A Good Weekend 31/07/11

Just a quick one but its been a great weekend so I thought I'd get some of it on here while its in my head.

Saturday was spent by Anna doing more shopping & getting us even closer to having everything we need for PiwiWiwi. I really must get a photo of our garage - its bursting!

I spent most of the day modifying & improving the strap arrangement in our prototype van. I then headed out to 'test drive' another longboard. How many do I need? Well, seeing as Anna likes stealing mine I guess at least two.. Anyway, the waves were rubbish (too much wind) but the board was good so I agreed to buy it.

Anna got back just in time for us to go to a 'Pecha Kucha' night at Raglan's community centre. I'd never heard of this type of thing before but basically it gives people 20 slides at 20 seconds each (so just over 6 1/2 minutes) to talk about something they are interested in. It was great, with stories about the windfarm up on the hill, interior design, Kuwait's 1991 oil field fires (truly amazing eyewitness story) & designing the new Museum that's nearly built in Raglan. It was really good for us 'newcomers' because it was a community thing & we got chatting to some great people. One of these was Simon, a guy who'd helped point me to the right skip for dead computers at Extreme Waste, who asked me how the project was going. Drat! 'Forgotten' I said, but thought I'd better get on with it before too long.

Today (Sunday) dawned sunny & cold (we actually had frost last week, I was skating down our steps by the time I realised it) but most importantly, still. No wind means good waves. The beach had some great waves & I got some of them! Anna got a pretty big one too & did amazingly well considering she hasn't faced anything like this before. After the great surf we had bacon sarnies then I set to trimming the various trees & shrubs that scrape down our van each time we drive in or out. Then it was more bacon sarnies & another surf, this time windier & more choppy but good all the same. I misread a couple of waves & got eaten & pummeled by them but also got a couple or three very good ones too. Next, into town to collect the new longboard. Its another non-standard by a crazy Californian shaper so it will fit right in with our Campbell Brother's Bonzer 5 & George Greenough 'Wilderness' board. After our two surfs obviously we were hungry so we dined out on burgers! I had a tasty double bacon, double cheese burger. Look, we don't often eat meat & today I was HUNGRY ok?! What's wrong with every meal in a day having bacon in it?

Anyway, it hit the spot & after letting it settle for a while I decided to do get on with the aforementioned project. About an hour in the garage (wearing two fleeces, gloves & a hat) with drill, jigsaw, soldering iron etc.* & I produced something that should see my getting into a dry wetsuit rather than a cold & wet one tomorrow morning! Its basically a couple of old computer fans attached to a couple of clothes hangers. The fans run off a drill battery & blow air through the wetsuit so it drys more quickly. Everything went together ok so providing the battery's got enough juice I should not be so cold tomorrow morning!

Finally, its gone midnight so Happy Birthday Mum, have a great day.

*I love the fact that I have a workshop. Everyone should have one. Make space for one, let yourself try out the things you always said you would. Its great!

Stop pointing that thing at me!

Manu Bay looking nice

Ready for surf 2

Shell on beach Copyright A. Cunningham

Karioi from the beach

Who's this? She has slightly redder cheeks now...

The workshop / storage.

It ain't pretty...

Nor's this!

But it works!

Friday Night 29 July

This week. Been pretty good really. We did take the last weekend properly 'off' & then have being doing more practical things for piwiwiwi which has been a nice change & more rewarding.

We didn't go away anywhere to have our weekend off. We went over to have a meal with Beth & Simon (a British couple who've been in NZ for 8ish years). Kit & Gemma were meant to be there too but Gemma had cut her head surfing (at Mussel rock which is a long walk & then a paddle across the estuary from Raglan & the nearest road) & was in Hamilton getting stitched back together again! Anyway, the meal was great & so were our hosts, their dog 'Molly' & their 7' bear.

Weekend over & fun was had putting board straps into our 'prototype' van. Then of course we had to drive to the beach to test them! We did a monster shop in Hamilton yesterday & now have most of what we think we need for the vans - 7 sets of most things but 14 camp chairs, 21 cups, 6 shiny new car stereos to name a few. Its been fun negotiating too - its amazing how much cheaper you can get things if you walk in or phone up & ask for a job lot!

In amongst these things we've done more to the website, completed week 2 of our running thing, done some surfing & attended a property auction.

This coming week's exciting. Lisa, an old friend & ex-colleague from Lotus is coming to New Zealand for a month. Not only will I get to catch up after too long but she'll be our first 'customer' so we'd better be ready!

Another sunny afternoon. The coast is virtually uninhabited North of Raglan.

Fantail - These will fly around you making a noise like a squeaky dog toy until you get off 'their patch'

A flock of Goldfinches? Is that right Dad?

Me on another wave, this time on my shortboard

A surfer heads out into the haze.

The kind of office I like!

Not off the back of a lorry, honest!

Sunrise, Living Room, 22/07/11

Another week so it’s time for another diary entry. Not too much to say about this week. With the business I think we’ve become a bit mired and need a proper break. In the rest of life we’ve made a lot of the few days of good (if cold) weather that we were given.

Company progress feels slow this week. To get the things done to the website that we wanted we spent most of last weekend working on it (I know, you’d hardly tell!). The weekend before had a fair bit of business to it also so I think we need to spend this weekend fully off-duty to clear our heads for the following week.

If the fatigue isn’t just work, it could be excessive exercise. I’ve managed a surf Sunday (twice), Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. Brilliant! (even if my shoulders are very tired now). Plus we’ve started the C25K running program. It stands for ‘Couch to five kilometres’ & in 9 weeks is meant to take you, in a structured way, from couch potato to running 5k. The first week is a minute’s running followed by a minute & half’s fast walking repeated for 20 minutes and is quite (for a non-runner like myself) challenging. Next week the times are reversed so it’ll be half as much running again with less respite. Let’s see how it goes... Either way, it’s been fun making a soundtrack to go with the run so the music's about the right pace then interspersing it with an aussie voice giving you instructions on when to run & when to walk. If you think you’re neighbourhood’s been taken over by randomly walking-running-walking robots its probably just people doing this program & not ‘Invasion of The Body Snatchers’.

One more thing to report is that we saw a moving house (that’s not someone moving house). One of the ‘sections’ (Kiwi for building/house plot) near us had most of its hedge pulled down one day. The next there was a truck reversing under the house & then that evening off it went up (& filling) the road preceded by two cars with signs saying ‘house follows’! We thought it might get stuck at the narrow one-lane bridge but the bed of the truck just jacked up a couple or three feet to clear & off it went. Bonkers!

I made the soda bread, Anna the banana bread.

Sunrise at Manu Bay.

Raglan from above.

Sunset on the beach.

Negotiating my way to the sea.

Small waves are still great on a Longboard!

(A) Moving house.

15/07/11 From The Layby Above Whale Bay

4 weeks, 1 day since we left the UK & time for another update.

The stormy weather's kept itself going for nearly 2 weeks now but finally looks like giving us a break this weekend. We've therefore had few distractions from getting on with business which has mostly been paperwork & website building. PiwiWiwi's about ready for us to start promoting but the more people look at it the more feedback we can get.

The weather seemed to have claimed a flock of Shearwaters or Petrels. Yesterday walking into town along the beach there were literally 100s, at least 200, maybe 300 washed up at the high tide line. Very sad to see. They've hit the news, little. They were 'Prions' & you can read about it here.

Despite being stormy, yesterday was the only fully 'grey' day we've had. More typically its been sudden changes between bright sun, torrential rain, powerful squalls of wind with a little thunder, lightning & hail thrown in for good measure. Its been not been unusual to be getting soaked by sun & rain at the same time while an amazingly bright rainbow shines over the mountain. No wonder the Maori have a god of rainbows! In fact, as I write this that's exactly what's happening. Half the sky's black, half's blue, the sun's shining low over the angry sea & there must a rainbow somewhere around. Luckily I'm in the van, under a duvet. Scott said New Zealand was a 'big Wales' but the weather's a bit more extreme I'd say. Also, NZ has a place name longer than Llanfair pg. It's something about notable knees according to the translation.

Work, as previously mentioned, involves words; writing a comprehensive Terms & Conditions for our Campervan company is hard work. Hopefully we've got it right & fair. Its such an important document we'll be having an NZ lawyer check it for us before making it official. We've also done a lot of information adding to the website & PiwiWiwi is taking shape. Tonight we'll work on the look & feel, hopefully adding loads of nice pictures to make it more alluring. Then tomorrow we promote it on Google & Facebook. Please don't click through an advertised link if you see one - every click costs us! Please do type the address in manually & let us know what you think of the site, we need feedback. I've got to mention here mountain-biking (dang I'm missing my bike!) mate Tim Plumb of http://www.tp10.co.uk/ who made our website's theme & Steve Blackwell, an ex-colleague from CAT who's helping out a bit & Cam for providing us with tons of great photos.

Well, that's me about up to date. Oh, except for mentioning Raglan cinema. One is at The Old School where we blagged the sofa & saw 'Last Paradise', a very interesting & thought provoking film with some awesome historic footage. It explains NZ's involvement in the surfing (& other board sports) explosion. Apparently Mickey Dora came here to escape the commercialisation of California back in the day! The other cinema is Tony's house, a large, curious mix of cafe, ramshackle & art collection where Tony extends a warm welcome to all & sundry. Here we got to watch 'Exit Through The Giftshop', the Banksy film that's very good, odd & interesting. Is 'Mister Brainwash' for real or is he washing your brain?

Right, that's definitely enough from me. Time to watch the latest storm roll through & then hopefully the sunset.

Our Vans All Registered to PiwiWiwi Ltd

Nice Sky

It rose more than expected

But turned out well

In the estuary

The windsock we can see from our house showing strong onshore all week - yuk

Van Strap Clamps

Prototypes

Lumpy sea, literally

Dead Prions

Sunset from the kitchen window

Cold website work

Morning estuary

Working...