And finally ...

The flight from Christchurch to Sydney was all the better for us being upgraded to Business Class. They had overbooked Economy and, being a Gold Card holder, we were the first to be moved up. And this was also our wedding anniversary so all the better. We had booked into the Marriott, Sydney Harbour - certainly not the cheapest place to stay but very convenient for the sites and not a bad view!





The next morning we wandered round the Opera House, booking tickets for what turned out to be a superb performance of the ballet Don Quixote by the Australian Ballet that evening, and then strolled round the Botanical Gardens.

We then got a ferry up the Harbour to just look at the houses and buildings, including this example of particularly bad taste!

On the Thursday we hired a car and drove down to Woollongong to visit Gordon Joughim who I had worked with on a couple of occasions recently at Hong Kong Institute of education but who has now moved to the University of Woollongong.

Next day we flew to Hobart to see our friends Janet and Chris who own the Hobart Bookshop in Salamnca Square.
They joined us for the obligatory cup of 'flat white' at the local cafe.















Janet and Chris had arranged to take a couple of days off from their very busy routine and come with us to Launceston in the north of the Island.

There we visited Tamat Island Nature Reserve

... had an absolutely wonderful lunch at a local winery














... visited the Design Museum

and a local historical house, Woolmers.

Finally, we had a morning at Hobart Museum looking round an Antarctic exhibition and another coffee in Hobart harbour

Before the flight to Melbourne.

And here I am sitting in the Emirates Business Lounge waiting for the 14.5 hour flight to Dubai.

It's been a great trip, meeting friends and work collegaues and seeing some wonderful scenery.

We'll be back!

Our favourite part of New Zealand

It's Tuesday morning after the Easter weekend and we're about to drive over to Christchurch for the flight to Sydney. We've had a great time in Wanaka with brilliant weather and wonderful scenery. Yesterday we walked up Mount Iron, a hill on the edge of Wanaka, amd confirmed for ourselves why this is our favourite part of New Zealand.

We also got a good view of Wanaka, which we were to add to in the afternoon with a jet boat ride up the Cluthra River.

On Saturday we visited Queenstown but it was so crowded in contrast to Wanaka that we didn't stay long. On the way there we had watched bungy jumping and later went to Arrowtown, a quaint ex-gold mining village, though again fairly crowded. However, we heard the normal 6,000 population of Wanaka rises to over 30,000 at Christmas and the New Year. From June onwards it is also a popular skiing area - think about it!

Sunday was a great contrast as we drove into Mount Aspiring National Park - the mountain is the second highest in NZ - the snow-covered peak in the top picture. The road was unsealed and included driving through fords and over rather rickety wooden bridges.

On Friday evening we had been to the cinema - quite unusual for us - to see Miss Potter. It only had 70 seats, 3 of which were in a Morris Minor convertible! The rest of the seats were a mixture of couches and comfy chairs and it was possible to have a meal during the interval. The bizarre structure on the roof is to promote a film about sheep - something you can't avoid in NZ as there are 4 million people and over 40 million sheep.

Macdonalds on tour 'down under' 2007 - part 1

Viv arrived at Dunedin after her long journey from the UK, accompanying Joan, the mother of a friend - more of which later.

We spent a day on the Otago Peninsula - a visit to the Albatross Centre and then more penguins and seals! Though we did go on a guided tour we then went onto a beach and found a solitary penguin and couple of seals.

The following morning we went for a run round Ross Creek before checking out of Hyland House. We went round the permanent orienteering course - which is actually at a scale of 5800 - the map below is a board at the start of the course.

Down through the Catlins, including the most southerly point on south Island - unfortunately we didn't have time to get to Stewart Island which is the most southerly point apart, I suppose, for bases on Antarctica.

Then a night at Te Anau where in 1993 we had visited the glowworm caves and taken a trip on Milford Sound. This time we just drove out to the sound and got some wonderful veiws of Mitre Peak.

After Milford sound we returned to te Anau and on to Wanaka where Gwen, an old school friend of Viv's, had an apartment. Viv had brought Gwen's mother, Joan, out as far as Christchurch and now we met up again for a night.

Next morning Gwen and Joan set off for Queenstown and a flight back to Rotorua and we had a further four nights in the apartment - more to follow ...

Some time out

On Monday Tony took me out onto the Otago Peninsula to look at the birds and have a walk on the beach. I'd driven much of the road before but not seen the enormous variety of bird - particularly some wonderful kingfishers with their beautiful blue wings and back.

We walked along a beach and saw where the penguins nest - but unfortuunately there were none there.

The trip was ostensibly to talk about work - so we did! See the work blog: http://www.ranald-nz2007work.blogspot.com/

Viv arrives tomorrow (Saturday) and, after a couple of days around Dunedin, we're going to take off through the Catlins to the south of the island, possibly over to Stewart Island and then up to Wanaka for Easter.

Watch this space! - but not too often or you may be disappointed.

I'm back!

As with my work blog, not knowing whether anyone was reading has made it difficult to keep the commitment to the blog up.

Anyway, last weekend was just as active as the previous one. Tony took me to another rugby game but this time we went on a bus from the local pub. It seemed the youngsters drank as much as they could beforehand so they wouldn't have to pay inflated prices at the game. The bus was packed as there were quite a number of families as well and there's a special family area at the ground.

It was a pretty awful game and the Highlanders lost 22:13. We went back to the pub for more beer and food and a good dose of the local culture and politics. Very entertaining. And then back to the hotel to watch more rugby on the tele.

On Sunday Rachel, from HEDC, took me out to the family crib (also called a bach) with her two childern - Liam and Abbi - and a friend from the UK on her gap year.

The crib was at Shag point - yes there are plenty of shags, as well as seals and penguins, though we were too early in the day for the latter.

Let's hear it for the seal pup - aaaahh!

The beach also had these fascinating rocks and lots of rock pools..

Another weekend

Sunday evening and I'm ensconsed in my motel roon preparing for a session tomorrow at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

I came up to Christchurch on Friday evening on a crowded plane - there are no trains to speak of so everyone either drives or flies. As the former would have taken up to 5 hours I took the one-hour flight instead. Last year on my trip here I spent the weekend with Alison Holmes, an ex-colleague from the UK, and I was to do the same again this year.

A long evening of talk and Central Otago Pinot Noir followed - those with good memories will remember that I acquired the taste for this last year and it hasn't gone away. Alison is Director of the University Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Canterbury.

No early start on Saturday but an 11.00am coffee meeting with Helen Matthews from Christchurch Polytechnic who has visited us at Sheffield Hallam and I've met her previously in NZ and at conferences. More catching up then Alison and I drove north for a wonderful walk along a river and then out onto the beach in very hot sun (oops, forgot the sunblock!). Socks and shoes off to cross a river and then a paddle in the Pacific Ocean.


Lunch at the Pukeko cafe and wine shop - the Kiwis do some wonderfully imaginative salads. Pukekos are attractive local birds but all I managed to capture were these artificial ones in the shop.



















More wine and talking through the evening - the clocks went back an hour this evening.

Sunday started wet and windy so, after another leisurley breakfast, we decided to go to the cinema, though the weather improved significantly as we drove into the city. We chose the 11.00 am showing of The History Boys and the cinema was absolutely packed! Well, there were only 11 seats! Armchairs with cushions made for comfortable viewing. What a good film and it gave us plenty to discuss on the purposes of education - as only academic developers could do. It was soon obvious who the Brits were in the audience as only they would have got many of the comments about the relative merits of various universities and of the characteristics of Sheffield. If you haven't seen it, do.

We went for another excellent lunch (including a glass of Pinot Noir) at the Art Gallery across the road from the cinema and watched a spectacular lightening display, torrential rain and people scurrying madly for shelter.

Off to see a display of lounges around the world (!) at the Museum and a long coffee and carrott cake to further discuss a paper we are proposing to put in for a conference at Guildford in June.

Which leaves me in the Academic Motor Lodge as Alison went off for her plane to Wellington. We're hoping to meet up again at Lake Wanaka over Easter.

Caught up on the cricket, rugby, motor racing and football results - at least West Ham won at last, even though it's all too late and the ball didn't cross the line for the second goal.

Back to preparing for the session tomorrow ...

An active weekend

After a quiet few days the weekend was set up to be fairly hectic.

It started with a trip to Carisbrook Stadium on Friday evening to see the Otago Highlanders play the Queensland Reds in the Super 14 rugby. Tony had got tickets on the terrace so that we could be in amongst the livelier part of the crowd. Suffice to say it was 'interesting' as the banter from the crowd was entertaining, particularly as more and more beer flowed.

The Highlanders won 33 - 17, which at least kept the home crowd happy. I hadn't been to a live game for many years and I found I had to concentrate much more than when watching on tv as the action was so far away and there was no commentary. You couldn't even hear the explanations from the referee, which you now can on tv. The large screen did make it easier to see the reasons for decisions but it was difficult to keep up with it at times.

On Saturday I booked a ticket for the 4-hour trip on Taieri Gorge Railway - a spectacular journey with airy viaducts and dramatic scenery. We stopped a couple of times on the way up and back and it was very warm under the clear blue skies.

With apologies to my colleagues Anne and Abbi who have complained about too many references to dogs in my blogs, there was also a statue to border collies to mark their 150 years working the sheep of the Otago region.

On Sunday I rented a car and went to see the Otago Peninsula. It was another beautiful day with a clear blue sky.

I drove slowly up the peninsula, letting other cars and even cyclists pass! My first stop was at the Royal Albatross Centre where I took the one-hour tour, led by a guy from Manchester who'd moved out to NZ 8 years ago. We saw a few fledgling birds, which are still impressive in size, but not the adults with their 3 metre plus wingspan.

After lunch I moved on to Natures Wonders (shouldn't there be an apostrophe in there somewhere?) and went on a one-hour trip on their little 8-wheeled argo-cats. It was really dusty so we had to wear jackets.

So, to keep Anne and Abbi happy, whilst we didn't see any cats or monkeys which they would have liked, we did see Yellow-Eyed Penguins, fur seals, little blue penguins, Stewart island Shags, Royal Albatross and lots of other sea birds - is that good enough for you?

Sorry the penguin's not very clear put was taken from quite a distance so as not to disturb them - but they were still comical waddling up the beach. Not quite the tap dancing I saw in the film Happy Feet on the way over!

I then had a wonderful drive back down the centre of the peninsula with some quite spectacular views to the Pacific on one side and down into Otago Harbour on the other.

So, a hectic few days but giving me plenty of ideas for the few days Viv is going to spend here with me when she arrives.