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.

Nothing much happening

In the evenings I've been leaving the University after 6.oopm, going for a walk and then going back to my room for a cold meal - let's hear it "Ah, what a shame!" Actually it's no different from having a picnic in summer. I then read and turn in early as the traffic is bound to either keep me awake or wake me up. A little light academic reading helps me get to sleep.

Anyway, it's going to liven up tomorrow as I'm going to a Super 14 rugby match between the local team, the Highlanders, and the Reds who are bottom of the league. Super 14 comprises 14 teams (that bit should have been obvious!) from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand who travel around playing each other during the southern hemisphere autumn. I remember from last year's trip here that it was really fast, flowing rugby and very entertaining (though Viv may have a different view!). On one Saturday I was able to watch successive games from South Africa, Australia and then New Zealand - I sense a certain sympathy for Viv creeping in ...

I've also booked a ticket for a trip on the Taieri Gorge Railway (www.taieri.co.nz) on Saturday which is described as "One of the world's great train trips!" - well, they're not going to say it's boring, are they. Everyone tells me how good it is so I'm looking forward to that. No doubt more pictures will follow (and perhaps of the rugby).

In between the work (1)

It's late Thursday afternoon here and the weather broke today, which was quite a relief. Typically, they had just introduced a 'sprinkler' ban here in Dunedin as they have had very little rain and are suffering water shortages - where have we heard that before?

On Tuesday evening I was invited to Kerry Shephard's house - he's the Director of the Higher Education Development Centre, where I'm based. He has what's known as a 'lifestyle property', meaning that it's way out of town (30 mins) with a lot of land. He has cows, sheep, hens as well as a lot of land and a hill with magnificent views. He also has a small dog called CoCo who I got to meet. After meeting Tony, my host's, dog Lucy the evening before, at least I'm not completely deprived of the company of dogs! Excuse my shadows in the photos - I've not had time to edit them out.

I had a very pleasant walk round the botanical gardens and aviary last evening as it's only five minutes from my hotel. Talking of which, here's a picture. It's very noisy as I'm on the ground floor and next to some traffic lights at which cars rev up to race each other away, even at 3.00am! The triple glazing doesn't seem to make much difference.

Well, I'm here (again)!

It seems like only a year ago ...

Actually, it was only a year ago I was here. This time I'm here for four weeks at the University of Otago on a Visiting Fellowship before Viv joins me for three weeks on holiday.

I'm keeping a separate blog about my work - www.ranald-nz2007work.blogspot.com - the start of which describes my journey here.

I had yesterday free to wander about the city, deal with emails at a couple of internet cafes as well as having a couple of what the Lonely Planet describes as 'heart stopping' flat white coffees. The city certainly knows it has a large University here with about 25,ooo students out of a total population of around 130,000.

The temperature is around 25 degrees C today and I'm told we're located at about the equivalent of Northern Italy in Europe, though the weather can turn suddenly to the south with cold winds and rain - remember, this is the southern hemisphere!

Unfortunately the local tv has a channel showing English Premiership football and I watched the end of the West Ham v Spurs game which the former managed to give away 3:4. Yes, sadly I'm a long time Hammers fan since we lived in East London but it looks like we'll be having to follow Championship football next year.

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