Winter Wanderlust

We’re off touring the country in our motorhome at present.

Last night we sped off to Miranda and soaked ourselves in the hot pools. There is this great spot in Miranda right on the water called ‘Ray’s Rest’ which is a hideaway for motorhomes that are too cheeky to check into a holiday park (or those like us who prefer freedom camping as it is known). We spent a lovely night on the water’s edge dodging the thunderstorm that passed over, and woke to brilliant sunshine.

Then it was off to Thames for shopping. Thames is the new Melbourne. We shopped till we dropped, and have filled the motorhome up with new clothes and tacky things ready for our jaunt further south into the deep New Zealand winter.

Then we drove through picturesque Te Aroha and admired the buildings and houses, then scurried along quaint back roads past the Wairere Waterfall and onto Rotovegas! We’re now camped at another ‘free camping’ spot right on the edge of Lake Rotorua round at Hamurana. Tomorrow we’re off to the metropolis of Rotorua to play ‘tourist’. Yay!

Te Aroha Domain and Museum

Wairere Falls

We would thoroughly recommend the back road from Te Aroha to Te Poi. No traffic, straight country roads, and great views of the ranges. We must spend more time here on a later jaunt.

But wait, there’s more…

And you thought this website was just a collection of our mutterings. You clearly thought wrong.

Our new broadband connection (yes, we do get a high speed connection over here on the island) means that we’ve been able to surf the net and find new things to add for your entertainment pleasure.

Check out the menu tabs on this site. If you’re bored with your music collection, have a look at what we’re listening to, or check out some videos we found. I promise I’ll update the recipes as soon as I finish the new kitchen (I’m rather gastronomically challenged with a lack of workspace and cooking devices at present!)

Enjoy!

Speaking of chocolate

My name is Adam and I’m a chocoholic. But I’m also very brand sensitive, and Cadbury has been my vice since I was a child.

You can imagine my horror when I learned that the sods in Dunedin had changed the recipe and added palm oil instead of cocoa butter. What’s more, they were now producing the stuff in Aussie instead of here. I rushed down to the local Barrier store to buy up the last of the old stock, but alas, fresh cardboard packets of the new shite lined the shelves. It tasted awful.

Bitter and not Bittersweet of Tryphena then got typing and sent Mr Cadbury a letter (yes, too much time on my hands, obviously). The betrayal; poisoning such a beautiful recipe in the search for greater profits; the poor Orangutans evicted from their natural habitats so that acres and acres of cheap and nasty chocolate could be produced for less sensitive palates. My taste buds would no longer embrace the Cadbury brand. It was evolving into a bitter divorce…

Fortunately, someone at Cadbury saw the light, or the falling sales figures, or simply got their arse kicked. And the rainclouds parted, and once again the land was blessed with chocolate made from cocoa butter instead of vegetable fat. The Orangutans rejoiced. And a letter was sent to Bitter and not Bittersweet of Tryphena…

Dear Adam

Recently you contacted us to express your disappointment that Cadbury in New Zealand had introduced vegetable fat, including a small amount of palm oil, into the recipe for Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate.

I am pleased to inform you that based on your feedback and that of hundreds of other New Zealanders, we have decided to remove vegetable fat, including palm oil, from Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate and return to a cocoa butter only recipe.

At the time, that we introduced vegetable fat, including palm oil, we
genuinely believed we were making the right decision, for the right
reasons. However, it is clear that we got it wrong. Now we’re putting
things right by returning to a cocoa only recipe as soon as we possibly
can. We sincerely apologise for making a recipe change that you and many others did not like and hope that you forgive us. Cadbury Dairy Milk’s quality is what’s made Cadbury one of New Zealand’s/Australia’s most trusted brands for many years. Changing the recipe put that trust at risk and we hope that by returning to a cocoa butter only recipe is a change for the better.

I’d also like to reassure you that at Cadbury, we remain committed to its product quality and environmental and ethical sourcing commitments. As a responsible business the palm oil we purchased for Cadbury Dairy Milk was independently certified as sustainable and we are one of the few companies in New Zealand to do so. However, you and many other consumers have told us you don’t want palm oil in your Cadbury Dairy Milk, so it’s going.

Production of the cocoa butter only Cadbury Dairy Milk milk chocolate will begin within a few weeks and Cadbury Dairy Milk will shortly, once again, contain only cocoa butter. The wholesale price that retailers pay us for Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate will not be affected as a result of our decision to return to a cocoa butter only recipe.

Once  again thank you for your support.  We hope the change back to a cocoa butter  only  recipe  will  help  restore  your  faith  in  Cadbury and our products.

Yours sincerely,
CADBURY LIMITED NEW ZEALAND

So the world is now back in a state of equilibrium. Chocolate is safe from attack, and business schools across the country have a fresh example of what a multinational company with a trusted brand should not do unless they are wanting to commit marketing suicide.

And Bitter and not Bittersweet of Tryphena waits quitely for the new stock to hit the local store. Bl&%dy ferry better arrive on time. Need chocolate…

Want a free night in a hotel?

Regular viewers will be aware of the severe angst I have been having over the past year with my cellphone provider. When we moved to the Barrier last year, we signed up with good ol’ Vodaphony, and went wireless with everything – mobile, landline and internet. I cut the service off in April after months of lousy customer service, incorrect bills, and poorly functioning technology.

Whilst discussing my experience loudly at a party, a sympathetic ear suggested I contact Orcon. What a breath of fresh air. Good service. No term contracts. Month by month provision of excellent service delivered simply and efficiently (yes, we now have high speed wireless broadband here on Fantasy Island!). And the package we have includes a landline and unlimited toll calls.

Now Orcon have set up a deal where if any of you switch to them as your provider, both you and I will get a free hotel getaway worth $200 (that’s you and I separately as two hotel getaways, not you and I in the same room or bed). And there’s a free bottle of bubbles and a box of chockies to boot. Offer ends 30 September 2009.

So switch to Orcon now – I fancy a hotel trip away somewhere, and you bl&%dy well look like you need a holiday. Remember to say that I referred you (enter my number 11751620).

I promise I’ll stop doing product promotions soon – it’s just that I’m sick of the way telcos have been locking us into contracts and ripping us off. The contracts have given them an excuse to provide sloppy service. But this consumer says “no more!”

My last year of being 30-something

Regular readers will know that there was some hesitation about celebrating my recent birthday. I thought it was to do with this being my last year of being 30-something. I’d said to Peter that I didn’t want a party this year – I just wanted to run away in the motorhome to Rotorua.

However, friends and family seemed dejected, and a last-minute soiree was organised at one of Auckland’s classiest establishments – Valentines North Shore. Why? Well I get to dine for free on my birthday of course!

They say that in times of crisis, you certainly get to know who your friends are. I’d also add that when you choose Valentines as the main attraction for your birthday, you also truly get to know who your friends are. They are the ones that will put on a brave face and force themselves, godwilling, through the door and into a torturous buffet extravaganza – just for you! I had a boss once who was horrified that I liked Valentines. I just like buffets. Everyone can find something that they like to eat, and it’s as cheap as chips.

The days leading up to the birthday were filled with anxious calls and emails from said friends who were trying to convince me that I should choose a more decadent venue, but I would not be swayed. “Pretend we are going to a wedding”, I said. A buffet is a buffet!

So eleven of us, including four Valentines virgins,  piled into the restaurant and began a delightful gorgefest. There were twelve people booked in, but one friend pulled a ’sickie’ at the last moment (hmmm, I want to see a doctor’s certificate!). Another friend said she only came as she’d decided put the experience on her ‘bucket list’ – the list of things that you have to do or achieve in your life before you kick the bucket. Gosh – this was Valentines North Shore – not Valentines Mt Everest!

The restaurant staff were delightful, and the food was actually really good. Bravo Valentines North Shore – we all had a great time.

Too many candles for my ageing breath

Afterwards I had an epiphany and realised why I wasn’t keen to celebrate my birthday this year. Last year had been a terrible year, and my uncle (my father’s brother) had died the day before my birthday, with my Gran (my father’s mother) then dying the day after my birthday. Therefore my birthday last year was consumed with a family in crisis and grief.

I’m pleased that I did something this year, even if it was Valentines. I was beginning to worry that I’d never be able to enjoy a birthday again. But torturing close friends by forcing them to go to a restaurant they wouldn’t be seen dead in was great fun.

I got some great presents. One of them was a cookbook by Jo Seager with recipes that look so delightful and delicious, they’ll be churned out with regularity in the new kitchen and larder (if we ever finish building it). Another very special present was given to me by my mother. She gave me a box with the following photograph in it:

Harold Kelly Hill Snr & Jr

The dashing young man on the right is my Great Grandfather, and the man on the left is his father. Attached to Great Great Grandpa’s waistcoat is a sterling silver fob watch. And in the box given to me by my mother was the same watch – freshly repaired, restored, and cleaned by an expert watchsmith. So I now have Grandpa Hill’s watch to look after, which was passed from him to Pa Hill (my Great Grandfather, the man on the right), then to his wife, my delightful Great Grandmother Nana Hill (who died when I was in my twenties), then to my wonderful Grandma, and then last year to my mum after Grandma died.

So now I have a treasured timepiece to help me keep track of the minutes, hours and days as they slip by. My ever receding youth. It certainly gives some credence to the quote “Life ain’t no dress rehearsal – you gotta make the most of it while you still got some”. So go on – add Valentines to your ‘bucket list’ now. Before it’s too late!

Wretched tow trucks

Okay, put your hand up if you’ve been towed away from a carpark before.

Yes, this last happened to me about 20 years ago when I parked my car on yellow lines in the nurses home carpark following a night shift. I later woke from from night shift induced coma to find that the lovely nurses home officials had towed away my little turquoise Holden Barina. Boy was I grumpy.

This morning I got to re-live the experience when my car was towed from the Westhaven Marina carpark. I’d left it there when we boarded the ferry to the Barrier the other morning. Peter, who is now back on the mainland for a few days, went to uplift the car and found that the toweys has beaten him by 20 minutes. Bl%&dy pay and display machines. F%#&ing toweys. It seems that although I thought the carpark ticket expired at 10.58 this morning, it actually expired at 4.58am. Bl@$dy early morning ferry rides and carparks with poor lighting.

Two hundred dollars later and the car is now free. To relieve my anger, I downed two cups of peppermint tea, and took to the kitchen and bathroom walls with a sledge hammer. I’m feeling much better now.

Anger management therapy in progress

The wall (pictured above) is now completely demolished, and will be later rebuilt to form the walls of our new kitchen larder. Imagine a room with open shelves lined with tins of food and jars of preserves – a virtual home supermarket – and you’ll be imagining what our current renovation project will evolve into. Now if I can just bury a few tow truck drivers and a pay-and-display machine beneath the concrete foundations as I renovate, I’ll be even happier. Time for another peppermint tea obviously…

Where has the last month gone?

Things have been rather busy over the past month – I don’t know how we ever managed to fit careers into our lives.

We’re on the mainland at present, having missed the ferry to the island by a whole 15 minutes. That was after spending 3 days loading a furniture trailer and Landrover to the roof, then getting up at 4am to drag the overloaded trailer with faulty lights and brakes inconspicuously down the motorway, only to find the wharf empty of cars and sans ferry!

So we’ve now had to find some secure parking as we didn’t want the ordeal of returning the trailer through peak morning traffic to Waiwera. Next Tuesday we’ll repeat the whole drama again, but we’ll get up a little earlier so that we’ll actually catch the ferry on time.

Monday is my 30-something birthday, so I’m having a small gathering with a few friends at somewhere unspectacular to mourn the loss of the remnants of my youth. Next year is the big ‘four-oh’. Yes, there’ll be a big hoolie over on the island to celebrate middle adulthood. You’re all invited. In the meantime I’ll quietly contemplate my last year of being 30-something.

The house at Great Barrier looks like a bombsite. We’re right in the thick of renovations (yes, we’re addicted to renovating). The kitchen and bathroom have been gutted, every room is littered with boxes of stuff awaiting new cupboards and pantry, and the shells and roof of the two chalets have been built. Now comes the finishing work, which we’re going to delay, because we’ve decided to run away in the motorhome for a few weeks. I might do a spot of snow skiing while I’m still 30-something and able to. Statistically I’m more likely to break or rupture something on the mountain after next year. Best that I make the most of the year ahead then. Keep watching this space.

Winter on the Barrier

Cooking up a storm

Blustery day - surf's up!

Here we are right in the thick of winter, and coping very well with island life. We have had both extremes of weather – some brilliant sunny and hot days then counterbalanced by days like today – stormy and wet.

The winds are blowing right into the harbour today. The local Fire Brigade are busy helping our neighbour out after her roof blew off. And we’re simply relieved that we got the roof on one of the new chalets in time ahead of this current storm hitting.

The beginnings of a new chalet

Cakes or concrete: both need mixers and recipes

Things start to take shape

The weather has been ghastly

Everything is sopping wet – the lawn and the unsealed parts of the driveway in particular, and everything is muddy – not helped by the fact we’ve been trucking and towing building supplies around the property. But it is all means to an end, and we’re just very relieved we concreted the worst of the drive earlier this year, otherwise we’d been marooned on our own property right now.

Despite the weather, we’re tucked up inside nice and warm. I have the wood fired stove going, and have impressed myself with the delights I have cooked up over the past few weeks: home-made marmalade, roasts galore, chocolate cakes, muffins, fresh bread, seafood soups, freshly caught crayfish, and a variety of other winter soups and stews. You can see we’re not starving over here! And all this in a quarter finished kitchen.

Goodbye hideous tiled bench!

Speaking of the kitchen, we have half the new floor down and that is about it. The outside BBQ table is acting as my kitchen bench at the moment, and I had to disconnect the gas to move things around, hence why everything is now being cooked on the wood fired stove. I feel very Amish, and am loving it.

Peter has to go back to the mainland next week, but I have to wait on the island for the fireplace installer to turn up (he is moving the wood fired stove around the kicthen). That should make cooking fun having no gas and no stove! Then I’ll fly back to join Peter as we have yet ANOTHER load of stuff to bring to the island on the ferry. Then we are planning to return to the mainland in August for my birthday where we will escape in the motorhome for a few weeks. Rotovegas here we come!

We’re certainly not short of things to do with all of our various projects. I’ve also been roped onto an event planning committee for an island based race, and I’m busy trying to establish an ambulance and other St John services here on the island. No time for boredom!

There is a fantastic sense of community here on Great Barrier. And it is winter that really brings out the best in the islanders. I’ve just been called by one of the local timber yards to check that we’re okay and that the storm hasn’t destroyed out building efforts. The guys are going to come up and help me finish the roof flashings next week. If one starts to get ‘cabin fever’, islanders pull together and organise a get together by the fire, or a dinner or other social occasion. Who needs shopping malls to keep one entertained. There is an amazing sense of everyone being in this together, and needing to help each other in the process.

Moonrise over Gooseberry Flat

Yes, I’m really enjoying winter on the island. Fingers crossed Waiwera is surviving the storm. At least we don’t have to worry about the storm taking out the power over here – we generate all our own power. There is something lovely about being so self-sufficient. Gawd – this really is becoming another Richard Briers and the Good Life episode!

Sunset over the Tryphena Harbour

A beautiful Barrier winter’s day

Another hideous day in paradise

After a stormy night, and warnings on the TV about tornadoes around the Coromandel, we woke to a brilliant Barrier winter’s day. I could have sworn it was summer again – blue skies; clear calm water; lovely T-shirt temperature.

Peter’s brother Andy is over helping us to do some building. Today we changed a door in my workshop, and tomorrow we start work on building two garden chalets for guests to stay in. The kitchen is about to be ripped out, which I am nervous about, because I don’t quite know how I’m going to be able to cook and do dishes with no kitchen. There’s only so many cans of spaghetti one can tolerate.

Peter and Andy are out fishing at the moment. Hopefully that means fresh snapper for breakfast. I see they forgot to take the craypot out.

Speaking of crayfish, we caught our first crayfish the other day. This was eaten very promptly, leaving none for my poor mother who has been constantly demanding a fresh crayfish be sent over to the mainland when she heard we were moving to the island. It’s only taken us a year to learn how to catch one, so hopefully one day mum will get her tasty wish!

Cyril the crayfish has a warm bath

Cyril waits patiently for lunch

Matariki

The other night, we had the pleasure of attending the local Matariki celebrations here at Tryphena on Great Barrier Island. What a fantastic community experience!

Picture a hundred or so locals piled into the local community hall. The children from the island’s three schools had made paper lanterns, and these were suspended from the ceiling of the hall. Each lantern was lit from within, and when the hall lights were turned off, it was quite a spectacle.

A kapa haka group from Kaipara were the special invited guests, and treated the audience to a fantastic performance.

Then all the locals and guests piled outside to a marquee packed with food for a gorgefest and chinwag.

I must now apologise to the citizens of Blenheim, who I dissed last Christmas after I spied their community Christmas Party in the flesh. Although my commentary at the time was jestful, it also undervalued the magnificence and specialness of our local kiwi community spirit. Here we were, ensconced in the Tryphena Hall, and delighted by the effort people had gone to on a cold, dark winter’s night on an island in the middle of nowhere. We were experiencing the local community at it’s best.

Bravo to the Island Arts Trust who organised the event. All for free too. Good show.

Another load to the island

We’re back on Fantasy Island now, having dragged a truckload and boat load of goodies across with us. The truck was loaded to the max with building materials for our winter projects, and boxes of our prized possessions (i.e. crap we’d collected over the years). The boat carried our quad bike, it’s trailer, and a huge statue of Tutenkamen (yes, that’s right, more crap for the garden).

The truck got up our new driveway with ease, so we’ll be back to the mainland in a few weeks time with another truck and a larger trailer to move even more stuff. I reckon that if we continue moving at the rate of a truck a month, we might be fully moved by July 2015!

Perhaps we might need to start parting with some of our prized possessions? Nah! Silly idea!

The unfortunate experiment

Now readers, be warned that you should not try this at home. Also note that this segment contains nudity that might not be appropriate for younger viewers.

On a cold and blustery night at Waiwera recently, we decided to fill the spa pool, and muggins here, seeing we were short of chlorine, opted to use large chlorine tablets designed for swimming pools instead.

By the second night, the whole chlorine tablet had dissolved (not that we’d noticed), and a strange tingling sensation was noted by the bathers.

Later that night, as we emerged from the spa, we noticed the bright red rash all over our bodies, and muggins decided to test the spa water with a dipstick. Well, it seems I was the dipstick. The chlorine levels were well off the chart! We were effectively soaking in Janola!

The next few days were torturous, as one experienced burns and peeling in one’s nether regions. I tell you, one’s nads aren’t designed for peeling!

So the moral of the story is to always follow instructions on packets, and not use your own body to ‘test the waters’. Readers will be relieved to know that we promptly dumped the pool load of water, and after a week of difficulty, all is back to normal down below.

Nothing like a chemical peel to make one feel a little younger!

Winter projects

Yes, as most regular readers will already know, we always like to have a project or two on the go to keep us occupied. This year is no different.

Having completed the extreme makeover at Waiwera, we’re now turning our attention to Great Barrier. The driveway has now been concreted, so that allows us to get lots of ‘big stuff’ up to our house for the more exciting projects.

This winter it’s sheds, garages, renovating the guest apartment, and gutting the kitchen. We’re both now certified TradeMe addicts, having trolled the website for hours purchasing all manner of things from windows, to kitchen benches, to ovens and hobs, to building materials. The demolition yard in Albany is our next favourite place – we now have a truckload of joinery to take to the island for our various sheds and other planned constructions. Later this week we’ll be packing up a furniture truck with building materials and heading across to the island with Peter’s brother who is going to help us smash holes in walls etc. Then we’ll have to rush back to the mainland in a fortnight with another truck to uplift a stunning island kitchen bench (complete with all the cupboards) that we found on TradeMe. We do love shopping!

So that’s our winter mapped out really – lots of shopping for materials, building, renovating and moving things from one island to another – something we’ve come to make a bit of a habit out of!

Kawau revisited

One of the many tasks we’ve been putting off for ages has been the need to pop over to Kawau to pick up all our stuff we’d left there. When we sold our Kawau house, we sold it fully furnished, but we still managed to fill an entire garage over there with personal effects and other stuff that didn’t sell with the house.

So after a blustery week of rain and wind, we hired a truck, trailer, and barge, and departed from Sandspit for Kawau early on Friday morning. Fortunately the weather was on our side, and a brilliant sunny day emerged to compliment a lovely calm sea.

It was a lovely trip across Kawau Bay to the island, and a nice trip down memory lane as we sailed into Schoolhouse Bay. We said hello to Norm and Jenny who live next to the wharf, and drove the truck up to the garage where luckily one of the many loose keys I’d brought along for the ride happened to fit the lock to the garage (not bad considering 18 months had passed since we last used the key).

We opened the garage with some apprehension – we couldn’t quite remember what we’d left behind, and we didn’t know if the effort involved in recovering our island bounty would actually be worth it. Fortunately the trip was worth it – all those long forgotten ‘treasures’ now recovered and loaded into the truck ready for the trip back to Waiwera.

View from Schoolhouse Bay, Kawau Island

The trip to Kawau was lovely, but it brought with it some closure and recognition that we had moved on to newer pastures (all 13 acres of newer bush clad pasture on Great Barrier Island). We have some excellent memories of great times spent on Kawau Island, and collecting our things from the island helped to provide ’souveniers’ that would help to cement those memories in our ageing, aluminium pot soaked brains.  

The trip home (fully loaded)

Once back at Waiwera, the unloading began, and boxes were opened to check contents ready for repacking for the ‘Barrier’. It was like Christmas at our house – goodies everywhere including spare pairs of underwear and slippers! Peter discovered yet more model boats to add to his museum that we are shortly going to build on the Barrier, and I found yet another Kenwood mixer to add to my collection (I now have 3 mixers, 2 blenders, 2 mincers, 6 bowls, a shredder, and a truckload of mixing attachments).

Clearly, despite slowing down and abandoning the ‘rat race’, our obessive compulsive collecting behaviours haven’t ceased, and we both still struggle to part with any of our treasures in case we might need them sometime in the future. We managed to sort through one of the sheds at Waiwera the other day and discovered amoungst other things, 3 forgotten deer heads, boxes and boxes of car models (again for Peter’s museum), and 24 empty antique suitcases.

Someone should notify the men in white coats now. Meanwhile, we’ll continue planning the development of new sheds and garages for Great Barrier so that we have somewhere to store all this cr#p in!

Broken tooth

I had one of those nasty moments last week when I felt a back tooth suddenly go crunch while eating lunch, and then I found myself spitting out parts of my tooth (or a filling, or a crown – who can really tell when you’re stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the impending bolt of lightning to strike one in the jaw now that a nerve has probably been exposed somewhere!).

A quick call to the local island dentist (yes, we do have one) revealed that they weren’t going to be on the island for a fortnight, so we hurredly booked a flight to the mainland for a session of emergency dentistry.

Unfortunately the weather decided to intervene, and although my flight got off the ground, it then had to turn back and land again when a nasty set of thunderstorms blocked the way between the island and the mainland. Once the storms cleared (two hours later), we were off again.

So I managed to book into see my mainland dentist Angela just in the nick of time ahead of the weekend (the flight arrived in Auckland at midday on Friday). Angela is a very thorough dentist (www.wellness-dentistry.com). She is the only dentist whose chair I have fallen asleep in, and that was during a root canal of all things!).

Much to my surprise, I found that I hadn’t broken a crown (like I had imagined). Much to Angela’s disgust, she found that my tooth had collapsed because of a nasty cavity that was about half a teaspoon of sugar away from a full root canal. Angela’s therapeutic hand (and drill) prized away the months of decay that I had neglected to manage, and a dentine filling and enamel reconstruction later, I was on my way. Fortunately I think I may have just scraped through not needing a root canal.

Angela is a minimal intervention dentist. She tries to educate her patients so that they can take steps to prevent the need for intensive dental work. This patient, however, had been naughty and hadn’t kept up with the maintenance, but Angela now has me back on track and armed with a flotilla of dental brushes, probes and flossing devices. If you want to have an excellent understanding of the state of your teeth and gums, as well as a game plan that will prevent you needing to spend thousands on dental work, then I’d thoroughly recommend a trip to Angela.

Right, I must be off now to floss!