, yes, Rick was nice enough to point out, my sharp-tailed grouse story still lives on in Philip. It was even brought up by some of the West River boys who drove to Vermillion for Darrel's funeral.

RIP, Darrel, a good and solid man

2012-02-11T11:00:00.013+13:00

I first met Darrel Christopherson when I was living in Yankton, South Dakota. He was the father of my good friend and self-annointed guide to all things South Dakota, Rick Christopherson.

The first thing that struck you about Darrel was the handlebar moustache. It gave off a sort of Dickensian sense of grandeur. But anybody who knew Darrel quickly came to realize he was the most unassuming of men. He was just a good ol' fellar who loved South Dakota but, more important, loved that I loved South Dakota. He soon took to explaining the place and its people to me. The most important thing I learned from Darrel was the grace of unhurried conversation, an artform with many high practitioners in South Dakota.

Being young and not from there, I always wanted to drag things out of folks over one cup of coffee. Quickly, get to the point. That's not how it works there. There are no deadlines in a rural South Dakota life. I could spend many minutes of silence in Darrel's company - awkward at first, but then completely natural. The trick is - and this was very hard for me to learn - not to speak if you don't really have anything to say, not to try to fill the silences with inanities.

It was many months after I met Darrel that I found out that he was a Pearl Harbor veteran. Even then, he'd only talk to me about it when I put on my newspaper editor hat and interviewed him for a story. Though later in his life, as many of his fellow veterans died, Darrel increasingly became defined with that mantel by others, he never thought of himself as anything heroic. He was just a young South Dakota boy, 17 at the time, doing his job aboard the USS Vestal "when all hell broke loose." His job, right then, just happened to be sleeping. The Vestal was tied to the Arizona at the time, and when that grand ship began sinking all he and his crew could do was try to cut themselves loose from the doomed battleship.

Darrel was a peaceful fellow, who loved to look at life, to see what was going on. During one particularly wonderful hunting trip to West River, South Dakota, he had a bit of fun at my expense. It was my first hunting expedition and we were roughing it a little on a farm without running water about 20 miles outside of Philip. To say I didn't really know what I was doing out there, a lad born in Glasgow, Scotland, with a bunch of wonderful, wily South Dakota boys hunting ringneck pheasants through the wide open prairie would be the truth exactly.

The first day of my first outing had been long and hard. Not many birds to be had in what is traditionally deer and antelope country. Still, it was a magnificent outing across some of God's best country, watching the dogs work and feeling the cold of impending winter all around. We would always drive Darrel around to the other side of the walk, where he could block and shoot birds that the dogs would drive into the air.

After the last drive ten of us we were sitting around talking over the bed of a pickup truck, the ping of tobacco chew being spat into empty beer cans keeping us company. Every detail of the hunt was discussed, dogs were praised, bad shots made fun of. The company was good. I wish had my photos of that day, so you could see why we thought of ourselves as kings out there alone in the long country, the gentle knolls rising and falling like waves to the horizon, old pioneer houses crumbling into the ground, like the long-lost dreams of the pioneers themselves. South Dakota really is the most magnificent of places.

Darrel spotted some birds moving out of cornrows and into a newly plowed field. "You might want to go and see if you can kick 'em up," he said to me. So I headed over, Rick's dog Liz by my side. They wanted the newbie to get his first bird.

Keenly aware that I had an audience, I was secretly hoping the birds would just run off - you can't shoot them on the ground. But Liz was too good at her job and put the birds into the air. Reluctantly I aimed and took the bird with my first shot. I could hear the hooting and hollering from the gallery blowing over on the breeze.

I ran over to where the bird had fallen. It was in a bed of cornhusks and all I saw were these massive talons. Oh my God, I thought, I've shot a bird of prey. I could see the headlines in the papers: "Scottish immigrant shoots endangered Bald Eagle."

Crap, I thought, turning around, pretending I hadn't found the bird and trying to scare Liz off it. But she picked it up and ran it back to Rick. I'm going to be in for some ribbing, I thought, walking back in humiliation.

"Great shot," Darrel said. "You took it well."

I confessed my sin to him - that it wasn't a pheasant I'd shot, that he could turn me in to the authorities if he wanted. He roared with laughter. They all did. I hadn't killed America's national symbol. It was a sharp-tailed grouse.

From that day on, Darrel would always chuckle when he caught sight of me. I bet they're still telling that story in Philip.

Darrel recently took three of his grandchildren, including Rick's two kids, back to Pearl Harbor. It was, according to Rick, the last thing on his bucket list. He had his granddaughter drop his lei into the now becalmed waters. At every step of the trip, from the airplane to Hawaii to the honor guard that received him upon his return home, Darrel was treated like the hero he never thought he was.

Two weeks later he died. He was 87. With him goes so much. He was a gentleman who personified the quiet stoicism of what came to be known as the greatest generation. He had a sense of duty and service - he became a cop in Vermillion after his twenty years in the Navy. He worked for what he had and never felt entitled to a damn thing. But mostly he was solid. He could be counted on and trusted, and in South Dakota that makes for a rich man.

Goodbye, Darrel. We're all going to miss you.

Things that make you go hmmmm

2012-02-09T19:04:00.002+13:00

Well, it's not really a door then, is it? More like a see-through wall. For more odd(ish) images from around New Zealand, see here.

A gloriously silly-bugger thing to do

2012-02-08T18:59:00.005+13:00

I thought this was a stunning photograph from Fairfax Media and a good excuse to once more write about the Extreme Kiwis. There's some crazy folks in this little old land. They love to push the envelope, both of the physical and, it has to be said, of the sane.

I've written about the Extreme Kiwis before, here, here, here and here.

This dude, Ben Campbell-MacDonald, took 18 1/2 hours to swim the 50 miles of New Zealand's Lake Wakatipu, the glorious but spookily deep and body-numbingly cold lake of Queenstown. It's real pretty to look at, but you got to be some kind of nut to try to get in it, far less swim the whole length of it.

Campbell-MacDonald - a name that sounds like a Scottish Kumbaya marriage made in Highland heaven - got hypothermia for his troubles.

And the funny thing is he doesn't know why he did it. Last time he tried the waves gave him motion sickness.

"But on Saturday you could not have asked for better swimming conditions," he told Fairfax. "The initial plan was to swim as far as Queenstown and see how it went, but with the weather we had, there was no real question of stopping halfway."

So what the heck, right? Might as well just swim the whole damn thing. But why, why did you do it, Ben?

"It's kind of difficult to justify really, but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time," he told the newspaper.

"In one sense it's a bit of a silly-bugger thing to do, but I think if you over-analyse the urge and motivation behind doing something like this, you'd end up second-guessing it."

A bit of a silly-bugger thing to do. Well, at least he gets that. Yes, they are crazy but, damn it, you've just got to admire them.

Pride before the fall

2012-02-07T18:04:00.016+13:00

Morgan finishing the Wellington Marathon in foul conditions.

Having done a bit of an unseemly victory dance at my sons’ expense last month, it is time for a humble update.

As we slip down life's slide towards the pool of decrepitude, it is natural for us to cling to sporting achievements - great or otherwise. So when I outlasted my two sons on a long run the other day, I just wanted to do a little chest thump and say, "the old man's not a spent force yet."

My last great sporting triumph, after all, had gone gloriously unnoticed by my family. During a cricket game against New Zealand parliamentarians last year I took a wicket, which was totally cool and something I hadn't done for almost three decades. When that happens during a cricket match all your teammates run over to congratulate you. I was thus surrounded when Amy and Morgan arrived at the ground. "I thought you'd done something wrong and were getting a team lecture," Morgan later said. He'd missed the glory of the kill.

What I was telling my gathered teammates was, "Oh my, I just got a wicket and my family missed it. That will never happen again in my life."

But, the very next over, I took another wicket. Everyone cheered and ran over towards me again. I looked around - only to see Amy heading off to the bathrooms and Morgan asleep in his chair. They'd both missed it. Again.

And that really was the last time that would happen. In fairness, we'd just arrived in New Zealand and, like most of you probably, Morgan had no clue what was happening during the game.

So I thought I could be forgiven - even if just a little - for crowing about my small running triumph. Perhaps not.

In the interest of fairness, though, I must point out that last week Morgan, now 15, came back - and well. He and I were doing a long run preparing for an upcoming half marathon. I was a little ahead of him in the training schedule so we decided I'd tack on two miles after he finished - at our car.

By the turnaround I was hurting. Sometimes it's like that when you're running: the biorhythms are low or the weather's off or you're harboring destructive thoughts. Morgan was bursting with energy and I told him to just take off. He did. I didn't see him again until the car.

When I arrived there he ambled over, "How you doing?"

"Not good, Mo," I grumped. "Everything's hurting."

"Do you want me to do the last two miles with you?"

This from a guy who'd been done for 10 minutes and was just chilling out.

"If you don't mind," I said, "that would be great."

So he ran with me. Having pushed him through his marathon training - from a bike, I might add - and filled his head with mind-over-matter lectures, there was no way I could quit with him running alongside me. Just couldn't happen without the stench of hypocrisy settling on me.

He chatted all the way and buoyed my spirits and my aching legs. I finished - and only because of him.

He’s a good lad and a fine runner. And I feel guilty for doing the chicken dance in my earlier post.

Down in the tunnels of Wrights Hill

2012-02-06T13:46:00.018+13:00

So apparently the last one wasn't the last World War II gun embankment. But this is.

And it was by far the most amazing.

To feed my interest in the World War II fortifications around Wellington, I'd read about the Wrights Hill Fortress, but had been told its tunnels were closed to the public. But today is Waitangi Day, New Zealand's national day, and it's one of four days a year that the place is open to the public. It was the last of the 11 batteries we had yet to visit.

So we hightailed it to the long-range coastal battery that was built during World War II to protect New Zealand against hostilities from the Pacific. Construction of the fortress wasn't authorized until 1942, by the time the U.S. Marines had arrived in New Zealand to help keep Aotearoa safe from the Japanese.

The fortress was to contain three 9.2-inch guns that fired three-foot shells. But, by the time the second gun was installed, it was determined that the Pacific no longer posed as great a threat. In the end, the guns, capable of shooting shells 18 miles into the Cook Strait, never fired in anger. In fact, they were fired for the first time after the war was over. The guns did well, though dozens of windows in houses in Karori were shattered.

The guns, perched high above Wellington Harbor in Karori, were connected by more than 2,000 feet of tunnels. The compound contained an engine room, an oil store, a Fortress and Battery plotting room, three gun stores, a command post and exhaust chambers.

It's a massive complex and the deep tunnels bring to mind London's underground war rooms. The tunnels took two years to construct. And, while 2,000 feet might not sound like a lot of tunnel, believe me the complex seems to go on forever. The passages are wide and 9-feet high. It took almost 200 workers two full years to complete them. They had huge troubles with water seepage. Even today, it's damp and cool down there - a lot of the steps are still covered in water - and the tunnels descend to great depths. It's a truly remarkable place.

They also seem to be confused by New Zealand's massive bugs, the Wetas, as caves. The place was crawling with them. It was about the time that we noticed this that Amy said it was time for her to head back out - to check on Ewan, who is not fond of dark, confined underground places.

While the whole fortress complex is an amazing thing, both Amy and I spent a long part of our time underground thinking of earthquakes. We figured that a place that is basically unattended 361 days a year might not be as earthquake proof as one might hope. Plus I'd promised my mother that we wouldn't go down there.

We finally managed to gain some sense of perspective as to what the guns were pointing at when we climbed up a narrow ladder to Gun Emplacement One. From out top we could catch a glimpse of the panoramic views. The guns have all gone now, ironically sold for scrap to the Japanese in the 1960s.

Earlier this morning Morgan and I ran past underground ammunition dumps at Shelly Bay. The caves are still not sealed off and anyone can walk in there. This would cause American officials a good deal of stress. Even the ladders into Wrights Hill tunnels don't seemed to be sealed off, so that anyone could wander in there any time. It's a little worrying. Not that you'd want to go down there with no lights on. And with that, no more tours of old fortresses, boys. I promise.

A very busy Waitangi Day

2012-02-06T13:13:00.005+13:00

The Dominion Post's photo shows some of the anger associated with Waitangi Day.

February 6 is Waitangi Day in New Zealand. It is the country's national day and marks the day in 1840 when the Waitangi Treaty was signed by the Maori and the British crown. It is a constitution-like document that guides the relations between the Maori and the Pakeha.

It's also Super Bowl Sunday in the States and Bob Marley's birthday - a full day.

This year's Waitangi Day celebrations have again been marked by tensions. Prime Minister John Key's speech was cut short by protesters and the atmosphere was bubbling with resentment. The complications and hopes are well explained in this New Zealand Herald article.

Waitangi Day, the author says, should be a celebration of New Zealand, of how it is today, without blue-sky words by politicians and with serious heed paid to the challenges ahead. Instead, Waitangi Day seems somewhat reluctantly celebrated, pride gives way to guilt and politics rise to center stage.

It should, in other words, be more than a nice day off for some and a reason to shout about political grievances for others. We've been playing Bob Marley and are eagerly awaiting the Super Bowl commercials. But, hey, we're foreigners here.

Marmite shortage? End times!

2012-02-05T09:16:00.003+13:00

As if New Zealand hasn't suffered enough over the last year, now comes the dreadful news that a Marmite shortage might be about to descend on the land.

Now I know that those of you who have heard of marmite think this news must be the answer to several thousand prayers. But, no, there are actually real people who regard this impending shortage as nothing short of a sign of the apocalypse.

Marmite is a spread that people, for some reason, put on their morning toast. And then eat it. The stuff looks like industrial tar - without the pleasant new-road smell - and tastes like a chemical experiment gone badly wrong.

It is something inexplicably vile.

Made from yeast extract, the only good thing that can be said about Marmite - and I mean the only good thing - is that it is a by-product of beer brewing. Come to think of it, this has now put me off beer a little - a not inconsiderable task. Originally made in Britain, it has been made in New Zealand since 1919.

It is, apparently, completely different from its Australian cousin Vegemite. As an amateur, all I can say is that the two products look, taste and smell exactly the same: nauseating and intimidating. But Brits, South Africans, Kiwis and Aussies can spend considerable effort explaining why their particular black yeast spread is without equal and taking great offense if their parochial taste is insulted. Your patriotism is even called into question by the Kiwi company's own propaganda if, as a New Zealander, you don't eat Marmite.

And yet there are some actual Kiwis who are deeply distressed by the looming shortage brought about due to damage done to the Christchurch factory responsible for this product.

Listening to this Radio New Zealand news broadcast you can hear the panic, the faltering-voiced distress of New Zealanders.

Now I know to an American audience some of these folks may not sound close to panic, but when a New Zealander contemplates switching from Marmite to jam - strawberry jam, no less - things are teetering on the edge of oblivion. The stiff upper lip is quivering.

It may be a brainwashing thing. The makers of Marmite believe their products provide health and vitality to their consumers. And going by the axiom "the worse something tastes the better it is for you," this stuff must be close to magic.

I've also been told that Marmite can be drunk. Just add hot water! Good God, the war year's must have done things to people in these parts.

The company, Sanitorium, also explains that Kiwis should enjoy a bit of fun at the expense of any American visitors they might have. Marmite should be spread onto toast thickly like chocolate spread, Nutella perhaps, and offered it to their guest ... and watch the wonderful reaction.

Not particularly diplomatic, I must say, and perhaps one reason why any of the -ites haven't taken off in the land of milk and honey.

How windy is Wellington?

2012-02-04T18:37:00.000+13:00

It's so windy in Wellington that even the statues have to lean into the wind to avoid being blown away. This is former Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, outside Victoria University Law School, said to be the second largest wooden building in the world.

A weekend of general tastelessness

2012-02-03T19:18:00.007+13:00

The day certainly began with a bit of alarm when my friend Hugh, clearly agitated, came running over. I thought something awful had happened, until I saw the smile on his face. He informed me that he'd spotted a giant sperm on the way to work. This was clearly something that needed investigating - for the sake of the blog, of course.

He was kind enough - between laughs - to give me directions. It was, indeed, a giant sperm and you can't really have a bad day after that.

With the Wellington Sevens - a bawdy, uproarious rugby tournament of sorts - in town, I was speechless for much of the day. I believe I had a permanent OMG look stencilled to my head. I hasten to add that all these pictures were taken before lunch. I'm not brave enough any longer to venture out at night into the jungle occupied by these creatures.

The Droopers "girls" were standing proudly, their saggy goods on display. They were watching their decidedly more feminine counterparts flashing their wares, perhaps showing them how it should be done.

Identities have been altered to protect the not-so-innocent by night from their hugely embarrassed morning selves.

The whole town goes slightly mad for the weekend. The rugby - the seven aside version - is completely secondary. The advertising campaign for Tui beer, known for its sarcastic barbs (see below), has a billboard on the way into town proclaiming, "Sit down in front, I'm trying to watch the Sevens. Yeah, right."

The guys renting this camper van have caught the Tui spirit and that of the Wellington Sevens weekend perfectly.

Wellington 7s kick off with a parade

2012-02-02T21:02:00.015+13:00

The Wellington Sevens, the town's grand bacchinalia, kicked off today with the Parade of Nations. Tens of thousands lined the downtown streets to welcome the 16 teams competing in this weekend's tournament. My day began, as every good day should, with a bagpipe seranade.

The Sevens defy explanation, though I attempted one last year. It is wonderful absurdity writ large. Today I'm just going to bring you the parade in pictures.

I don't know who are what they were, but they sure added color.

The Scots are always there, roiling the blood with their bagpipes before the games and breaking hearts during them.

The French "cheerleaders" were spooky, as I suppose they are meant to be.

The Kiwis, who won the tournament last year, were there with their cup, too good to be fun.

The fashion police will be busy busting a lot of folks in their outrageous costumes.

Oh wait, these guys were the real thing. I guess I shouldn't have gone up and given them a nipple cripple.

You have to live in New Zealand to get this one. But trust me, it's really funny.

The USA's Suniula brothers.

The Tonga boys were decidedly martial - and a bit weird.

Another ghost of World War II

2012-02-01T15:54:00.002+13:00

This was the last one.

Palmer Heads fortress has hovered above me like a mirage for more than a year. I've been trying to figure out how to get up there - half-heartedly, it is true. It looms like a disapproving and slightly ragged ghost on a steep cliff above one of the roads I run. I hadn't been able to find any way up there.

My son had forbidden me from just heading straight up the side of the mountain from Moa Point, telling me my obsession with the old battery emplacements around Wellington wasn't worth my life.

But, having failed to find the mythical Wellington castle on Saturday, Morgan and I made a concerted effort not to get skunked twice in one week. We were going to find the last of the remaining emplacements no matter what it took.

While New Zealand committed a lot of troops early to World War II, the arrival of more than 100,000 U.S. fighting forces plugged the gap at home left by the Kiwis. The U.S. presence prevented the worst of the war from landing on New Zealand's shores. The sparse battlements around Wellington were never used during the war, but they are a haunting reminder of those dread times.

So I've been trying to learn as much about that side of history as possible and to visit all the sites.

The Palmer Heads "fortress" was completed in 1937, earlier than some of the other emplacements around town. It was a two-gun battery featuring six inch Mk XXI guns. It was home to the 13th Heavy Battery, and more buildings, including barracks, were built later. Underground plotting rooms - which sounds totally cool - were begun in 1942 and completed the following year.

The guns were never fired at an enemy. After the war the fortress was put into care and maintenance. Its guns were scrapped by an Australian company which, irony of ironies, then sold the scrap metal to the Japanese.

What is pictured at top is the remains of the radar station. The underground plotting room is still around but, well, underground.

Morgan and I drove around in ever-decreasing circles until we figured out that we had to be close. We clambered through a neighborhood and over a hill, through some gardens and then across a paved road that leads to the radar installation for Wellington Airport.

Best view in Wellington for our Buddha.

When we arrived, the only sign of explosives was some dude sitting on the roof getting bombed. Looking out over the Cook Strait, sitting cross-legged and listening to music through his earphones, he had the best view in Wellington. He was a peaceful chap and didn't do anything but wave at us.

When I told Morgan that the guy was probably a stoner, Morgan said he'd already figured that out.

"How?" I asked.

"Well, who else but stoners ... and bloggers would be all the way up here?"

He had a point.

The graffiti up here was spectacular - as was the amount of glass from smashed beer bottles. It's obviously been a studio for aspiring, perspiring and imbibing artists and other hipsters for many years.

Add bloggers to that crew now.

A sober Welly Sevens? Good luck

2012-01-31T18:22:00.011+13:00

As I mentioned last year, the Wellington Sevens are not exactly tea and crumpets with grandmother.

In fact, the tournament, which is this weekend, is rather raunchy and very, very drunken.

It is perhaps the wildest communal loss of sanity that I've ever been part of. Its two redeeming qualities are: the astonishing creativity of the costumes people wear and, hey, it's a Sevens rugby tournament.

But did I mention it is very, very drunken?

While Amy and I saw a lot of highly amusing antics during the course of our day around the Sevens last year, we both remarked that, if things don't change soon, something bad was going to happen. Something real bad. You can't have that many people that drunk for that long with innocence preserved.

Well, it seems organizers of the tournament get that too.

They have announced that they are offering more than $75,000 in cash incentives to try to entice sevens fans to arrive at the tournament early and sober.

Not only are they after "messy" drunks - who were in evidence everywhere last year. In fact, several people saw themselves on the big screen - and therefore on the screens of folks at home - and promptly droped trou. We saw people falling down stairs and throwing up prolifically.

In addition to cutting down on extreme drunkenness, though, the folks behind the tournament want to try to tempt people to actually show up for the games during the early part of the two-day tournaments, when stands have been close to empty.

In order to get a full stadium before kick-off there will be a series of drawings that people can only claim if they are in their seats - prizes of up to $500 each.

There will also be big money awards for costumes and a fashion show with a $25,000 purse.

All I can say is, "God bless ... and good luck with that."

I'm afraid the culture of the weekend has already been set and it's one of debauched hedonism, of checking out of the mundane and doing precisely what you want for 48 hours. I'm not sure the chance to win $500 for having bum firmly planted in seat just after lunch time is going to do it. But I hope it does, because the mood of the Sevens will become very dark if the partying turns to tragedy.

The American Eagles Sevens team are in town for this year's tournament. They are training hard, meeting Kiwis and not doing any partying at all. The cute dogs in this picture did not, however, belong to the Eagles or the cheerleaders.

Confronting my fears feet first

2012-01-30T18:27:00.004+13:00

Sometimes I feel like the old guy in a bar bitching about his life.

"You see that dock out there?" he says to the young man beside him. "I built it myself, hand crafted each piece. It's the best dock in the country. But do they call me McGregor the dock builder?

"No they do not. And you see that bridge over there? It's a beauty, the pride of the whole county. But do they call me McGregor the bridge builder? No, they do not."

This goes on for a while until the old man leans into his young listener, "You can do all these wonderful things in your life, but you sleep with one sheep and you're forever McGregor the sheep shagger."

So one time I confess publicly to an altercation with some chickens. I even wrote about it and shared my trauma with the people so that they may be spared a similar terror.

And what do I get in return? Well, my buddy Ola - for one - has taken every opportunity to taunt me, placing chicken sounds in my office and burying me in terrifying photos. Below is the latest, from a picnic at which we met the USA Eagles Sevens team.

It doesn't matter what I do in New Zealand, it seems, I will always be known as the chicken and cone man. That's some legacy.

A castle on the hill ... or not

2012-01-29T10:26:00.009+13:00

I sometimes take my family on sort of reverse scavenger hunts: I know what I'm looking for, but have no clues as to how to find it.

Today we set out to find a castle. Yes, a castle in Wellington, a place with a decided lack of medieval history. I'd not heard of this particular castle until my friend Mike told me about it. It was just along from the wind turbine on the hills above Brooklyn, he assured me.

I didn't think I'd need maps. How hard could it be, right? I mean a castle is a big thing with sticky-uppy bits.

So we packed a lunch and, like King Arthur's knights in search of the Holy Grail, set off to find our castle on a hill making horsey noises with imaginary coconuts.

The expedition started well enough, with glorious views over the Wellington harbor. From there we set off into the bush. It's astonishing how quickly you can go from the metropolitan to the wilds around Wellington. We hopped a stile from a paved road onto a trail. The tracks up here are a runner's and mountain biker's dream.

Are we in New Zealand or West River, South Dakota?

They are not, however, a gimpy family's dream. Soon we were slip-sliding away on the steep descents, knees were buckling and ankles twisting and we quickly tried to get back to the road. We still made Monty Python clip-clop noises, keeping the adventure alive.

At one point we were looking over miles of the Hawkins Hill nature reserve. The sea of green was pretty, but castleless.

"Are you sure there's a castle up here?" Amy asked, giving voice to the family's growing doubt about my boy scout/wilderness leadership skills, perhaps even my word.

"Of course I am."

"Are you sure Mike wasn't having you on, Dad?" asked Ewan, adding that perhaps we might have heard about something like a castle before - had there actually been one.

"No, he wouldn't do that," I said. "He's my friend."

Suddenly we heard some rustling coming from the copse above us. The good thing about New Zealand is that there are no animals that will eat or attack you. So our first thought was not, "Bear. Run."

Yes, we were curious rather than petrified hearing the creepy wildlife noises all around us while we were in the middle of nowhere.

Turns out it was a drove of goats.

We're not fond of goats. Who is really? They're like ugly sheep. Sheep who actually know what to do with those pointy things on their heads.

Speaking of ugly. I soon heard another commotion, this time coming from Amy and Ewan behind us.

Having already told you what the good thing about the whole wildlife experience in New Zealand is, here's the bad thing. They're called Weta bugs. They are massive and they bite and they reduce a lot of people to blubbering idiots. Ewan actually tripped on this one, which is how he discovered it. The thing was still alive, and you have to keep it that way because the critters are protected.

Still castleless, we moved on quickly.

"Look, they can't hide a castle," I told my ever-more dubious family.

"Let me guess," Amy said, "it's just around the corner, right?"

"It has to be. A castle is big. It's not like we've walked past it and Mike said it wasn't far from the turbine."

Then we were looking over Long Gully. This is a wide-open green space, an unspoiled valley snaking out ahead of us. There was no castle. I had lost my family's commitment by this time. We'd been hiking an hour and a half. It was time to head homewards. Father Arthur had failed.

Then we came around a corner and there was an ostrich strutting it's John Cleese-like best along a fence line. An ostrich on a mountain. It was magic. In a castleless sort of way. I must confess that I began to doubt my friend Mike.

When I posted a picture of the boys and the ostrich on Facebook, the first person to comment was Mike. He said, "Hey, that's up near my place. Did you get to the castle?"

We all laughed. I felt vindicated - as a man whose word can be counted on, if not exactly my skills of navigation.

We will find this castle.

It's just Palmy to friends

2012-01-28T09:30:00.008+13:00

Towns with a "New" or a directional attached to their name have always seemed, well, sort of derivative, wannabe places.

So I had low expectations for Palmerston North, named after former British Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston and thus distinguished from its uni-named sister city of the South Island.

The drive through the green breadbasket of New Zealand put me in good spirits. The rolling hills, the impeccable farms, the endless palette of greens are a great safety net to any troubled soul.

Thus buoyed, Palmerston North - Palmy, as the locals call it - came as a very pleasant surprise. The layout of the place, the gentle unpretentiousness of the houses with their immaculate gardens put me in mind of Christchurch when it was still Christchurch. The original design was, and remains today, a series of wide, straight and flat streets in a rectangular pattern - the opposite of everything Wellington.

The locals are rightfully proud of their little town of 80,000 souls in the eastern Manawatu Plains. A little research reveals that the first Europeans discovered what was then Te Papaioea, peopled by the Ngāti Rangitāne, in 1830. When the first outside traders came it was nothing more than a clearing in the long forest and the dense bush. That is evocative, as there wasn't any forest on my two-hour drive from Wellington - a testament to Palmy's beginnings as a saw-milling town.

The windmill farm atop the ranges flanking Palmerston North, the largest in the southern hemisphere with 158 turbines, now stands in place of the long-gone trees.

At the heart of the town is the gorgeous, vibrant plaza known as The Square. It is an anachronism in this age of box stores and suburban malls: there are restaurants, shops, and offices, all around a well-tended green space of 17 acres. It is a young town too, courtesy of the large university, Massey, with the prerequisite and ubiquitous coffee shops required by the constantly caffeine-starved youth of today. This busy plaza is a place that reflects the civic pride I saw everywhere in Palmy. By six in the morning The Square was already being readied for the day's business: the chess board was set up, the tables and chairs put out, the garbage removed.

Lots of parks and green spaces give Palmy an outdoorsy feel that is at once rural and urbane. The folks I met were heartland Kiwis, tough and independent with a good dusting of worldliness. But most of all they were proud of a town they feel doesn't get enough credit for its depth and variety.

I'd have to agree with that. Having been in New Zealand 18 months, I haven't heard a lot of folks bragging on Palmy. Not one, in fact. And that's a bit of a shame.

A record remembered 50 years

2012-01-27T18:10:00.006+13:00

Fifty years ago today, Peter Snell - today known as Sir Peter George Snell, KNZM, MBE - broke the world record for the mile. On the grass track at Cook Gardens in Wanganui, he came in at 3:54.4.

Eight days later, he broke the 800m and half mile (880 yards or 805m) world records, again on grass in Christchurch.

The 50th anniversary was celebrated today back at the same park with a star-studded meet.

Snell won three Olympic (Rome 1960, Tokyo 1964) and two Commonwealth Games gold medals. With a lot of promise left, at least in the imgaginations of New Zealanders, Snell announced his retirement in 1965 at age 27. He currently resides in Texas.

Snell is still revered in New Zealand and was named New Zealand's Sports Champion of the (20th) Century". That's what his five individual world records earned him.

The Summer of Death

2012-01-25T18:38:00.008+13:00

New Zealand over the traditional holiday season has seen carnage on an almost industrial scale. Not only have the pages of the daily newspapers told a steady tale of horror, the avoidable and bizarre nature of some of the deaths has left much of the country shaking its head at the senselessness of it all.

New Zealand is a small and intimate country where it seems just two degrees separate one person from another. So the death toll, while certainly small by American standards, are stunning here. Everyone seems to know someone who has been taken.

These deaths come on top of a massive increase in drownings in 2011 (up 43 percent), and one of the worst holiday season road death toll in many years (up 50 percent).

The tempestuous weather certainly has had something to do with it. Many trampers, folks who have headed up into the mountains to hike, have been killed in falls or while abseiling (repelling). In one horrific accident a 15-year-old boy got his foot stuck in a chasm and hung upside down in a waterfall for three hours before rescuers could finally free him. He died in hospital.

In 2011, 123 Kiwis drowned, many of them kids, again highlighting the high numbers of New Zealand youngsters who can not swim - seven out of 10 kids can't swim well enough to save their lives. Now that we are again in the middle of swimming season, the drownings have begun again. Heartbreaking vigils on beaches are pictured weekly as family members hope against hope that their missing relatives - swept out to sea by rip tides or drowned in rough seas - will be found alive.

They rarely are.

Drowning is the third leading cause of accidental death in New Zealand.

The most bizarre - and horrendous - death came late last week. A man who had been out drinking until the early hours of the morning dropped his car keys through a grate into the stormwater system. He opened the grate, tried to reach down to grab his keys and fell into 1 1/2 feet of water. With no way out at the bottom and no way to get himself out of the narrow space, it is presumed he sloly lost strength and slipped beneath the water, dying what must have been a horrible death.

Boatsmen - boaties, as they're known here - haven't been immune either. Again, the wild weather that can spring up with terrifying speed has a hand in many of the fatalities. People are constantly caught off guard, but many are also ill-prepared. Authorities caution people to prepare for the worst, even if making only a leisurely outing.

The infamous Foveaux Strait, at the tip of the South Island, has again claimed two victims. This time two fishermen drowned after more than five hours in the freezing waters when their boat capsized.

The turbulent Strait has taken more than a dozen lives in the last decade.

There has also been a terrible hot air balloon crash that killed 11 people at the beginning of the year, as well as a couple of fatal light aircraft crashes.

The Summer of Death, so dubbed by the chief of mountain safety, has certainly been one of terrific human cost. It's become an exercise in dread reading the daily newspapers. We can only hope that a calmer season returns soon.

Pink sheep, people, hot pink sheep

2012-01-24T18:08:00.009+13:00

Look, I know I started my tour in New Zealand by saying I would mention sheep just one time. I was born in Scotland, and was sensitive to misperceptions any sheep talk might leave. I feared insinuations might be made.

Having heard a hundred Aussies telling a thousand sheep-shagging jokes about their Kiwi cousins, however, I feel exempted to a certain extent; there's a war going on in which Scotland is not involved. Best to keep your head down and a smile on your face when others are shooting but not aiming at you.

Still, it's time to address the sheep issue again. It is, after all, something vital to the way of life of New Zealand. I'm sure this will elicit some charming comments from my English readers, even if I remind them that I am now an American citizen living in North Carolina, where there may be three or four sheep. Still, as a faithful chronicler of life in New Zealand, sheep just have to be mentioned.

This, however, is not about sheep-shagging, of the Caledonian or Antipodean variety.

It's about pink sheep. Or, as a recent article on Stuff.co put it, hot pink sheep - though that may be getting a bit close to my danger zone.

The flamboyant sheep live at SheepWorld in the north of New Zealand, and the whole thing is, as most cool things unfortunately are, a gimmick.

The article expressed some surprise that pastel-colored sheep would garner worldwide attention. Well, color you stupid, buddy. Dyed sheep will do it every time.

For what it's worth, SheepWorld gives visitors an insight into how the country farms sheep and how the wool is used. Two daily shows see dogs round up and bring the sheep inside, which are then shorn.

Of course none of this matters very much. It was a cheap and transparent ploy to post some pictures of pink sheep. It's not the deepest thing I've ever done. I'm not proud of that, my friends. Not proud at all.

The windy, narrow roads of Welly

2012-01-23T20:02:00.023+13:00

With houses stuck onto the sides of hills like this, you know the drives are going to be a little hairy. Admittedly, it's not entirely arrogance or optimism - Wellington is, after all, on a massive earthquake fault - that started this rash of aerie building. It did all begin with a bit of historical deception by the New Zealand Company.

Still, that was more than 170 years ago, and you'd think modern-day Wellingtonians would know better. But the views from the side of the hill are just too wonderful. Why wouldn't you take a little risk? And yet the bloody drives up and down the narrow little roads will stop the heart of a casual visitor.

We were having dinner with some friends the other night. They have the blessing/misfortune of living up a very steep hill. Yes, they have a view of the harbor. But, yes, they have a steep and narrow commute that, unfortunately, they have to share with other human beings, some of whom happen to drive less than perfectly. Cars come shooting round the corner in the middle of the road and come screeching to a halt inches from your bumper. It keeps the heart pumping.

Oh, and add buses into the mix, because buses absolutely should be allowed up roads that are as narrow as the one above. We all know how considerate public transportation drivers are to their fellow drivers, so there shouldn't be a problem there. Our friend told me how, of a morning, she'll head into town and see every side mirror ripped off cars for long stretches of the narrow street.

A new game, perhaps? Side Mirror bowling? I'm not usually a white-knuckle driver. As you can see by the picture above, however, they don't really go in for solid safety barriers. You could plow through some of these wooden babies and end up on the roof of someone's house a hundred feet below.

It gets even more hairy at night. Suffice it to say that, especially after February 22, we're really happy not having a view and being in our boring little subdivision with its wide roads and friendly drivers and the absence of mountains for our house to be built upon. If we do happen to swerve off the road, we're just going to end up in someone's recycling wheelie bin. That's a lot less nerve-wracking than the alternative.

A Flock of Seagulls

2012-01-22T18:26:00.009+13:00

The miserable summer we're having here is forcing me into my photo archives. These huddled masses were on Makara Beach. The wind was ferocious enough to bundle the gulls together.

They didn't have to expend much energy to get away from me; they could hang on the breeze like a kite or, with one flick of a wing, shoot off into the distance.

Some time in the Chill Bin

2012-01-21T10:17:00.006+13:00

Not the ideal image from our summer hols. Once it started snowing in the hills above Queenstown, though, we decided to go all in. We went to an ice bar. Reminded us of many of our nights out in South Dakota, except a little warmer - it was only -9 in there. The glasses were made of ice and we were allowed to smash them before leaving. It all felt a little like being in the Ice House scene from Dr. Zhivago. Funny what you'll pay good money for when you're a tourist.

Second day follow

2012-01-19T20:20:00.015+13:00

I just feel so crappy writing one story about the beloved Conrad Fink dying and then just moving on with other posts. There really is no moving on with my mentor gone.

"What's the second day lede?" Fink would have asked.

That would be the extraordinary outpouring from his former University of Georgia journalism students and the malignant ache in me at the gaping whole his passing has left in my life.

Within hours of the news of his death the Finkites came together on Facebook. There has been a steady and heartbreaking stream of stories from the people - hundreds of them - that he not only touched but fundamentally changed - floundering, or at least aimless, lives to which he gave purpose.

Not one of them would take issue with that. He gave us drive and meaning and got us jobs. My first three jobs in journalism I owe directly to him. But that was the easy part. What he did for us was so much more: he transformed us, made us into an army of dedicated truth-seekers. He made us better than we were, gave us the rock-hard confidence to be what we could be.

Fink was a hard man with a soft heart that he tried to hide. An ex-U.S. Marine, if there is such a thing, he earned his stripes in the fires of perhaps the most competitive age of journalism that ever existed. As a journalist he worked harder than anyone and would have stepped on a puppy to get the scoop. No doubts about that. As a professor he wanted to instill that hardness in the softies who presented themselves in his classroom.

But you always knew that he loved you. He'd kill you for saying that, of course. But he loved you nonetheless. He said it by critiquing your stories. He showed it by working his connections on your behalf. He did it by returning every email, even 20 years after you'd graduated. He made you feel it with his nicknames for you - he always called me "laddie" because I'd been born in Scotland.

The stories on the Facebook page dedicated to Fink are astonishing. He made all of us feel special, unique. And yet, once he'd spotted you, once he'd identified you as someone with talent, you felt as if you were the most remarkable human being, the most incredible journalist in the world. It's what made you strive. It's what made you make that extra phone call. He made us. He created a whole network of talented human beings and he was its center.

That's why the Fink Facebook page is so amazing. We are his legacy and we speak a language that no one else knows.

The stories that are being told on the Facebook page are wonderful for their dichotomous wonder: he's tough, but he cares. For Fink it was all about getting the story, about being true, about seeking the truth, and about being fair. He knew he was sending us off into a world where the combat was ferocious, but he wanted to equip us with the tools to win: objectivity, passion, curiosity, determination and, above all, fairness.

What makes his death so much harder to take is that he was probably the last of his kind. Sure, there will be people with his values. Sure there will be people with his passion. But there will never be another guy who feels about newspapers, about the holy mission of newspapers and everything that meant for its people, the way Fink did. His death is the end of many things. His death is the changing of things.

We will all miss him. He told me once that his goal was to be able to fly into any city in the United States and have the editor or publisher of that newspaper be a Finkite and be there to pick him up. Michael Giarrusso, a Finkite and a great AP man, has created a map representing the location of all of Fink's people. It blankets the whole country. His wish came true. But we still have to work every day of our lives to keep his mission alive.

Blanket Man is laid to rest

2012-01-19T17:49:00.009+13:00

When Wellington’s most famous homeless guy died, it was on the front page of the capital’s newspaper.

Known simply as Blanket Man, Ben Hana had been on the streets for more than a decade. He could be seen on most days wearing nothing but a loin cloth and wrapped in a blanket. And while a lot of young Wellingtonians seemed to romanticize the Blanket Man or leastwise their "relationship" with him, his was not a happy tale of living life by his own rules - though that was the legend.

He had demons. He had addictions. He caused the death of a close friend in a drunken-driving accident that put his life into a tailspin. He lost his wife and his family and took to the streets.

And yet he ended up a cult hero and, after he died, a makeshift memorial took shape in Courtenay Place where he spent much of his time. Chalk messages - "I'll miss talking to you" - were scrawled on the sidewalks. It is said that he turned down offers of help because the only thing he had left in his life was the elevated status as "social icon."

In the end he died at 54, having been arrested many times, suffering from malnutrition and, if truth be told, being a menace to many folks just going about their business on Courtenay Place. I certainly never got warm fuzzies from the guy. He always seemed too out of it for conversation or bonding of any sort. In fact, the last time I saw him Amy and I were just going into the Library (It’s a bar; I’m not trying to be sanctimonious.), a large cloud of “suspicious-smelling” smoke was emanating from that famous blanket.

I think the tragedy of his life got lost in all the projection that other people were doing, their "kindnesses" to Blanket Man designed to reflect more on themselves than him. People offered real assistance. He turned it down. And nothing was done in the end to help him. He mysteriously disappeared from the streets during much of the Rugby World Cup, the time New Zealand welcomed the world to her shores. He was arrested, I'm told, to get him out of the public domain.

He died a lonely death.

A lot of people turned out to his service today. It looked an eclectic and caring group. A city councilor used the event to focus on the plight of other homeless people in the capital. It's a complicated and ultimately sad story.

Mr. Fink, beloved mentor, is dead

2012-01-17T06:32:00.011+13:00

I wore a keffiyeh to my first Conrad Fink journalism class at the University of Georgia. It was the sort of thing one did in college, pre-9/11 anyway.

"What's your name?" Fink asked me, in front of the rapidly filling classroom.

I was new to the United States, and certainly new to the American education system. I did not like drawing attention.

"Pratt," I responded.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, pointing at the sort of scarf popularized by Yasser Arafat.

"Bahrain, sir."

"What were you doing in Bahrain, Pratt?" By now I was squirming in my seat.

"Passing through," I said, just trying to dodge more questions and hoping people would stop staring at me.

He laughed at that, and said, "See me after class."

It sounded like a threat. Far from getting demerits for randomly wearing Arabic gear, Fink really wanted to know what the hell I was doing "passing through" Bahrain. It was the first conversation with a man who would profoundly influence my life.

Fink died over the weekend, leaving a massive hole not just in my life but in that of literally thousands of "Finkites" who adored the teacher who brought out the best in them, made them better than they ever dreamed they could be. At last count, his death was recorded by more than 230 newspapers around America, many of the obituaries written by his "kids." He published 11 text books, but more important, he changed lives.

Fink spotted my diffidence immediately. (I had to look up precisely what that meant after he'd used that word about me and was delighted it didn't mean anything worse.)

He told me I'd never make it in newspapers if I wasn't willing - even eager - to engage people. My problem was that back then I was still vaguely thinking about becoming a poet - for whom diffidence would be perfectly acceptable - or, like every other directionless student of an artistic bent, a writer for National Geographic magazine.

That didn't last. After a couple of weeks in Fink's class I wanted to be a newspaperman. More than anything. He made them seem important, powerful. The people who wrote for them soon became my idols. So he had to teach me how to learn to communicate with people, how to make an impression, how to earn trust.

"Everyone's got a story, Pratt," he said. You had to learn to ask the right questions, and to listen. (He used the flag in his office in the picture at top as a gauge of his students: who would ask about it, who would use it as a conversation starter.) I learned to love interviewing people and telling their stories and doing them justice.

Fink had done it all as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press. We had to cajole his stories out of him. Right until the end he lived what he taught: the reporter is not the story, never should be. But when his students coaxed one out of him, we were in awe. Stories from the Soviet Union, India, Nepal, Japan - and Fink at the center, trying to get them out first, trying to get the scoop.

Two days before I was to fly to Cuba on assignment, he told me my favorite Fink story. It was not a newspaper story. While still in the U.S. Marines, Fink's ship had pulled into Havana. His buddies tried to encourage them to go drinking with them. He refused. He had other things to do. So, while his friends were hitting the bars, Fink walked the 11 miles up to Ernest Hemingway's house in the hills of San Francisco, overlooking Havana.

When he got there, the house maid told him that Hemingway was not there. So Fink walked all the way back. It was midnight by the time he returned to his vessel, and his ship mates were all drunk.

"You should have been there," one of the guys told Fink. "Some crazy American writer called Papa or something was buying us drinks all night."

Fink also taught me to love newspapers and to want to make them better. Throughout my many years in journalism, Fink was always there to help, to offer advice in terse, telgraphic emails or red-markered letters banged out on his typewriter. Even when I switched careers, he helped me and guided me.

I have a hundred stories to tell, but right now only one matters: He is gone and that hurts. He didn't just help me get a job, he managed to infuse me with a passion. I'm proud to have known him and called him friend by the end of his life. I'm proud that I got all the way through this post without mentioning his eyebrows. But above all, I'm grateful for everything he ever did for me.

But I can not tell you how upsetting it is knowing that he will not read this and I will not receive a proof-read and red-ink splattered version of it back telling me I could do better.

A good day's fishing on a bad day

2012-01-16T12:45:00.013+13:00

One of the most remarkable sights of my life came on a family vacation in the Highlands of Scotland: thousands of salmon coming in from the ocean turned the river delta aboil jumping out of the water and landing on their backs trying to dislodge sea lice.

Even at that tender age I knew I was watching something remarkable and primal. We followed the river upstream to a powerful waterfall and watched the salmon trying to jump it and swim up to the spawning grounds. I've been besotted by the fish ever since.

So when I saw that there was salmon and trout fishing to be had on Queenstown's Lake Wakatipu, Ewan and I signed up. Ewan gets seasick, but he's willing to put up with it when fishing is involved.

The weather was, to say the least, not ideal. In fact, it snowed on the mountains around Queenstown, a perfect development for Amy's summer holiday. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic.) Added to the unseasonal cold was a good, stiff blow and four-foot waves. It had caused the flight to Milford Sound to be cancelled.

This being salmon-fishing, Ewan never even hinted about skipping. He's competitive when it comes to fishing, not that we do it too often. He pointed out that the last time we'd been angling he'd caught a tuna - and that I'd caught the fish he'd used as bait to catch said tuna. Ouch.

When I told him I'd never caught a salmon, he said, "Don't worry, Dad, we'll get one today." It's odd being patronized by your 12-year-old son, but when it comes to fishing I don't have many notches so I have to take it.

The wind and the waves picked up as we headed out of port. By God, it was bouncy and Ewan was hanging on for dear life. Had this been a sightseeing trip or some other pointless thing, he'd have been dry-heaving over the side and telling us we needed to get back to shore. But this was fishing and instead he wore a smile bigger than anything I've ever caught.

Brown and rainbow trout as well as salmon were introduced into the lake in the 1870s. They promptly set about devouring the local population of crayfish and kokopu. Only the longfin eel survived the newcomers. (You can watch them feed at the town's underwater observatory, if you're inclined to see something that makes your skin crawl.) The salmon breed in the lake - there being no access to the ocean from this elevation - and roam the massive waters, which can be up to 1,200 feet deep, alone. They're difficult to catch, especially at this time of the year, before the cicada and other larvae layer the water like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Ewan, of course, was the first to hook onto something. He was delighted to see it was a salmon; not large, but a keeper.

"Ok, now it's your turn, Dad," he said.

In water this deep, we were trawling a spinner, not fly fishing - something the puritan in me was a tad upset about.

Until I too heard the line screaming out. Actually, the screaming might have been a figment of the imagination. The only fight I had with this salmon was the 400 feet of line I had to reel in.

When I brought him on board, the captain looked at me and asked me what I was going to do with it. He didn't want to come right out and tell me that I would be committing the fishing version of child abuse if I kept the thing. But when I told him I was going to put it back, he gave me the sort of meaningful look that let me know I'd done the right thing.

"Oh well, it was still a salmon," Ewan said. He was consoling me.

"Yes, it was," I said. "My first one."

We caught one more, cleaned it and took it to the pub across the road from the wharf. They cooked it for us. The whole hunter-gatherer thing was spoiled considerably for Amy when the bar charged us as much for the salmon we'd supplied as they would have for their own salmon.

Apparently we were just renting a chef. Still, it was fresh and good. And it was salmon.

There's gold in them thar tourists

2012-01-15T09:36:00.012+13:00

Despite being sick as a dog for two days, I rose early to get to the airport yesterday (non-refundable tickets will motivate you that way). I'm not sure where the nausea came from. Is it possible, after three days in a wobbly Christchurch, that I was suffering from some sort of motion sickness?

Amy and the boys had already had a couple of days in Dunedin and met me at the airport in Queenstown. As I've said before, Queenstown will cure me of whatever ails me. Ewan informed me that we were off to Arrowtown to pan for gold. It's always nice to just go with the flow and not have to worry about all the arrangements.

Gold was found in Arrowtown in the 1860s and soon there were more than 7,000 folks from all over the world knocking on the town's door in search of the better life. A small recreated Chinese settlement attempts to show how those early visitors lived and why they came here.

The town itself is a place that earns the moniker quaint, in a St. Augustine sort of way. There are a couple of older and well-preserved buildings. They've been supplemented by new old buildings. The building guidelines strictly enforce this sort of retro-architecture. The council knows on what side its bread is buttered. Still, the overall effect is not entirely unpleasant and the hills that valley the place put the spectacular back in your day. And there's a fudge shop, just in case your immune to nature's offerings.

The gold rush came and went, leaving ghost towns such as Macetown, Skippers and Bullendale in its wake. By the time it was all over, just a couple of hundred folks remained. Nowadays tourism is providing a rebirth of sorts, as is the new gold of celluloid. The Arrow River and nearby Lake Hayes provided gorgeous backdrops for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The boys got stuck into the river. Ewan is still young enought to dream big dreams. Luckily his gold rush obsession lasted only until his belly told him it was time to leave. He did find a few flakes - worth perhaps $1.80 in the opinion of an "expert." That made his day. And splashing around in the cold glacial waters of the Arrow was a much better way of spending a day than sweating torrentially in my sick bed.

Images from the Red Zone

2012-01-12T16:33:00.011+13:00

A tour of Christchurch's red zone - the Central Business District that has been sealed off for almost a year now - is both heartbreaking and surreal.

How can a city so vibrant fall into such silence? How can its buildings and monuments simply be gone? When you walk around a town you marvel at the work and creativity and the dedication, and you think of those long-gone hands that raised it. It is a link to the past, a permanent bridge to what came before. It is not supposed to disappear.

These are the trees from which Amy watched the Cathedral's spire collapse. The statue-less plinth is still there. It's a shock, driving around the side of Christ Church Cathedral, to see just how much damage she has sustained. All but a couple of the buildings around Cathedral Square - home to government, church, press and university - will be gone soon.

The footings of the Hotel Grand Chancellor, once the city's tallest building, sank into the liquefaction of the February 22 earthquake. The hotel has been standing at a dangerous angle ever since, threatening numerous buildings around it. It is now being deconstructed. Seven floors have already been taken down and the building should be gone by April.

Taking a tour around the red zone reveals that basically all the buildings over five stories are being levelled - more than 1,200 in all.

I had many a good pint in the Bard on Avon. It was a lovely, wooden old pub with a fireplace and a smell of old England about it. I don't know what's happened to it. It looks to have been inundated by liquefaction and debris from the building above. It's not going to make it. Not one of the bars and restaurants where I used to eat are still around.

People have hung tributes on the fence across the street from the site of the CTV building, in which 115 people died on February 22. The building collapsed and then caught fire. A Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority described it as Christchurch's ground zero. A lot of hard thinking will have to go into how to memorialize the space in the future, he said.

With all the empty spaces throughout the CBD there are going to have to be a lot of stories memorialized. This city suffered block by block traumas. The now-cleared lots tell no stories.

Two steps back, then two more

2012-01-11T18:07:00.012+13:00

In my last post I promised to write of the signs of progress Christchurch is making. After spending another two days there I have to confess, with all due compassion to my friends there, that this is a task of some considerable difficulty.

The scale of the catastrophe is stunning, and the people of Christchurch are being ground down by unceasing pressures.

Every time there is a quake above 5.0 the insurance clock - which demands a 90-day period without such an occurence - is reset to zero. There have been almost 9,500 earthquakes or aftershocks in 16 months. How can this not dance like the devil on the psyche?

And yet most of the current residents soldier on, some because they have to, some because they want to, some because they are too damn stubborn to give in. The Garden City, a large slice of England on the other side of the world, is a unique and beautiful place - still. At this time of year it seems as if the whole place is a botanical garden, and the air is heavy with florid perfume. The pulchritude is made more heart-rending by its gorgeous - and defiant - contrast to the destruction within which it stands.

Can you count the gradually disappearing skyline as progress? Those at work on the deconstruction or demolition of 1,200 buildings in the Central Business District would say so. For until the area is made safe, there can be no rebuild, no future. So every step backwards, in a way, is a step forward.

But that is big picture kind of thinking. To those struggling in damaged houses or waiting for insurance checks, frankly, the big picture is a luxury - an abstraction.

There is talk that 30,000 tradesmen will have to be brought into the city to get the job done. The plan for the new city, co-drafted by the people of Christchurch and the City Council, are with the national government, awaiting approval. Then work on the new, revolutionary, green city - a City in a Garden - can begin in earnest.

Until such major conquests can be contemplated, it's the small victories that are celebrated: the coffee shop reopening; destroyed businesses relocating; sewer lines repaired. One such hopscotch forward is the pop-up mall at Cashel Street. The original Cashel Mall was destroyed in the February 22 quake, robbing the city of yet another gathering place.

Eight months later 27 stores housed in creatively redesigned shipping containers opened. It is a marvelous place, much better than it sounds. Not because the containers have been so artfully molded, but because it's a place for residents to just hang out. To talk - even if it is only about the latest aftershock - and put on an air of normality. The views aren't great. Mainly you are confronted by what was - battered buildings or accusing emptiness - and a rather rural silence.

There are flowers and buskers and shops and people. The little stretch of road upon which it stands is flanked on one end by the Bridge of Rememberance, a grandiose war memorial that has, remarkably, withstood the assault from beneath, and the blocked-off red zone on the other. But between these two brutal reminders of the darker side of life, people are laughing and getting on with it.

The plan for the new Christchurch, championed by its ubiquitous and dulcet-voiced mayor, Bob Paker, at right, is indeed a thing to be celebrated, even if it seems now like a far-off indulgence.

The Avon River, muddied by the liquefaction in the aftermath of the quake, flows slowly and cleanly again. The people, battered perhaps, are still at their impish, witty best. They describe the aftershocks as others might a meal, so many words have come into the lexicon and so many varieties of impact are there. The humor may have a bit more of the gallows about it, but it's still refreshing. "You know the only good thing about these quakes is that there's plenty of parking now," my taxi driver told me.

"You know you're from Christchurch when a girl asks a guy if he's wearing protection and he immediately thinks about hard hat, hi-viz jackets and elbow pads." There are so many such sayings that they've been published in a book, the proceeds of which will go to the reconstruction effort.

Progress of sorts, I suppose.

Unholy silence in Christchurch

2012-01-09T19:15:00.003+13:00

It’s difficult to describe the limbo Christchurch is in. Not limbo, actually, it's more like controlled disintegration and a suspended state of change. And a silence that hurts the heart.

Out around the airport and the western peripheries it is easy to imagine Christchurch as it was, especially on a glorious day such as today. The roads are busy, buses ferry their passengers at regular intervals, flowers are in bloom and stores are open. You see only a few houses with tumbled chimneys or whose garden walls have fallen.

But as you get to the downtown area you realize that the disaster of February 22 is frozen in time. In places the only noise you hear is the screaming of the bulldozers and the falling of rubble.

IIn other parts the quiet is eerie, reverential, funereal. Curtains flap out of long-broken windows. In the Tap Room the food of diners still sits on plates beside half-drunk bottles of beer, the debris of a broken room all around. Pompeii-like, everything remains as it was because the buildings are too dangerous to enter.

A chain-link fence still seals off the Central Business District, almost a year later. People stand at the fence respectfully, locals remembering what was; tourists trying to imagine the force of something that made a city fall.

The big-picture gaze over the dead zone of the CBD gives the impression that nothing much has happened, despite the copse of cranes clawing the horizon. But as I walked along the fence I achingly realized all the things that were gone. Whole blocks that were home to me for long periods are gone: the hairdressers where the lovely lady cried as she cut my hair and told me of the September quake; my favorite candy store; the Scotch store; most of the restaurants where we ate after work - even my favorite bar.

All gone and in their place the fuck-you - what are you staring at? - space of a flattened and empty lot.

As I walked outwards from the city centre the very randomness of the destruction is driven home. One house stands pertly; its neighbor flattened. One garden is flourishing with roses and well-tended beds; beside it a lawn of wildflowers, equally pretty, but telling a different tale, one of sorrow, destruction and displacement. Now there are whole checkerboard neighborhoods of house, empty lot, overgrown lot, house – sad tales told by the land.

In these days of high summer, Christchurch smells like the Garden City, its air heavy with pollen and the scents of blooming. It sounds like a Garden City, too, but not like the Garden City. In parts the song of cicada and bird at rush hour remind of just how empty the city is.

It was a brief, but heartbreaking walk in a city I once loved: a clock tower stuck on 12:51 – the moment the quake struck; a graveyard with many of its wonderful stones and cairns and statues knocked to the ground; the traffic lights on blocked-off streets still turning from red to green or else eternally flashing orange.

And then there are the churches. All of them, it seems, struck mortally down, gaping, broken. All that remains of one is its bell tower. Another is hollowed out completely. Spires have fallen, old brick walls collapsed. Congregations homeless.

The saddest tale, of course, is that of the people. Those in the red zones – the areas deemed to dangerous ever to re-habitate – stay still with friends or family and wait, wait, wait. They wait for inspectors. They wait for insurance companies to pay up. They wait for new land they can build on. They wait again for insurance companies. They know they will wait for years. And now that the ground has started shaking angrily again – there were two swarms of quakes, one around Christmas, the other around New Year’s – even the most valiant admit to thoughts of leaving.

There are signs of progress here too. Hope springs. Courage flourishes. Spirits of community soar. I will write of those tomorrow. But today was the first time since February 22 that I had been back to the central city. The grinding finality of the empty lots and the realization of so much that has been lost was heartbreaking.

The Rena finally succumbs

2012-01-09T06:07:00.003+13:00

Photo by Fairfax Media

After a months-long slow-motion, prime time disaster, the cargo ship Rena was finally torn apart by a hard storm, spilling its remaining 300 containers into the ocean.

Luckily, salvors had been working around the clock to remove more than 1,100 containers from the ship. In addition, most of the oil had been pumped out. Still, 20-foot seas pushed massive debris piles and hundreds of containers into the waters. They are now afloat. Coming on the same weekend as a devastating hot air balloon crash that killed 11 people in Carterton, the terrible news continues for New Zealand in 2012.

A Welly ghost - Erskine College

2012-01-08T17:50:00.002+13:00

I had a wonderful wet and windy run this morning. It was such a bleak day that even the Kiwis driving along Island Bay gave me disapproving looks. With a bit of time to spare, I took a turn up a road I'd never been before. Soon I saw a large, dark old building hovering over the community as if from another time, looking like a bat with outstretched wings.

The building was obviously abandoned and a sense of melancholy washed over me. Here was a grand dame pushed aside. Here were better days now gone. Here were a million memories disrespected.

Even though I was dripping wet, this demanded a bit of exploration.

The gate beckoned. The rain pattered on the leaves and the wind bent the trees to its will. It was dark and early on a Sunday and, yes, it was a little creepy. There was nobody about. So I crept through the gate and up the steps, a warning chorus singing happily in my head.

The old Gothic building towered above me, silent, wet and utterly forbidding. It soon became apparent that not a soul was around. The place was as silent as the grave, its windows staring blankly at me and its walls graffitied by neglect. Though empty, the place is solid and, despite the pounding of the Wellington elements, has stood the test of time.

It turns out this used to be a Catholic girls' boarding school. It doesn't take a large leap of imagination to conjur up the sights and sounds of uniformed girls making a menace of themselves around the grounds. Nor is it difficult to think how hurt the old girls would be if they returned here, the site of their youth, to see this, the tumbledown version of their memories.

Built in 1905-06 by the Society of the Sacred Heart, it closed as a girls' school in 1985. It is listed as a historic place by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, merely a designation, rather than a promise, it seems.

A couple of proposals for a second act have been briefly entertained. But the building is not only out of the way, it poses an earthquake risk and that is a death knell these days.

That's a dire shame. As I've said, the buildings are solid and the chapel, long since deconsecrated, is said to be gorgeous. (It was used in Peter Jackson's movie The Frighteners.) The company that hosts weddings and receptions at the old school, desribes the chapel as "an example of French Gothic architecture with German stained glass windows, an Italian marble altar, and valuated ceiling." They say it provides a truly special atmosphere for any wedding ceremony. Having wandered around the grounds this morning, I can only say that's a jarring contrast to the vibe of the rest of the campus. But more power to them if they can pull it off.

Like another haunting old relic I recently discovered, the Fever Hospital, Erskine College seems to be a source of great fascination for ghosters. Apparently they've heard rumors that it's haunted and take to staking the place out at night. The resulting ghosts, it seems, have proven to be more vagrant than otherworldly. Disappointing voice recorder pick-ups, too, seem to be a leitmotif running through their narratives.

Oh dear, not even a future as a ghost factory beckons. The old girl appears to be of no use to anyone.

Blowin' - or skippin' - in the wind

2012-01-07T17:44:00.003+13:00

As blowy as it is in New Zealand, you'd think wind power would be a natural, if you'll pardon the pun. And, while you see quite a few wind turbines around, they generate just 4 percent of the country's energy - enough for about 180,000 households. That's a surprisingly low number for a country that prides itself on its environmental credentials.

That output is expected to increase up to 20 percent over the next decade or two. Numerous wind farms are under construction.

Wind is not a problem in New Zealand, as I've written about often. Since moving to Wellington, latitude 41, I understand why they're called the Roaring Forties. And, unlike some folks, I find the turbines strangely beautiful and magnetic - even if they do try to chop off my head.

If they set their minds to it, according to one study, wind electricity could make a profound contribution. If the Kiwis used just 1 percent of the land available for wind farms, they could generate twice as much electricity as the country uses in a year.

The wind farm pictured here is a mixed-ownership project in Makara - owned partially by the government and partially by private interests. Still, as in other places, there is not universal love for wind farms in New Zealand. They're expensive, noisy and an eyesore, say opponents.

One thing they obviously haven't thought about is what additional use these turbines can be put to, as my sons ably demonstrated this week.

Aladdin's mum is a randy man

2012-01-06T06:13:00.011+13:00

I do love me a good pantomime. I've been starved of them since moving to the States lo those many years ago. It's great being back in a land that truly understands this twisted, corny and wonderful art form.

Luckily my family indulge me. I think they secretly quite enjoy themselves at these productions.

My colleagues are not so generous. In fact, they looked at me as if I were odd every time I enthusiastically informed them of my plans for tonight. So I blamed it on the kids. Still, the co-workers thought something wasn't quite right with me. A bit off.

Maybe it's because they didn't see the old Glasgow Pantomimes I grew up with. Or maybe it's because they're not 13 anymore. Or perhaps they just ain't fun people.

Oh yes they ARE!

Oh no they're NOT!

Oh yes ... Oh, never mind.

This year's pantomime was Aladdin, with the actors all dressed as characters from Arabian Nights. The audience was accused of having a bad sense of hummus and kids were warned to say no to rugs.

A pantomine, as I pointed out in last year's blog on the subject, "is a cabaret in drag for kids, with lots of audience participation - mainly loud booing and cheering and awwwing - politcal commentary, a la the Capitol Steps, teen-aged crudity, awful puns, great singing, tap-dancing and live music. And sex. Implied, of course.

"That's just the first five minutes.

"Pantos have been a Christmastime tradition in Britain for 200 years. They were said to have started back in Roman times, but were disdained by the hoities. It took the English to elevate low-brow to an art form. Believe it or not, Pantos are intended for the whole family. Morgan and Ewan - both newcomers to this egalitarian, proletarian, artistocratic holiday tradition - loved it, and they are not easily moved by things thespian."

Morgan, now a veteran of two pantomimes, pointed out that this year's - Aladdin - was pretty much the same as last year's Robin Hood. Precisely. That's the point. The corn, the slight bawdiness, the music, the audience participation are all the same. It's just the jokes that change.

And now that we've been in New Zealand for a while, we actually got most of the jokes. It added to the family's enjoyment. And they did enjoy it. Ewan was back up on the stage this year. Amy was hissing at the villain and "awwwwwing" at the sad bits, fake of course. Morgan, at 15 was a bit cool for it all, but I could tell he wanted to laugh - deep inside, damn it, he loved it.

Amy - mischievious, un-shy, wonderful, Amy - had bought the tickets. Of course she bought front row tickets, wanting to get me sucked into some action with the boisterous lead character. It's what happens in the front row. Luckily, Widow Tawankey, played by Gavin Rutherford, picked on the guy next to me as her love interest. Phew. I don't like audience participation - and certainly not with a horny, cross-dressing tango dancer who bursts into song every five minutes.

The jokes hit home this year, with the characters making fun of the boys' school - Snot's College - India (our next stop) and the United States. The main scorn though was reserved for their own politicians. And there was plenty of off-color humor as well.

The villain had to shout "Abra Viagra" to get make his rope stand up. It quickly deflated when he saw Widow Twankey, the mother of the twins Hankey and Pankey. The Sultan bemoaning the loss of his right-hand man as the worst day of his life then points out that a man with seven wives doesn't need a right hand.

Twankey was also the mother of Aladdin. She ran a family laundry service, though she wanted more. No, I'm not going to tell the whole story, because the story is not important. She sang and danced her bawdy way through the show with her infectious smile and engaged the crowd, both young and old. The jokes came thick and fast. It's an astonishing task to write jokes for people of all generations. I had a blast.

I do not know what I will do when I'm back in the States next year.

Rave Runs II - reasons to rise early

2012-01-04T20:09:00.005+13:00

Many people ask me why I run so early in the morning. It's for sights like this, and the ability to enjoy them entirely on my own - and in peace. There are dozens of Rave Runs around Wellington. This morning I began at Massey Point and ran to Seatoun around the gorgeous bays and elegant villages.

Boom Boom with a view

2012-01-03T17:59:00.001+13:00

To many, New Zealand's location at the far-end of the planet represents a shield of sorts. But it is also a vulnerability.

I keep stumbling across the ghosts of New Zealand military installations from World War II. Though no shots were ever fired in anger from the Aotearoa homeland during the Second World War, the very presence of these concrete ghosts is testament to the fear felt by Kiwis at the time.

On the way up to the Brooklyn Wind Turbine that towers above Wellington, we stumbled across the Pol Hill Gun emplacements.

This was an anti-aircraft battery. The scenery from up there is spectacular, a view to a kill. Built in 1942, it could house 109 military personnel and four 3.7" anti-aircraft guns.

The Kiwis, as they have done since their very beginnings as a member of the British Empire, declared war on the Germans at the same time as England did. Only when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor did New Zealand begin to feel in peril. That brought the war - and a hostile enemy - into the neighborhood.

Most of the New Zealand fighting force was in Europe or North Africa, leaving a gaping vulnerability back home. Churchill declared that he could spare no troops to defend New Zealand. Roosevelt, however, obliged. Over the years, a total of around 100,000 U.S. Marines and other American military personnel were stationed in New Zealand. The Kiwis also rapidly built up a Home Army, reaching 100,000 men and women at its height.

The exposure was terrifyingly highlighted in March of 1942. A Japanese seaplane was launched off a submarine in the Cook Strait - in and of itself a stupendous maneuver. The pilot, later identified as Nobuo Fujita, overflew Wellington in his Yokosuka E14Y plane, sending locals into a panic. Fujita flew low over the wharves and docks, searching for America ships to report to his submarines. His brazenness underscored the defenselessness of the country.

I believe the American and domestic military build-up in New Zealand prevented any further such overflights.

Like the abandoned gun emplacements at Somes, Point Dorset, and Fort Opau the old fort on Pol Hill is haunting and a poignant tie to times long gone. Looking down at the opulence of today's Wellington in the glorious sunshine of summer, almost makes it seem an aberration, as much of history is in good times.

The battery, best I can tell, is made up of four octagonal buildings. What little documentation I could find says there was a control room and observation post. It is one of six anti-aircraft locations around the city, with just three surviving - this one, the one on Somes and the one at Massey Point.

I'm not sure if Pol Hill is open to the public - we had to hop a little chain. There are certainly no historical markers - something we're getting used to in New Zealand. But, with the outrageous views on offer as well as your imagination as a guide, it's an awesome place to spend some time.

Pride is a horrible, horrible thing

2012-01-02T05:17:00.001+13:00

The first time Morgan kicked my ass at running, he was graceless enough, with his medal around his neck, to run back to help me over the finishing line.

He was 12, but at least I had the consolation that he was about as tall as me. In an attempt to make it competitive I'd put Eminem on my iPod and even stretched. Didn't work. He stuck with me up the first hill and, when I told him to run his own race, he took off in a cloud of imagined dust, leaving me with the vulgar lyrics of a wifebeater in my head.

The first time Ewan kicked my ass he was 11. He's half my size. We were running along chatting one minute. The next he was slowly inching off into the distance. Hah, I'll reel him back in, I thought. I was, after all, the veteran of four marathons and the proud winner of a 5k. OK, it was in South Dakota and had a field of under 30, but I still got a trophy.

(Here a lengthy aside. When I returned from Edinburgh, having run the marathon there, I proudly told Morgan, then 8, that I had finished 700th. It was my best finish, my best time, and I had the glow of pride around me.

"You mean 699 people beat you?" he asked me. That, I suppose, was one way of looking at it.

So when I won my 5k I drove home eager to show him my trophy, again the pink aura of happiness about me. "It's not very big, is it?" he said. It was true, of course - the thing was bloody miniscule - but hardly the point.)

So as Ewan faded off into the distance, I thought to myself, "Slow and steady and I'll get him back. No way he can keep up that pace." (Ah, the self-delusion of age: that my lethargic plodding could in any way be described as "pace.")

I never saw him again, until I trundled up to the car at the finish - slow and steady, very sore and very sweaty - where he and Morgan were doing sprints.

I don't consider myself a runner of any distinction. I just love it, is all. Nor am I a father who pressures his children towards wished-for sporting glory. Should they pull up lame, my first instinct is always to wince and worry if they're OK, not to deride them for being weak or to goad them onwards.

In the meantime Morgan, now 15, has run the Wellington Marathon in horrendous conditions. Ewan, now 12, ran a fast 10k on the same day.

This is all by way of saying I am in no way competitive with my sons. So why, then, did I feel a stab of unbecoming pride today on our first group train for the Round the Bays run? They both finished the run - but after me. They both did well - just not as well as me. There's a long way to go until the actual race, when they will both destroy me. But aren't we always taught to live for today - which I won?

Krazy Kiwi Korus

2012-01-01T17:11:00.000+13:00

Just out of Wanaka, on our way to Fox Glacier, we stopped to gaze in peaceful wonderment at the gorgeous scenery of Lake Hawea. Apparently the locals were none too happy that we were blocking their view. They let their charming disapproval ring out.

2011- a year not to be forgotten

2011-12-31T09:07:00.018+13:00

Well that was a hell of a year.

On and on the dramatic changes kept rolling. Many of my friends and colleagues were living in the places that were consumed by the storms. From Tripoli to Cairo to Damascus and even to State College, my thoughts and worries were kidnapped by whatever the day's headlines were.

No one I knew came to harm, thank God, even if they are forever changed.

The Arab Spring, the collapse of proud European economies, the death of Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. On and on. Books will be written about 2011, the 1968 of a new generation. Before then, I will leave it to the Year in Review stories to wrap up a truly astonishing twelve months.

Not even far-off New Zealand was spared in the face of such global enormities. While the systems of state survived and there were no riots in the streets here, New Zealand had her fair share of heartache and despair this year.

The year began as we wished it: calmly and with time for some family outings. We were really getting into the swing of New Zealand. Amy was loving the life we had here. After work had prevented me from spoiling her on Valentine's Day she gave me a rain check. Eight days later I was to be working in Christchurch and we were going to make a night of it. I had reservations at the fanciest of restaurants and was going to show her around the beautiful town.

Chaos in the aftermath of the earthquake.

As most of you know by now, that evening never came. Instead, less than an hour after Amy arrived in Christchurch, the earthquake hit, destroying much of Christchurch and killing 181 people. Amy's blog told powerfully of that day and how lucky she was to survive.

But, as with many Cantabrians, the earthquake wasn't a one-off event for us that ended February 22. Amy struggled for a long time afterwards; I found it difficult to live life in the same way I had. We both avoided tall buildings and jumped at loud noises. Just as things were settling back into a normality the folks in Christchurch still haven't found, there were some quakes here in Wellington that put the edge right back into us.

Still, the earthquake didn't define our year. Life, as it does, went on. Damaged, perhaps. Bruised, definitely. But it went on. You can tell the line of demarkation from my blogs. Before the quake they were light tales pointing out the quirkiness of New Zealand and the splendors of life here. Afterwards my writing was tinged with sadness, fear and poignancy. It took a while until we gave ourselves permission to laugh loosely and genuinely.

But New Zealand imposes itself on you, as does the limited time we have here. Two years, then out. You can't afford to sit around and dream of next year. You've got to get out and do. And we certainly tried to make the most of this wonderful land.

Not without a safety net, though.

Amy told New Zealand she didn't care how good looking it was, she was breaking up with it. She needed to create a Plan B. Just in case there were more quakes. So she started looking for houses in the little town in North Carolina where we'd spent a year before moving to New Zealand and where my parents live.

Through all the frustrating twists and turns, Amy did not know that karma was on her side. After hours and hours of researching houses on the internet, Amy went back to the States to check them out personally. After almost two weeks, none of them passed muster. In frustration she told a friend of hers as they drove past a certain house that if it ever came up for sale she'd buy it.

She returned to the other side of the world exasperated and tired, vowing never to make that wretched journey again.

Two weeks later the phone rang in the middle of the night saying the house - yes, that house - was for sale. What's worse, it was for sale by the bank and we had just three days to come up with an offer. Three days for a house we'd never inspected.

The long and short of it is we bought it and Amy winged her way back to the States and, in reverse order, fell in love with the house.

I'm sure she wishes karma had been a bit more efficient, but karma is busy.

Morgan too had a year to remember. After he heard that his school was taking a rugby team to South America he decided this was the thing for him. We told him he had to make the team and raise half the money, thinking neither would happen.

He decided to run the Wellington Marathon to raise the money. Thanks to amazing friends and family - and even some complete strangers who were blog readers - he scraped in the funds. He made the rugby team and ran the race - at just 14 - and off he went to Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. He came back having had a great trip, but also a little older and wiser. His attitude about traveling, culture and respect surprised - and pleased - me immensely.

The year ended wonderfully with a flourish of family. Ewan's godfather, who had not seen his now 12-year-old charge for eight years, came for Christmas and spoiled the boy rotten. It was important - and fun - for Ewan. Mum and Dad and my brother Jamie all visited in December and that tied a nice bow at the end of a full, turbulent and instructive year.

I wish everyone a very happy 2012. May all your dreams come true and may the world begin to take a shape we can all understand and love. And thank you, as always, for reading "Life in the Land of the Long White Cloud."

In Samoa, today has been cancelled

2011-12-30T18:57:00.007+13:00

Pity the poor Samoan child born on December 30.

No birthday this year. No anniversary. No December 30. In Samoa there was no today, in a manner of speaking.

Samoa, trying to reposition itself back into the same general time zone as its two largest trading partners - Australia and New Zealand - is jumping westward over the international dateline.

So they will go from Thursday, December 29, straight to Saturday, December 31. Well, at least no one has to work on Friday. Lovely, if empty, gesture.

The time difference - an hour ahead, but a day behind New Zealand - has proven to be a bit of a problem in recent years. You should try making travel arrangements; it defies logic and most computer systems. The new prime minister of Samoa, who also made the country switch to driving on the left-hand side of the road two years ago, decided it was time to correct a decision made 119 years ago. Pun intended.

Back then American traders thought it was important for Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa, to be moving in the same orbit, to the same beat, as American Samoa and the west coast of America herself.

Instead of being the last country to greet the day, Samoa will now be one of the first. That's not much of a consolation to the kids who missed out on a birthday today. They'd be sure to prefer a couple of decent presents to a pretty sunrise.

Bulls' Hits keep coming

2011-12-29T18:34:00.006+13:00

As soon as I saw the sign proudly announcing the town of “Bulls,” I thought of the Bulls Hit Ranch and Farm outside Hastings, Florida. It's the maker of some fine chips - crisps you'd call them in New Zealand. It was the first giggle of what had been a long day on the road. There were a few more laughs in store. Turns out the town of Bulls, in the breadbasket of the country, has a wonderful sense of humor.

It is unforget-a-bull, as they like to say.

Many of the businesses and institutions have added signs that will make you chuckle. The I-site for tourists is “Inform-a-Bull;” The local grocery store is “Restock-a-Bull;” an antique store is “Collect-a-Bull;” Even the McDonald’s – not usually known for its corporate humor – gets in on the joke, referring to itself as McValue-a-Bull with a drive thru-a-Bull service.

The Medical Center, above, says it’s “Cure-a-Bull” and the church is “believe-a-Bull.”

You get the picture, this is a town with a good sense of itself and everyone gets in on the joke. It has a good feel to it.

While there are quite a few hyperbolic places in New Zealand – “The Adventure Capital of the World” comes to mind - there are more places with a healthy sense of depracation.

I’ve already written about the Independent Republic of Whangamomona. They're a wonderfully free-spirited and rebellious bunch who - over a zoning matter - have set up their own country right in the center of the North Island of New Zealand.

And now I've just learned about Blackball. No wait, wait, that’s not the funny part.

Blackball began its life as a hardscrabble mining town on the South Island. When the mines closed and the railroad left nobody held out much hope for the town. It went through a few iterations, though, including rebellious trade union center, hippie magnet, and is hanging on by a thread.

The funny part concerns the town's hotel. It began life as the Dominion Hotel in 1910. Then it was decided that it should be renamed after one of the town's founders, a man by the name of Hilton. Seems a small multinational hotel chain objected strongly - lots of lawyers involved. The good folks of Blackball, being good sorts, complied of course.

It is now known as "The formerly Blackball Hilton Hotel." It is a place that must be visited on my next trip to the South Island - even if it is completely out of the way. I've seen pictures. It's the sort of place where a roaring fire is in need of good company and some craft beers in need of introductions.

The gnaw of pain across the world

2011-12-28T20:09:00.009+13:00

Uncle and nephews with Apple envy.

While the tyranny of distance that so tortured early newcomers to New Zealand has certainly been eased by modernity, it still stings. For the first time in my life I went more than a year without seeing my parents and siblings.

Of course e-mail, Skype, and on-line phone services allow you to stay easily in touch. Still, aching farewells at airports – not knowing when you will meet again – have become a hard-borne melancholy. Today we dropped off my brother Jamie and our dear friend Jason at the airport; three weeks ago it was my parents.

As we pulled out into the traffic at the airport it was hard not to rage against our separate paths that have left us so many thousands of miles apart and so many months between reunions.

It’s a sad revelation that Jamie and I were excited that we’d see each other again in July. That’s “only” six months. For Morgan and Ewan it’s hard not to have regular contact with their blood relatives. These rushed visits are all about crazy running around, when family life is supposed to be the opposite. I’m grateful that they made the great effort to get all the way out here and that we had a semblance of normal time together for a while.

But it’s hard dropping of dear friends and family at the airport, embracing and taking one last look – trying to remember the details that might cloud over before the next meeting. “Grief is the price we pay for love,” Prince William said earlier this year. So is the nagging of sadness, the cost of living apart.

Things that make you go hmmmm

2011-12-27T15:32:00.003+13:00

I suppose I should just be glad these tracks lead to the foot of a cliff and not the top. You can see more images of things that have given me pause here.

Merry Christmas, y'all

2011-12-26T08:26:00.002+13:00

We wish you all a wonderful day from extraordinarily sunny Wellington. May the season and 2012 bring you everything you wish for.

A very Maori Xmas, and a happy few beers

2011-12-25T09:17:00.005+13:00

On paper we had a pretty miserable Christmas Eve. We were severely skunked several times. But when you've got family together and a blue-sky day in Wellington, paper don't mean squat.

We did fail on the planning front, ending up with a bit of a redneck version of the day we had planned, as you can see by the Larry the Cable Guy photo above.

My brother Jamie, newly arrived from New York City, had very kindly offered to treat us for lunch. We decided to take him to our favorite place, The Bach Cafe. Trouble was we'd left it too late. We were informed upon arrival that the only thing they were serving was chips and wedges. So basically Jamie bought us french fries for lunch - our generous uncle. He was disconsolate; you can see the joy in his face as he picked at the grand Christmas fare.

Still, a hike to the Seal Colony at Red Rocks Reserve promised to make up for our oversight - not that we had any food to walk off. Jamie, Jason - newly arrived from London - Morgan and I headed off. It's a 10 kilometer stride along the most wonderful bays that, on a day such as this, can't be beaten.

For the first time since coming to New Zealand, there wasn't a single seal to be found. Not one. The beach, my father said, was sealed off. (You always want to attribute awful puns like that.) The David Attenborough buff in Jamie was sorely disappointed. I told him that if he'd actually bought me lunch, I'd have taken him to the place where the seals really hung out.

As I've mentioned, the seals here are bachelor fur seals, the slobs who were unable to find a mate on the South Island. Jason, ever the romantic, thought perhaps they'd finally found a bunch of loose women and were having a party somewhere. Yes, that was it.

The Christmas cheer was already taking root. Lots of Kiwis were hanging out at their bach (holiday home), imbibing the Christmas spirit. At least these guys, above, will not have to risk any roadblocks on the way home. What a simply idyllic day they must have had: rowed to a friend's bach, had a few drinks, and rowed back.

On our way home we remembered that we hadn't yet acquired any Christmas crackers. This is not a good thing to realize at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Downtown Wellington was deserted. Only a few stores were still open. All the Christmas crackers were sold out.

Skunked again.

But it really didn't matter. Life was good and we were all together and the boys' excitement was mounting. All Jamie wants for Christmas now is seals.

You CAN NOT kill the pudding

2011-12-23T08:44:00.003+13:00

Precious - Jason with the beloved Christmas pudding.

"One good thing about being so far away from the Scottish side of the family is that I don't have to serve Christmas Pudding. I'm not exactly sure what it is made out of, we've never actually eaten it, but it resembles fruit cake. After dinner we drench it in brandy and light it on fire then ooh and aah over it and pretend to be excited about eating it. So, even though we will have Adrian's brother and partner over for the Holidays, I am putting my foot down and not serving cake."

Thus spoke Amy in her latest blog post. It is as close as she has come to enforcing an arbitrary law regarding the British traditions she married into.

A funny thing happened, though. And I mean really funny. Ewan's godfather Jason arrived to spend Christmas with us. He proudly unpacked the presents he'd so generously brought for us. His face lightened with pride as he produced a - wait for it - CHRISTMAS PUDDING. Our dear friend, Melanie Jappy, not wanting us to be stuck at the end of the world without such civilized accoutrements had very kindly made it for us.

I honestly thought Amy was going to die of laughter. The pudding is back. Yeah, baby.

War Memorials of New Zealand II

2011-12-21T18:00:00.000+13:00

Though tucked away at the far reaches of the world, New Zealand has not escaped history.

The unpleasantries of the day have always found her. And New Zealanders in every village of the country are reminded of that daily. The War Memorials of New Zealand are really one of the most poignant and powerful landmarks in a land where such things could easily be ignored.

I have written about these cairns to the fallen before. But I'm startled every time I travel to a new place to see, there in the heart of the community, the list of the dead marbled eternally. The memorials range from the grandiose cenotaph to mere plaques on stones, some of the smaller ones the sadder for it.

There are layers upon layers of poignancy in such places. The above memorial is in Millers Flat, in Otago. The town has a population of 200. In World War I alone the little village on the Clutha River gave 15 of her sons to a distant cause.

A little reading - believe me, the histories of places such as Millers Flat do not add up to many pages - took me back again to the story of "Somebody's Darling," so nicely told by Billy Connolly in an earlier post.

Just five miles downstream from this memorial in a place lonelier than this, a body was discovered in 1864. Nobody knew then who the man was. William Rigney, a local, decided that no man should go like that. "He was somebody's darling," he said. So he dug a grave, made a marker, and invited everyone to the funeral. "Somebody's Darling lies here," says the marker. More remarkably, Rigney changed his will so that he would be buried beside the unknown man - almost 50 years later. They lie side by side still.

Since sending 6,500 mounted troops to help the Brits in the Second Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, the Kiwis have sent troops to many of the world's hotspots. (Four New Zealanders have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last two years.) Among those who did not return from South Africa was the gloriously named Septimus McDougall of Martinborough, obviously the seventh arrival in a large family.

Martinborough (population 1,300), on the North Island, has a square containing numerous memorials to the wars New Zealand has fought in. Fifty of its young men died in the First World War alone, a conflict in which New Zealand, proportionally sustained horrendous casualties. They sent more than 10 percent of their 1 million population to fight - men and women - and almost 60 percent of them were killed (17,000) or injured.

These remorseful spots, ignored no doubt by most people most days, become the center of attention each ANZAC Day, when the Kiwis and the Aussies remember their dead. The services begin before dawn each year, and usually empty and quiet villages and hamlets teem with people paying respect to those who lost their lives. While it began as a tribute to those who served at Gallipoli, ANZAC Day has now been broadened to honor all those who gave their life in battle.

While the names on many of the monuments here could be straight from the Rugby fields of Scotland, the Maori too have given outsized service. The Maori Battalion in the Second World War, which followed the Maori Pioneer Battalion in the First, won more individual bravery decorations than any other New Zealand battalion. Of the 3,600 men who served in the Maori Battalion, 649 were killed and another 1,712 were wounded.

Even in poor or isolated villages, the War Memorials are impeccably maintained. It's a respectful - if lugubrious - way of bearing testament. I stop at every one and take a picture and read the names, my small tip of the hat to those who came before.

Another battering for New Zealand

2011-12-20T18:15:00.008+13:00

The Nelson Mail.

New Zealand has been clobbered again. This time by torrential rains that caused landslides and rivers of mud roaring down valleys. Sometimes as much as 15 feet of mud has buried fields and homes, Pompeii-like. People were swept out of their houses. Roads have been closed, communities cut off, and hundreds of homes either destroyed or labeled unsafe to enter.

The only blessing is that somehow, somehow nobody was killed.

This is just the latest chapter in what's already been a brutal year for New Zealand. And yet the body shots keep coming, and even the immutable and indefatigable Kiwi spirit is getting a little ragged around the edges.

Nelson, the center of this latest storm, is a lovely spot. Ironically, it is generally said to have some of the best weather in New Zealand. This week as much as 800 mm of rain are said to have fallen in areas. I have no idea how much that is, but someone helpfully described it as a shitload to me today.

That this latest chapter of misery came just before Christmas adds weight to the burden. One farmer, faced with 15 feet of mud over his property, was quoted as saying the scope didn't bear thinking about. He had to focus on the clean-up, not the destruction.

"It is hearbreaking, but you sort of learn not to get caught up in it all," Kevin Davis said. "You don't really have time to get caught up in the emotion of it. If you let it get you down, you just turn it into a bigger job than it is."

This stoic quote came from a man who was pictured in The Dominion Post standing on the new mud that had buried his farm. He was standing above his pick-up truck. It was up to its windows in the stuff that seemed to have congealed.

Luckily the rain is slated to stay away for a couple of days, but the repairs will take months, if not years to complete. The same old story, just in a different part of New Zealand.

The Lady of the Lake

2011-12-19T15:07:00.001+13:00

Because I am still enchanted with my visit to Queenstown, I want to write about the TSS Earnslaw.

It's a transparent excuse to cast my mind's eye back to the Southland and to show off a couple more photographs of its resplendent beauty.

Not that the Earnslaw - known as the Lady of Lake - isn't a worthy subject. She is indeed a thing of beauty. Built in the same year as the Titanic, she's the oldest steamship in the Southern Hemisphere.

She's a busy steamer, too, plying her trade for up to 14 hours a day.

Lake Wakatipu was never without her during our time there. She was part of the view, chugging up and down the lake in the shadow of the 8,000 foot mountain whose name she bears. She carries herself with the Edwardian dignity of her age. I must confess, though, that my Dad and I wondered how, in this land of environmental consciousness, there was no protests against her belching smoke. I'm glad she's allowed to ply her elegant trade, though, because she is a grand old thing.

She's had illustrious cargo. Queen Elizabeth II and other royals have viewed the splendid surroundings from her deck.

Lake Wakatipu.

The twin-screwed steamer was even featured in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull - though she was tramped up (or down) as a mere Amazon riverboat.

Unbelievably, she was built in Dunedin by the famous John McGregor and Co. shipbuilders. After completion she was disassembled and brought up to Lake Waktipu by train, where she was put back together again in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle.

Wonderful celebrations are planned for next year, her centennial. This provides yet another perfect excuse for a visit to Queenstown. She's lucky to have survived. Two other steamers are a thing of the past and that same fate nearly befell The Lady in 1968. Luckily she was spared, for the wonderful views of the lake would not be the same without her. Born to be a working lady, transporting cattle, sheep and the people of the area, she now does daily tours for visitors - a much more dignified existence.

A reminder of a Northern Xmas

2011-12-18T15:19:00.011+13:00

Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere is odd to us northerners. It shouldn't be this bright and sunny with so much daylight around. Going to the beach shouldn't even come into the equation.

So, in search of dark and cozy places with that comfortable Christmassy feel, we headed off to Krkcaldie & Stains, Wellington's famous department store.

It worked. The place is wonderfully dolled up for Christmas, complete with elaborate storefront window decorations, a piano player, a doorman and, of course, Santa. The old store, a Wellington landmark since 1863, even smelled like Christmas.

Our day in Wellington was an interesting dilemma for Amy. Since the last four earthquakes here, her old fears of being in downtown Wellington have been reborn. She avoided the place, with its high-rise and landmark buildings, like the plague for months.

Those very valid fears - Wellington sits on a huge fault - were abating somewhat. No longer. Still, I'd bought her a rather spendy birthday present from Kirkcaldie & Stains - which she wanted to return. So what would win out? Her self-preservation or her loathing of wasting money? A Devil's Alternative. In the end it was no contest and the gift was returned. There were no shakes, but we didn't exactly linger. The boys, much to their delight, weren't encouraged to sit on Santa's lap.

Kirkcaldie & Stains, it was revealed this week, is up for sale, but no one yet knows who's wanting to buy it. It would be a shame if it was bought out by a chain and genericized. But that seems to be the way of the world these days.

In the meantime, we had a nice little hour or so of nostalgia around town when the windowless department store kept the summer sun outside at bay and allowed us to paint pictures of Christmases gone by in our heads. And then we went for an ice cream at the beach. The best of both worlds.

Invasion of the face snatchers

2011-12-17T16:49:00.007+13:00

It is technically supposed to be summer now. Though as I write this the wind his hammering our house. Doors are bumping, the blinds are flapping and occasionally the whole place shakes. It is cold, almost cold enough to remind us of winter at home. Cold enough to be good.

Still, last week it was getting warmish, so much so as to make me think about a swim in the harbor. But these nasty jellyfish began washing up, quashing the thought quite quickly. While they look quite pretty, they seem to be packing quite a bit of tentacle action. A triathlete training off Oriental Parade, where the nicest city beach is, was recently stung in the face. Even though he was a Kiwi, he confessed to it being quite painful.

In mere mortal English that translates to, "Oh my God, that thing just about ripped my %$#&ing face off."

Luckily the weather has postponed me having to make any sort of macho decision about this. If we've got to have Christmas away from family down here at the southern part of our globe I'd at least like to have the benefit of a bit of warm weather. I'm just saying.

Update: The Dominion Post is reporting on the invasion. While initially there was talk that some of the jellyfish looked like Portugues Man o' Wars, they're now settling on them being bluebottle jellyfish, which can still render a nasty sting.

Lobsters for her birthday

2011-12-16T05:49:00.004+13:00

Amy is versatile. It's one of her great strengths. She's as at home in the ballroom as in the barroom and speaks to governor and garbage man with equal ease.

She can go five star or no star and be happy either way. It was her birthday this week. The plans, as they do, started grandly. Slowly, though, the grind of the week took over and the grand began to shrink to the more functional. The gourmet dinner at the White House restaurant - which can be an all-night affair - had lost favor to the all-you-can-eat ribs at the Gas Works. White House to the Gas Works. You see what I'm saying.

The prospect of getting down and dirty with some ribs was a good one. There are no airs and graces when you've been married 17 years.

By the time I came home, though, those plans were also a thing of the past.

"Let's just play pokies," Amy said when I got home.

I can see some of you squirming and saying, "Ewwww, too much information."

Just hold your horses. Pokies are Poker Machines.

"Let's just waste all the money we would have wasted on a fancy dinner on the pokies," she said.

And that's what my lovely wife wanted to do for her birthday. It was something we hadn't done - since her birthday last year. So we headed off to the pub, ensconced ourselves in a seedy back room, sitting romantically side by side staring at the spinning wheels. To win on her machine, Amy needed a lobster to pop up. The only fancy thing about the whole evening was Amy occasionally shouting, "Oooh, I got a lobster."

For the coup de grace we stopped off at McDonald's on the way home.

Amy said it was the perfect birthday. And you gotta love that.

The 500th post

2011-12-13T18:06:00.015+13:00

This, amazingly, is my 500th post. That's about one a day since we arrived in New Zealand. I'd never blogged before. I must say that it's been tremendous fun documenting our family's time in this wonderful, idiosyncratic country of New Zealand. I've learned a lot, not just through my research, but from my readers who have contributed a lot of wisdom and encouragement. I've also found a great community of bloggers, none of whom I've met, all of whom are fabulous.

Shortly after we arrived in New Zealand, Amy encouraged me to start a blog. She's regreted the monster she created, but supported me and my new bad habits with good grace ever since. She took the picture below and wrote a powerful post about her time after the Christchurch earthquake. She'll always be my favorite blogger.

To mark the 500 milestone, I'm recapping some of my favorite blogs, in no particular order.

1. The Christchurch Earthquake:
When the earthquake hit, it roared with a violent brutality. The force and the noise were stunning. Mele either fell out of the couch or was looking for cover. I tried to help her up but we fell to the ground. Then we just held onto each other, just because we didn't want to be blown away. More.

2. Morgan's Marathon:
Wellington threw everything it had at Morgan - but couldn't stop him. Two weeks of sickness tried its best, but didn't stop him. At 14, Morgan is a Marathon Man. He said that after the first mile he didn't think he'd be able to finish. Everything hurt. He was coughing. And then the foul wind roared in, bringing horizontal rain. It was the cruelest thing to do. When I saw him at the half-way point, I was worried for him. There was such a long way to go. But then he said, "I'll see you at the finish line." By God, he's going to do it, I thought. More.

3. The Young Man and the Sea:
I don't know how he died or why. I know only that his memorial overlooks a bay and is well-tended by his friends and family. I've seen their tribute videos to him on-line. He seemed like a life-lover, full of energy and smiles. Now his school tie flaps in the wind on a cliff above Cook Strait. He died two years ago, aged just 18.

He's kept me a strange sort of company these last couple of weeks. More.

4. The tale of the post-coital cormorant:
Our female guide disappeared off into the bushes. We were with a bunch of Kiwis, so we didn't ask. After a few minutes she arrived back.

"Shags just weren't meant for trees," she said cryptically, nodding her head back towards the forest that climbs down to the beach. She carried on to the water to tend to the kayaks, leaving me a tad startled, and thinking, "Wow, what an athletic young lady" or words to that effect. More.

5. Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa:
A consumptive Stevenson, in search of a warmer clime for his bleeding lungs, arrived in Apia in 1889. To him it was "really a noble place."

He bought 400 of the most exquicite acres I have ever seen in Vailima and set about building a "home fit for angels." He succeeded magnificently. My heart ached when I first saw Hemingway's finca in Cuba; it broke with the pain of the beauty of Villa Vailima. More.

6. The Wellington Sevens:

OH ......... MY ........ GOD.

In all my time, I have never seen anything so wild, so bawdy, so wonderful, so funny, so upbeat - and I am not talking about my wife.

The Wellington Sevens are something indeed to behold. More.

7. Trapped on Mt. Taranaki:
Soon we were up among new-fallen snow and put the car in four-wheel drive. The wind was preposterous up here. This far up and away from civilization, it screamed like a banshee welcoming us into her mad and rule-less world. Out of the car it grabbed us, punched us, pushed us. We got back in and decided it was time to head back, hoping for a better day.

We were fleeing with honor. Except we weren't. More.

8. First Landings in New Zealand:
To be frank, there was no startling revelation that we had landed in another country, far less one at the end of the world. After being sniffed by a killer customs beagle - which discovered Ewan's Granola bar - the first thing we saw was a McDonald's. We felt nice and comfortable. Flying from Auckland to Wellington, though, the awesome newness hit. The landscape is dramatic. Massive mountains. Deep volcanoes. Gorgeous coves and secluded bays. And a gentle emptiness. More.

9. Fox Glacier - a hell of a ride:
“All right, we’ll head over to Franz,” said the pilot, meaning Franz Josef Glacier, but saying it so that it sounded like France. Oh shit, the drinking pilot hadn’t been exiled at all. He was merely flying Franz Josef Glacier, as we were now. I gave the pilot a meaningful once-over, suddenly concerned. But he showed no signs of a trembling hand or a hung-over disposition. A wee tremble this close to the rocks could be fatal. In fact, he was the most confident, if taciturn, young man and inspired confidence. More.

10. The tale of a lost hat regained:
The old memory banks are often generous, if not always reliable, and so we are burdened to live perpetually in the shadow of the Halcyon Days. In reality, of course, the gnawing worries of the past have merely been replaced by newer agonies.

And, because the old worries have now resolved themselves, we figure they were never that bad in the first place.

The truth, we know, is different. We live and love and suffer in the present. And worry, always, about the future. More.

If I say cricket, will you read this?

2011-12-12T19:06:00.008+13:00

These pictures are from a N.Z.-Pakistan test match which, interestingly - considering the content of this post - the Kiwis lost.

Despite the Kiwis getting a quick out, by the lunch break of the fourth day of the cricket match between Australia and New Zealand the Wallabies needed only 90-odd runs in their second inning, with nine wickets in hand, to beat the Black Caps and take an insurmountable two-test victory in their cross-Tasman rivalry.

Yes, that was English. I was just trying to make the point that, to the uninitiated, cricket is an illogical game. And that's without talking about googlies, Yorkers, silly mid-wicket, or getting caught leg before wicket.

I will not, in other words, bore you with the details. The bottom line is that the New Zealand cricket team had an astonishing win over their Aussie rivals today. Their improbable victory was the first time they'd won a test match in Australia for almost thirty years.

New Zealand will always be a rugby country. But for a land with just 4.3 million people they compete at a world class level in an unbelievable number of sports. They like competition here and the kids learn a love of victory - be it in sports, academics, debating, music or chess - at a young age.

When we were first shown around our sons' school, the teacher told us up front that "we encourage competition here." When I gave him a so-what look, he said some "foreign" parents had issues with that. He added quickly, though, that there were enough extra-curricular - as well as curricular - activities so that pretty much every kid can be the best at something.

At our sons' recent prize giving ceremonies, there were indeed many more awards for academics and cultural activities than sports.

I know this is a deep swamp to dive into so late in the evening, but I think competition, heavily married with sportsmanship, is a good thing. That's a post for another day. The point I'm simply trying to make is that Kiwis are extraordinarily tough competitors. They had no business winning today, as they have no business winning on many given days in many contests. But they hang in there.

While the cricketers will not be getting any parades in their honor, they'll certainly have put a spring in the step of New Zealanders. A win against the Aussies at anything - even tiddlywinks - is something worthy of a smile.

A hellish bus ride to heaven

2011-12-11T12:49:00.013+13:00

I am not a snob, though this rant may put you in mind of one. I am misanthropic. I admit it. I’m one of the few students of English literature who found Lockwood in “Wuthering Heights” to be an appealing figure. Like him, I do not find the human race to be interesting. Quite the contrary, I find us to be a rather upsetting species. I like my space and time to myself.

So to be put on a bus with 70 other tourists and be shepherded around by a Gauleiter is, perhaps, the worst thing you can do to me.

It matters only a little if you throw in some of the most majestic scenery on the planet. The scenery, as you can see from the pictures, had the good grace to mirror my mood that day: tempestuous, stormy and wildly uncontrollable.

Even the benefit of not having to drive or pay for the petrol does not make a tourist excursion on a coach a plus for me. I am – and will always be – miserable, agitated and wholly unpleasant when forced into close confines with strangers. So sue me.

The behavior of tourists makes my position wholly defensible. They are obnoxiously loud, self-involved and unpleasantly gregarious. The only thing I gain are the germs that they so generously share with me. I’m delighted they are all having a great time. I truly am. I just do not wish to be a part of it.

Our recent outing to Milford Sound – may I not take the name of that splendid place in vain – began badly. There were other people on the bus for starters. We were then informed that we would have to delay in Franklin because two of our fellow passengers had slept in. They were taking a taxi to meet the bus there. We were encouraged to give them a hearty round of applause when they boarded.

A round of applause? I’m sorry but a) we shouldn’t have waited for them and b) they should have been subjected to catcalls and a gauntlet of vicious butt slaps upon boarding. It got worse. Upon arrival, said heroes not only took the gloriously empty seat beside me but asked if I’d mind moving to another seat – beside a large and sprawling sleeper – so that they could sit together. In normal circumstances, of course, I would have offered. I wasn’t given that chance, and these weren’t normal circumstances.

The anger I felt did not overcome my inherent sense of politeness. Of course I moved. I wish I’d been my wife. She’d have told them where to stuff their request. I sat, outraged and uncomfortable, with said large man’s head now resting on my shoulder. I listened to the newcomers – who were from a certain country that shall not be named – happily and loudly chatter away about the wonders of their trip. And how crazy they were for having slept in.

The lack of control, of course, is what makes me really hate such journeys. The best part of a road trip is to be able to stop when you want, especially when there is such majestic scenery to be inhaled. Nor do I like stopping only for pee houses, tea houses and ice cream shops. There is more to my life.

You must not mistake my misanthropic behavior for superiority. I’m perfectly aware of my own failings and am delighted to keep them company, without the need to share them publicly.

Still, my father, from whom I have inherited this trait, was in the seat behind me and was behaving in a manner more benign than expected. Peaceful almost. I took my cue and sought my inner Zen. The surroundings of the New Zealand Southland helped a great deal with that. I was annoyed, though, that the evil daggers my eyes were shooting at the awful interlopers were so completely ignored. The man who'd asked me to move, a gnome with an ego complex – he was clearly the most fantastic human being he’d ever met – was oblivious to my strong feelings towards him.

During the course of the day, he was everywhere I was, asking me to take his picture with his wife, stealing my seat on the boat when I left to take a picture, chit-chatting with me in the line at the café. He clearly thought he was enriching my day with his company.

My mood, and the weather, brightened as we neared home.

There were many such people on my day on the bus, my death march to Milford Sound. I don’t know how to more effectively exude the vibe that I want to be left alone without smashing bottles of beer, which would be a waste.

Again, I took my cue from my parents. They had resorted to the very effective method of gently making fun of the absurdity of some of our fellow travelers. Nicknames are good for that. They are good for a giggle and a lancing of the boil of forced company with my fellow man. It’s better – and far more socially acceptable than bottle smashing.

In the end the Zen of the moment and the majestic scenery of New Zealand, as well as the wonderful company of my parents, made for a great trip. But, by God, do I hate the cattle drives of modern tourism. Not a single vile word escaped my lips, but I am certainly working on my evil looks. Clearly they need sharpening. Or perhaps I should just wear a hoodie next time.

Things that make you go hmmmm

2011-12-09T17:09:00.002+13:00

... and only humans can cut trees down and make benches out of them. Here are some other shots that gave me pause.

The rainiest little cruise capital?

2011-12-08T17:47:00.001+13:00

Whatever science Wellington's meteorologists are using is wasted. All they really need to do is check whether a cruise ship is coming to town. That means rain, with a good chance of storm.

It was announced with much fanfare that a record of 80 crusise ships would be docking in Wellington this year. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every time bar one that I've seen a holiday vessel pull into Wellington harbor the weather has been atrocious.

I feel sorry for the visitors. Most of the cruise ship stays are less than 24 hours. Almost without fail, as soon as the ship leaves port the clouds part and Wellington shows off its magnificent weather again. (The above picture was not actually taken in black and white. It was just one of those days.)

There is actually a cruise ship somewhere in this picture.

Obviously I don't wish this on anyone. The twinge of schadenfreude I feel comes from the fact that when we went on a cruise we decided for some reason to go to Canada. So I know how these visitors to Wellington feel. I don't think we actually saw Halifax. It was howling with wind and rain. St. Johns was much the same. When the captain announced that there were whales off our starboard, we had to take him at his word. We saw nothing but fog, heavy with rain and not a hint of whale.

Still, a record number of people have visited Wellington this year. Last quarter saw a 21 percent increase of guest nights, up to 502,754. Perhaps the store owners appreciate the inclement cruise ship weather, as it forces most of the visitors indoors.

Twice this week Wellington has even put on an earthquake for the visitors. It's highly unfortunate, as Wellington on a good day is one of the most splendid capitals in the world. It just seems as if we don't want to share it with the visiting hordes from the cruise lines. Hopefully now that I've pointed out this jinx it will end and the weather will be magical for the rest of the season.

Update: The power of this blog seems to have struck again! Since writing this there have been many, many glorious Wellington days that have greeted cruise ships. You're all welcome.

The Kea's a gonna get ya

2011-12-07T17:47:00.001+13:00

Oooh, camera. Strike a pose.

The Kea parrot is probably New Zealand's friskiest natural denizen. They are characterful, mischievious and great fun. On our travels around the South Island of New Zealand we saw the Kea lurking in the car parks of Scenic Overviews - just waiting for tourists, waiting to strike.

When the tourists came, they and their vehicles were abused by the Kea with gay abandon. For some reason the Kea love the rubber attachments of vehicles around windows. They particularly like windshield wipers, watches - anything shiny really - and will go to town on them until they are well and truly screwed. They also love posing for pictures. I mean they really seem to pep up and pose, waiting until you've taken a good shot before having a go at your watch.

This boy was going to town on some visitors' campervan for a long time. He systematically went from one side of the roof to the other, just tearing at anything he could get his beak on. You could almost hear him giggling while he was at it.

This guy and a bunch of his friends were loitering outside a restaurant in Arthur's Pass. You're not supposed to feed them. You don't need to; they are pretty good at fending for themselves. They're a good size and have some razor-sharp claws on them. So, if the whole cute thing doesn't work, they just go the gangsta route. I was literally charged by one of them. Birds do that to me, though.

The Kea is a large species of parrot, and is the world's only alpine parrot. Before it became a protected species, it used to be killed for bounty because folks were worried that they attacked sheep, according to Wikipedia. Our guide referred to the Kea as the monkeys of the bird world. They were certainly good for a chortle. All of this brings me to the below video. While the shagging bird who stars in this Stephen Fry clip is actually a kakapo, it's close enough and will certainly have you in stitches. A typically over-educated Brit getting out of his depth but surviving with grace and good humor. The star of this video, Sirocco, is now one of Wellington Zoo's most famous residents.

Boulevard of Hoisted Cones

2011-12-06T17:12:00.001+13:00

You’re not being paranoid, the old saying goes, if someone is out to get you. I’ve been trying to explain this to my parents. They think my cone concern is bordering on obsession. (See here, here, here, here, and here - come to think of it, that list is a tad long.)

At least they used to think I had a cone problem – until they came to visit New Zealand. Now they have seen firsthand how I am stalked by cones, tormented by them. Everywhere I go, there they are. Just trying to look natural. As if they belong. Checking their watch. Tying their shoe lace.

I used to think these contacts were mere conal abuse, that young lads, drunk or otherwise addled, were taking their frustrations out on these perfectly innocent cones and that I was just a coincidental witness. I’m no longer sure that’s the case. I’m being taunted or haunted.

Mum and Dad get it now. “There certainly are a lot of these cones about,” Dad said, with his usual understatement.

“And in odd places too,” I added unnecessarily, for they have seen me pull out my camera frequently and always at inappropriate times in unbelievable places.

Last week, for instance, we opened the doors onto the balcony of our wonderful apartment in Kaikoura to see this:

Magnificent tree - a Norfolk Pine. Epic Cone. This is the one that finally convinced Mum that the problem wasn't mine. There was an issue here, one which she wished to get to the base of.

While last time I was here I wrote that Kaikoura is a lobster-lover’s haven. Turns out, it is, in fact, a cone in the crown of New Zealand. It is a coners paradise. Mum discovered that there's actually a gang here who call themselves the coners and who have taken to “coning” all the most prominent points in the town. They have done an impressive job. In their minds they aren't stealing cones, they are merely relocating them, by the way.

I can’t fathom how much alcohol it must take to climb one of these trees – with a cone in your mouth, pirate-like. An insider, who does not wish to be identified - he has probably taken a cone of silence - told Mum that he has advised the coners to use their legs while climbing the trees, but to hold their arms out wide, a la Titanic. That way, when they fall, they will be easier to unscrew from the ground.

When pressed about the identity of these intrepid pioneers of coning, he would say only that they are about to leave High School and this is their farewell prank. A gift of sorts to the community. They did the whole Esplanade in Kaikoura. Every tree that had a suitable sticky-uppy bit at the top, and I know there's a more technical term than that, is now adorned with a cone. It is a thing of beauty.

The South Island as a whole has proven to be fertile coning ground. It is extraordinary the nationwide obsession with placing cones in unusual places that New Zealand has. We saw:

Stoner Coner - these guys were at about 3,000 feet.

Cone on a pedestal, where it can be worshipped and danced around. (I-cone-ic.)

Camo-Cone.

Beware the dirty old Man cones.

Beware the drinking water in Dunedin cone.

I love sunsets-and-getting-drunk-on-the-beach cone.

I have so many more pictures of cones, but I have to stop. You get my point. New Zealand is full of cones - and people who want to do silly things with them. So many cones are being abducted, by the way, that recently a cone amnesty was announced. Anybody who turned in cones that they had stolen could do so for a certain period without feeling the full force of the law. I do feel a little vindicated by this, by the way. Imagine a smug smile.

"Hello. Could you count to 10?"

2011-12-05T09:10:00.017+13:00

Yesterday I was breathalyzed for the seventh time since moving to New Zealand 15 months ago.

Lest any of you think I am trolling the streets of Wellington at all hours of the day and night, five out of seven of these breathalyzations - if that isn't a word, it should be - have taken place before 7 a.m. as I was heading home from my run.

The police set up roadblocks here and stop everyone. They ask you to wind down your window and then stick a machine in your face. Before you even have the chance to complain, you've either been cleared or busted.

The first time I was stopped was at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I suggested to the cop that, if he were serious about nabbing drunk drivers, that might not be the ideal time to do it - unless the council was trying to prove there wasn't an alcohol problem in Wellington.

"Oh, you'd be surprised, sir," he said. Before I could ask a follow-up, he showed me that the machine read "No Alcohol," and waved me on. Damn - that I couldn't get a follow-up question, now that I passed the breathalyzer.

The next time I was pulled over was 6:45 a.m. on a Sunday. Aware of the drill, I asked my question quickly: "So why are you guys breathalyzing people in the morning?"

"This is Wellington, sir," he said. "You're good to go."

Damn again, another quick clearance. Another mysterious comment. Were there secret medieval jousting groups? Fight clubs? Wild-eyed poetry slams? What was I missing here?

The third time was at night and in Lower Hutt. The whole family was with me. No further conversations about the secret night life of Wellingtoninans. Instead, this time the cop helpfully pointed out that the Warrant of Fitness on my vehicle - not my body - had expired. This could have been a $200 fine. Thanks for that - and the latest quick clearance.

Then it was back to my early morning weekend confabs. I managed to elicit from the cops that, indeed, there were lots of folks in Wellington - students, he said accusingly - who either drink all night or drink too late and head to work still drunk. But no more. Damn again. (They take drinking and driving very seriously here.)

(This year-long conversation puts me in mind of the joke about the man who dropped out from life by joining a monastry and taking a vow of silence. The head monk told him he would only be allowed to talk once a year. After the first year, the new recruit said to the head monk, "The food here is awful." After the second year he said, "My bed's uncomfortable." After the third year: "I quit." To which the head monk replied, "It's about time. All you've done since you got here is complain.")

This early-morning breath-testing still seemed a bit suspicious to me. Was there really a problem here? Until this week's stop - again pre-7 a.m., again at the weekend. I came around the corner and there, about 200 yards ahead, was the roadblock. The traffic light was red. Suddenly the small car in front of me, filled with youngsters, noticed the trouble up ahead. They started backing up, not seeing me. My window was down and I vigorously announced my presence; may even have cursed. They saw me, moved forward, did a U-turn, and headed off quickly in the other direction. Within seconds an unmarked police car, lights flashing, was after them.

I presume that one didn't end well.

"Morning," I said to the cop.

"Morning, could you count to 10 please?"

I did. "So, how long are you guys out here for today?"

"Not long. You can go now."

Damn. Thus began another slow-motion conversation. I'll keep you updated over the next couple of months. (As you can see, I'm comfortable enough with this process now to take pictures - something I'm not sure I'd do in many other parts of the world.)

Update: This roadblock was part of an area-wide crackdown that stopped 11,000 drivers. Just 50 were charged.

5.7 Quake - where's the whisky?

2011-12-04T08:03:00.016+13:00

When Amy stuck her head out of her computer room, I could tell something was wrong. At first I thought she'd seen another Weta bug. But then she said, "Did you feel that?" This put the trembling in the floor I'd just felt - but thought was the boys wrestling - into perspective. Just as my thoughts were catching up to me and I was thinking of something to say to Amy, the house shook and I could hear the boys running down the stairs and then the house sort of twisted and Amy was shouting, "Get out."

It was over by the time everyone was outside.

We reconvened in the back yard, waiting for the aftershocks. The Kiwi branch of the family was trying to guestimate the force of the quake. The boys, who had been upstairs, said it had shaken the house pretty aggressively. Ewan said he'd heard a noise that sounded like thunder before the rattling started.

Mum, who had been out in the garden hadn't felt anything, but had heard that noise as well. Morgan said he'd had the good sense to save the computer game he was playing before getting out of the house. My father was trying to wait until the end of the over in the New Zealand-Australia cricket match before getting out; I had to help him on his way. I'd just served up a bowl of ice cream and was worried it was going to melt.

While everyone was OK it was a little unnerving. Christchurch happened away from home and it was only Amy and I who were there. This was the first time the kids had felt a quake. It was in our house, which now had a new crack on the kitchen ceiling.

And this was Wellington - the country's capital that sits on a huge faultline and where everyone is awaiting the next big one. Computer scenarios indicate that, when the big one comes, it will devastate much of Wellington and that there will not be much time to evacuate before a tsunami strikes.

Within minutes the 12:51 club, the group of folks with whom we went through the Christchurch earthquake in February, had mobilized. Texts came. Emails came. Phone calls came. Everyone was making sure everyone else was OK. Clearly, this one had struck home; nerves were rattled, and that sense of peace which had gradually reappeared has been ripped away again. We will all think of each other whenever a quake hits, no matter where we are, and it is nice to know that we have each other. Because sometimes people who haven't been through a big quake think those of us who have are being a little melodramatic. We don't have to explain anything to the 12:51 Club members.

My friend Mike, in a classic Australasian line, said that the quake had flipped a sausage on his barbie. Nice one.

An earthquake also forcefully reminds of the need to have that emergency kit stocked and ready. Once we'd decided that perhaps there were to be no aftershocks, Amy busied herself packing water, sleeping bags and, helpfully, my bottle of whisky into her car. My Mum asked her where she was off to. "If the house collapses, we're all sleeping in the car," came the response. Those are the sorts of things you think about when you live in New Zealand, when you've been through Christchurch.

Dad, separated from the Aussie-Kiwi Test match, started a game of his own with the boys in the back yard. I tended to my ice cream. Amy finished packing the car. Soon we slunk back into the house. Ewan started shaking - though that could have been computer withdrawal. (This morning I told him he had only 30 minutes left on the computer, he said, "But I'm traumalized!" New word. Adopted.) The evening slipped back into a different routine.

As it turned out, the earthquake had hit on the northern part of the South Island, about 60 kilometers from here, near Picton - from where we'd just returned. The 5.7 quake was the biggest quake they'd had there in more than 45 years. There was only minor damage in Wellington, but it was an unpleasant reminder of where we live.

The Last Kiwi Cowboy?

2011-12-03T19:00:00.010+13:00

If there's a place in New Zealand that most closely mirrors the South Dakota attitude, it's Westland. The Coasters are a tough, devil-may-care bunch who say what's on their mind and don't take any guff. Their country reflects their attitude: it's a wild, rugged and barren place that reminds you that nature is in charge and folks had better stick together.

It's also mine country. The Maori first loved it for its greenstone. Gold and coal brought Europeans, if never much wealth. It's a hardscrabble life for many in country that makes you respect it.

I was driving up this coast the other day, thinking about South Dakota and how much I miss it, when we came across a husband and wife cowboy team - on horseback. It was the first time I've seen that in New Zealand. There are lots of farmers here, of course, but they all use ATVs and dogs.

Mum loved this guy and stopped for a chat with him. Yes, indeed, he said, they were the last cowboys still using a horse around those parts. He and his partner were rounding up a couple of calves that had made a break for it. He was also using a stock whip. The surroundings and the dress made me think of the man from Snowy River.

It was a good sight.

Life in the Land of the Long White Cloud

An Oscar for Bret McKenzie

Welly doesn't do doldrums for long

The Sea Shepherd comes calling

The patterns of earthquakes

That's what you call a bad landing

A hard but hopeful day

Remembering the Unfound

What goes around comes around

If you can sail in Welly ...

That's just not cricket, mate

Always look on the bright side?

D.P. and Welly up a tree ...

Better early than never

The humble cone as art object

A South Dakotan in New Zealand

RIP, Darrel, a good and solid man

Things that make you go hmmmm

A gloriously silly-bugger thing to do

Pride before the fall

Down in the tunnels of Wrights Hill

A very busy Waitangi Day

Marmite shortage? End times!

How windy is Wellington?

A weekend of general tastelessness

Wellington 7s kick off with a parade

Another ghost of World War II

A sober Welly Sevens? Good luck

Confronting my fears feet first

A castle on the hill ... or not

It's just Palmy to friends

A record remembered 50 years

The Summer of Death

Pink sheep, people, hot pink sheep

The windy, narrow roads of Welly

A Flock of Seagulls

Some time in the Chill Bin

Second day follow

Blanket Man is laid to rest

More still from the Postcard Factory

Mr. Fink, beloved mentor, is dead

A good day's fishing on a bad day

There's gold in them thar tourists

Images from the Red Zone

Two steps back, then two more

Unholy silence in Christchurch

The Rena finally succumbs

A Welly ghost - Erskine College

Blowin' - or skippin' - in the wind

Aladdin's mum is a randy man

Rave Runs II - reasons to rise early

Boom Boom with a view

Pride is a horrible, horrible thing

Krazy Kiwi Korus

2011- a year not to be forgotten

In Samoa, today has been cancelled

Bulls' Hits keep coming

The gnaw of pain across the world

Things that make you go hmmmm

Merry Christmas, y'all

A very Maori Xmas, and a happy few beers

You CAN NOT kill the pudding

War Memorials of New Zealand II

Another battering for New Zealand

The Lady of the Lake

A reminder of a Northern Xmas

Invasion of the face snatchers

Lobsters for her birthday

The 500th post

If I say cricket, will you read this?

A hellish bus ride to heaven

Things that make you go hmmmm

The rainiest little cruise capital?

The Kea's a gonna get ya

Boulevard of Hoisted Cones

"Hello. Could you count to 10?"

5.7 Quake - where's the whisky?

The Last Kiwi Cowboy?