Half Marathon Weekend

For the last few months an off shoot of the walking group have been training for a half marathon walk. They entered as a team called Absolutely Fabulous. They were the largest team in the event and came a creditable 6th overall. Unfortunately Noreen has been sick and so couldn’t take part on the day. We caught up with them at the debriefing (yeah, right) session at the brewery. Here she is with Andy and our friend Janie who came up from Christchurch to participate.
I had the task of pouring the beer (Sassy Red for the initiated).

Ali has had a rough week but celebrated finishing the walk in one piece.

Andy showing Dave that he has finished his soup and can he please have pudding.

The team was organised by Liz who also encouraged people to get sponsorship to benefit Women’s Refuge. I believe they made over $4000 and also knitted squares for this magnificent blanket which Liz presented to a representative of the Refuge organisation.

In other news, Sam is heading off to California again. Follow the team’s progress on their web site.

Sydney Part II

We arrived in Sydney quite late on Wednesday evening, so left our First Big Adventure until Thursday, when we headed over to the QVB (as the cool kids call the Queen Victoria Buildings). It's super luxe, with beautiful stained glass and ornamentation:


Even the loos are flash - outside:

And in:
The next day we went out to Parramatta, about 25 minutes away by train, to meet up with our friend Bob, who took us to the lovely Old Government House for lunch.

The House itself is an historic building which hosts school tours teaching about Sydney's Colonial past, complete with costumed characters.


As you can see, it's hardly huge and imposing, but it was apparently considered a sign of the excess of the unpopular Governor Macquarie who built it, at least by those who wanted him out of power (can you tell who took the guided historical tour?).

Following our lovely lunch, we headed back to Sydney on the lovely Parramatta River, easily the most tourist-photo friendly journey we made (and creepy, thanks to the mangroves):

Sydney illuminated by sunset:

Landmark sandwich - Harbour Bridge framing the Opera House:

For Nan's last night, we decided to have dinner down at Darling Harbour, looking out at the beautiful lights and marvelling at our wait staff, who took a break after our dessert arrived to ingest helium from some leftover party balloons and talk like chipmunks. Colonials, eh?

Sydney!!

Greetings all, Jen here. I've been rubbish at blogging, I know, but now I have something really cool to write about, and pictures to boot!! So many pictures, in fact, that I'm going to have to split this blog into two parts. So, on with part I....

Almost two weeks ago now, Nana, Mum and I set off for Sydney, to have a girl's long weekend; because Nan was booked to fly back to London through Sydney, we thought we'd see her off (and make sure she got onto the plane, but more on that later).

In accordance with tradition, we had lunch at Molly Malone's before heading to the airport, where Nana thoroughly enjoyed the Irish stew:

Now, as anyone who's not been living under some form of fossilised sediment knows, here's a wee problem with pigs sneezing on people and making them sick, or something, and in Aus, they're taking it seriously. So seriously, in fact, that even their "Quarantine" signs are in quarantine:

So, we arrived, as proven by the following photo...

... after which we checked into our lovely, lovely apartment/hotel-type building in the middle of the city in Pitt Street. As you can see, it was all flash tvs and glass in the bedroom:

Mod cons in the kitchen, laundry and bathroom:

And flash as accoutrements everywhere else, including the spacious lounge/dining area:

But if that wasn't enough, being on the 39th floor we had an amazing view over the city. The grand, square structure down to the left with the lovely steps is Town Hall, and the longer, domed one to the right is the Queen Victoria Buildings, where we went for a delightful lunch on our first full day in Sydney:

And, since I've just had my wisdom teeth removed and am sleepy and forced to eat pureed anything, I will leave this here now and resume with the rest of the blog tomorrow.

Jenny's 25th Birthday

Today is Jenny's birthday. Tonight we are going out to our favourite restaurant, Logan Brown, for dinner. When the children were younger a common Sunday treat was to have croissants for breakfast. Jenny thought this would be nice for her 25th.
Sam joined us on the telephone from Auckland and we sang "Happy Birthday".

Winter Muffins

Today is the first day of winter, so what better time to make batches of muffins (blueberry if you're interested).
Jenny has been suffering from a cold, hence the pixie look.
Today was quite fine but cool. Some beds in the Botanic Garden have been prepared for tulips.

As you can surmise by the debris in the above shot the weekend has seen some early wintry weather. As today is the Queen's Birthday public holiday I went for a stroll through the gardens and up Tinakori Hill. From the track there are some magnificent views around the city and beyond. This is looking back to the Lady Norwood Rose Garden and Met Office.

Looking north over the motorway and Interislander Ferry terminal the bad weather is still evident over the Hutt Valley.

From the top of the hill it is possible to see two of the wind turbines in Project West Wind which has just become operational. That's the mountains of the South Island in the background.

To the south is the lower lake in the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

I'm always interested in transport operations. Here an Air New Zealand plane is coming in to land at the airport

while a ferry nears the end of its journey across Cook Strait, just outside The Heads.