The Ride Stuff

  The view from our back window As promised here are some more photos of where we are here in Singapore. We are staying close to the Sembawang dockyard in accommodation used primarily by Expats and other nations' Defence personnel. It's fairly basic but is much the same as serviced apartments back home and does the job quite nicely. The Sembawang dockyard isn't very far away where there's an American Naval Exchange (NEX) store as well as a social club (Called the Terror club after HMS TERROR) where you can get something to eat as well as have a swim in the pool. Just not today though as it is throwing it down as well as flashing and banging just for good measure. My bedroom I'm sharing the apartment with the Command Warrant Officer who is nice and quiet so things are nice and peaceful. Indeed I'm writing this to you on the first full day off I've had since we arrived as things have been busy pretty much from the word go. Having said all that it's good th...

  One of the floating dry docks here in the yard - That's not us in there in case you're wondering Greetings from Singapore where we are now firmly embedded within the Tuas Dockyard undergoing a maintenance package as part of HMNZS CANTERBURY's 15-year docking programme. It took us some 2 weeks to sail here from Auckland where we had a delayed start owing to one of the ship's company (That'll be me then...) testing positive for Covid... Thankfully the second test proved to be negative (As did the retest of the first sample they took) so we managed to set sail and 'Go West!' (With quite a lot of North thrown in too for good measure). It made for an emotional rollercoaster 24 hours though! As some of you will remember I was taking some Leave Without Pay a little while back but the sitting Engineer Officer on CANTERBURY has gone off to take some well earned parental leave and as such I was asked to step in and take the reins for a few months. This I was quite h...

  Em with the MG on Queen Charlotte Drive A few weeks ago I embarked on a bike trip up to the North Island which was cut short owing to an issue with the Moto Guzzi. Although the snag was fixed promptly by the dealer where I bought it from in Wellington I'd missed the the event I was going to attend in Auckland - A shame but such is life and I was actually glad that nothing went seriously wrong and I lived to ride another day. In a way it actually allowed me to do some more rides closer to home and enjoy a few of the other things on offer to us here in Marlborough, one of which is enjoying our lovely little MGTF which I bought last year. Buying the car realised a long-held desire to own one of these which were launched in the mid-1990s when I was an impoverished student at Southampton University. It's funny how when you have little or nothing to your name such things stick in your mind so vividly - Just over 10 years ago I nearly bought one in the UK but instead bought a Merced...

  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