All Whites v New Caledonia

This evening we subjected ourselves to an evening of international football (if you can call it that) to watch the NZ All Whites against New Caledonia in a World Cup qualifier. To confuse everyone, the All Whites actually played in black...




The level of football was so low it was probably the worst game of football we have ever seen - so bad, we decided not to subject ourselves to anymore pain and left at half time. Even with a Premiership player in the side it doesn't seem to make much difference! We are now officially rugby converts...

The Start of Spring...

At last after what seems like months of rain, spring is finally here and we hit the garden centre with a vengeance. We must be getting old... We have acquired some new wooden troughs which Charlie obviously thought were for him.




Once we managed to get him out, they are now home to our strawberry plants and a variety of lettuce/spinach leaves.





We have also bought several herbs, chillies and tomato plants which we look forward to eating in a few months time.

Whitianga Scallop Festival

This weekend we headed to Whitianga with our friends Darryl & Alistair for the annual Scallop Festival, which celebrates the start of the recreational scallop collecting season on 1 September. Somewhere between 80,000 - 100,000 scallops were consumed on the day!




There were about 100 stalls serving scallops cooked (or raw) in various ways - the signature dish being scallops encrusted in macadamia nuts, and numerous wine and beer stalls. All the local clubs, schools etc had stalls as fund raising opportunities.





One of the highlights was the schuck off between TV chef Al Brown (on the left), famous for his Hunger for the Wild show, and Whitianga's local councillor. No surprise that the chef won.




We had a fantastic time despite the weather attempting to be miserable, and thoroughly enjoyed all the scallops and tasting local wines.





The scariest part of the festival was the Scallop Band - musicians dressed up as scallops, fish, sharks and a deep sea diver - very bizarre!

North Harbour v Waikato

This afternoon we went to support our local rugby side North Harbour just down the road from us - a great little stadium though rather empty! Both Harbour and Waikato had yet to find a win this season so we expected a scrappy game.



A couple of the All Blacks had been released to play in the game - their class shone through. And after a nail biting finish, Harbour finished winners 15-10.

Castor Bay

After weeks of stormy, wet and windy weather we have finally had a lovely sunny day so decided to head to the beach. As we had never been to Castor Bay this was our choice today - a few bays south from us down the coast. And this is the view over to Milford beach.




Whilst this is the view across the Hauraki Gulf to Rangitoto.

The Big Storm

Today we were hit with the worst storm of the decade with very high winds and buckets of rain. We heeded advice to stay indoors, but found these photos on the internet of the sea near to us to show how bad it was. This is a view to Murrays Bay wharf a few bays south of us down the east coast.


Whilst this is just down the road at Browns Bay, normally a very calm beach! Fortunately the worst has passed and we, and the house, survived unscathed.

Heroes & Villains

This evening was the Computershare mid winter function which was themed Heroes and Villains, with fantastic catering from a local Indian restaurant. Royston and I decided to go as Nottingham's famous heroes Robin Hood and Maid Marian.





There was a wide variety of costumes - Craig and Jo came as "Cow Boy" and Batgirl.





Royston then decided to go for the Scandanavian Robin Hood look...