Water water everywhere...

Hello, Hello,

Yesterday was the anniversary of my arrival in NZ, a whole year has flown by in what seems like no time. So to celebrate I have a monster news bulletin for you!

Last weekend was Easter, or more importantly, four days off work! I took to the water as much as possible starting off with a visit to a Regional Park about an hour and twenty mins away. Last time I visitied the water was tremendous but rather cold, luckily summer has warmed it up and I went looking for Stingrays as they sunbathed in the sand near the beach. I saw two Eagle Rays which are a smaller species of Stingray found in NZ waters, I managed to take a few pics of them with my underwater camera set up:


The following day I headed over to the Coramandel Peninsula with Evelyn to visit a Blues Festival, it turned out to be an enjoyable evening with some great music. We spent the night at a campsite next to the beach with Evelyn's parents, woke up and took a dip in the sea followed by a fry up for breakfast! Evelyn, her mum and I went for a kayak near a town called Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga) before having lunch and heading back to Auckland.

I spent Easter Monday surfing with some friends from hockey, two hours of solid surfing wiped me out and I had to go to bed for a few hours afterwards! I'm starting to get the hang of it though and was using a smaller board than the last few ocaisions. Might go again next weekend while the water is still warm!

You'll have to take my word for it that this is actually me and not just some random punter!

I've taken to going out for a kayak on a wednesday evening with Kieran, a colleague from work. Unfortunately I had a mishap this week, we decided to put his sit on top kayak in my car by folding the seats down etc as we didn't have enough tie downs to put it on the roof with mine. Whilst making sure the boot could shut I gave the kayak a nudge to get it in the last inch or so and accidentally pushed it through the front windscreen...! I thought Kieran was winding me up when he told me I'd broken the window but no, there for all to see was a huge spiderweb crack on the passenger side. Luckily i'm fully insured and I'm getting a new windscreen on Tuesday and I don't even have to pay any excess on it!

It's been on the cards for a while but I've finally got a date for moving house, Con and Cat's Aunt and Uncle move to Australia in Mid April so I'll be moving in with them on the 19th April. It's a nice house in a fairly well to do area nearer town and closer to some nice pubs, cafe's, newsagents etc. I'll drop you all a line with the address when I find out what it is!

I took my driving theory test this weekend to convert my UK licence to a New Zealand one, I got one wrong out of 35 questions and should recieve my new driving licence in a few weeks

It's Sunday night here and I've played seven hours of hockey this weekend at the NZ Mens Underwater Hockey Training camp. I was asked to come down and help out by playing opposition before they head off to Durban in two weeks for the World Championships. I also took part in two fitness tests to see how I compare with the guys in the team. Based on that performance I'd say I'm quicker than half of them with not much training on my behalf. I'm definately going to go for the team when I become eligible next year but I have a lot to learn in terms of skills and team play. The competition for places will as always be very tough, much much tougher than it ever was for the GB team.

Sports Report

Last weekend I spent four days in Wellington competing in the NZ Regional Underwater Hockey Champs. I was playing on the Northern A team, consisting of 8 of the current Kiwi Mens team, one of the players from the last gold medal winning kiwi team and me! It was by far and away the best hockey team I've ever played on and I learnt a great deal and even managed to score a few goals. We made it to the final having only conceeded two goals then beat the Central A team 9-1 in the final to earn a shiney gold medal!
In work, I've been having some interesting conversations with various managers about increasing the involvement of Design in the business. I got some positive feedback from one of the senior managers and just have to wait for the powers that be to give me the projects to show that I can walk the walk.

This weekend I popped up to a town called Waipu to visit a university friend who recently married a kiwi girl on the Saturday before coming back down to Auckland to run in the Round The Bays 'Fun Run' Untill I moved to New Zealand, running was a survival skill and not something that I found 'fun' However 70,000 people turned up to run the 8.4km from downtown Auckland to St. Helliers, round the bays in between, for various charities and I did my bit by entering and running with work. I've put a few pictures below, It took at least five minutes to get to the starting line after the gun announced the start and then a further few minutes was spent walking trying to get out of the corwds before I could start running.

After the run everyone heads up to a big park where work had pitched a large tent and filled it with free food and drinks, most NZ, or certainly Auckland based, companies were represented with everyone running in company T-shirts and eating at their company tents afterwards. And the sun came out, which was nice.

Chris and I waiting for the start...
If you use binoculars you might be able to make out the Start line and some of the 70,000 other punters waiting to get moving. Helen Clark, the NZ Prime Minister, started the race and after about 5 mins I eventually walked past her as she waved to everyone moving over the start line.
Pete and I outside the F&P Healthcare tent. Note my nice black 'tights'! They're compression tights and are supposed to help your legs perform better and aid recovery. Not having any other running race to benchmark I can't say if they helped me run any better and I'll tell you if my legs hurt in the morning!

March Madness

I'm afraid I seem to be lacking in pictures to show you at the moment, I promise to rectify this soon!

Although nothing hugely exciting is going on at the moment I have busy with various projects that seem to keep me out of trouble. I'm in the middle of putting a proposal together for one of the senior managers at work that will outline a few ideas I have on how the business could improve it's design process with a view to possibly creating a new role for myself. I'm visiting our sister company Fisher&Paykel Appliances tomorrow to find out how their design dept. works as it is well established and there are a number of similarities between our companies.

The second prototype of my hockey stick design went well and it's time to start thinking about designing the moulds for it now which will probably take some time. In the mean time I have been making a new set of wooden sticks for the NZ Regional Underwater Hockey Champs in Wellington this week. They take place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and should be a lot of fun. I'm playing in the Northern A-team which is without doubt the best team I've ever played on so I hope we do well! The weekend after that I've been talked into taking part in an event with work called the 'Round the Bays Run' which is an 8.4k run from the centre of Auckland "round the bays" to a place called St. Helliers. I've been mixing some running into my training for hockey and hope that my legs will survive the onslaught!

The weather has been good the last few weeks - until it's time for the weekend, the last two have been very wet and windy so I haven't been to any beaches or kayaking lately. I'm still plugging away at the Best Man's speech and have been organising Ewan's Stag weekend in the evenings. Not too much left to report at the moment, I'll let you all know how we get on in Wellington in a week or two!

Nick