The Ride Stuff

  Oscar at the top of Mount Vernon Hello to you all and welcome to my latest blog. I know it's been a little delayed in getting to you but I've been both out and about and I suffered a couple of technical hitches which held things back a bit. Firstly let me introduce Oscar, my soft toy mascot/travelling companion. Oscar has been with us for a while now and is named after the Great Dane we owned back in 2003/2004. Sadly we were forced to give the real life Oscar up for adoption when we were both posted away from home so this little guy is the soft toy memory of that lovable big doofus and I try to take him along on my rides to share what we see. View from the pathway inside Wither Hills Park As part of my desire to explore Blenheim a little more I recently went to Wither Hills Park and did one of the day walks on offer. t took me to the summit of Mount Vernon which offered a fabulous view across both Blenheim (The Wither Hills are located to the South of the Town) as well as Clo...

  The Enchanted lookout As promised I've been out and about in the local area since being on my LWOP. Attached are some photos of the local area on the route up to Mount Patriarch which is situated in the Mount Robertson range here in Marlborough.  Above is a spot called the 'Enchanted Lookout' which is some 1160m above sea level. It's accessible by public road though it's unsealed and best tackled by something with some decent ground clearance or, in my case, a Suzuki DR650. A biking buddy of mine and I went up there earlier this week and it is, quite frankly, life affirming. It's quiet, beautiful and all within 80-90Km of our house. Ideal! It also reminds me very much of a spot I spent some time in as a youth growing up in South Africa. Ngodwana (Google it to get the full lowdown) and the surrounding area is remarkably similar and my only regret from living there is that I was too young to go out and about dirt riding in the local forestry area in territory su...

Hannah in normal fast asleep pose  It's now just over 2 years since we took Hannah into our family and she's made quite an impression. Distinctly different in nature from the two boys we already had (Mitch and Fraser) she is very independent and she lives life on her terms. The oldest of our three she's 11 this year whereas the boys are 7 (Fraser) and 9 (Mitch). Having said that she's often has the most energy of the three and she likes to lead the way when we go walking. Not a bad characteristic for a Greyhound I guess! She's now showing signs of arthritis in her hind legs, not uncommon in Greyhounds as they get older we're told, and she certainly seems to feel the cold a bit more than she used to I think. Still, she makes her presence known when it's late afternoon and tea time comes around as well as coming into our bedroom in the mornings when it's time to get up and let them out. I think she has a better life now than she would have normally had whi...

  It's as lovely and peaceful as it looks - Just look at the clearness of the water A couple of kayakers about to make their way out A little hidden gem of a view between the trees which I spotted on the way down and just had to stop at on the way back Me and my trusty DR650 - Ideal for this sort of travel

  This Seals the deal! - The seal colony at Ohau Point en-route from Kaikoura to Blenheim Hello again - Apologies it's been a little time since I last posted but - Well a few things have been going on which have delayed me sitting down and writing some prose. A bit more on that later but first I wanted to tell you about my latest bike trip - My first since proceeding on my leave. I rode down to Hanmer Springs via the Molesworth station (Pictured below) which is a route of just over 200Km from home and which goes via the Molesworth station, most of which is dirt or unsealed road. There are faster ways to Hanmer but this is by far the most scenic and really gets you into the land of the big blue sky and shows you some of the real NZ. The gate to the Molesworth station itself - You have to make sure the gate is closed after you as there's all sorts wandering around! Note the cattle road sign - It wasn't wrong! This was a chance for me to travel through the station before the r...

  The mighty Suzuki M109 with a beautiful Cloudy Bay behind - Not a bad part of the world all said! Well hello folks and welcome to some more random mutterings here from the top of New Zealand's fabulous South Island. What a few weeks we've had with settled weather, warm temperatures and a fair few activities to keep things interesting - More on that in a minute. Firstly I'm soon to start my Leave Without Pay (LWOP) after having to ensure yet another rollercoaster of emotions at work this past week. In short I was asked to put myself forward for an upcoming promotion position which, it was thought, I had a really good chance of being chosen for. I have the qualifications, seniority and recent HQ/Staff Course experience which I thought was what they were looking for. It turns out that wasn't the case and so it feels like I'm back to square one in terms of getting ahead. On a positive note it has now solidified my plans to proceed on LWOP and so I'm going to take ...

  The 'Lunar Rover' in all her glory So - It's March already and I'm left asking where the hell February went to? One minute it was leading up to my 48th birthdy and the next... Well... Above is our trusty Elddis motorhome which we brought over with us when we moved to NZ. Bringing it from the UK was a really good idea and we had visions of seeing the marvels of NZ in it. Alas life has simply gotten in the way and as such we just haven't used it anywhere nearly as much as we would like - Or as much as it needs to stay in good mechanical health. Having the dogs is a major factor in this too as they are pretty restricted in where they can go and so taking them with us in the motorhome is problematic. So it's up for sale and we've had quite a bit of interest in it. More than I expected if I'm honest. Poor old Emma has been fielding calls about it whilst I've been away at work and as such we now have 3 sets of people who've said they'd like to ta...