Our House - at the end of our street!

We have been looking in the property papers and windows since landing in Nelson 16 months ago. As migrants, finance is harder to come by and we have been put off looking around properties. Recently, the lenders began relaxing so we decided to have a look at what we might be able to pick up with 10,000GBP as a deposit.



The two properties we purchased previously were the very first places we visited each time we began searching - not that we rushed in, we looked at others afterwards but preferred the first option each time. Inevitably, this happened once again (9 days ago) and we are already heading towards a completion date of Dec 21st - less than a month after first viewing it!!


Of course we're both really stoked by this and hope that my parents feel similarly, as they had already boarded the plane for NZ when we were haggling the price down!


It is our first actual house (after 2 small London flats) and is in Nelson itself - a short walk to pubs, shops and restaurants rather than the $40 taxi ride we are faced with at present. It has a good section (garden) of 733m and 3 bedrooms excluding the granny flat on the ground floor.

It is located at the end of a cul-de-sac above a valley and has lovely views and afternoon / evening sun. There are two double doors which open out to a veranda on 3 sides which will be great for BBQ's, wine and relaxing with a book after training!



The kitchen and bathroom were refitted recently and to a good spec too. The downstairs granny flat needs a complete over-haul, but we don't plan to renovate upstairs further than some painting and touching-up. There are enough little jobs for us to do to stamp our personal touch on the place over the next couple of years.

The building has a nice open plan with good flow out to the veranda and between rooms. There is a log-burning fire in the centre of the property so we will no longer freeze in the winter! The polished wood floors look great too...

We will no longer battle with the ancient oven at our rental place, and Bernie is trying to negotiate to keep the silver fridge freezer as it matches the oven!

House prices have dropped here, but are picking up. Our British Pounds are very weak at present, but we wanted to get onto the property ladder ASAP. Friends here have paid off their mortgages in under 10 years - mortgages are quite flexible over here!

The large garden is landscaped but needs some clearing. Fruit trees will be put in as well as plenty of veges. Our lovely chooks will also benefit from a larger coop to play in!

Once again, we have lots of room for visitors so please keep NZ in your holiday plans!

This will be our room (minus the chez long unfortunately!)

We will be paying (subject to finance - fingers crossed!) around 100,000GBP for this place. Few properties are available in good areas for this price - we will have no garage or off-street parking, but we can put up with this for a saving of $40,000! There is no through traffic (as it is a cul-de-sac) and there are plenty of spaces on the road so a cover for the mini should keep it going!

As mentioned, we should be in on the 21st - any one available to help us move?! My parents will be!

Love to one and all. Hoping you're all fit, healthy and happy!

Chris and Berns x x

Spring-ing into action!

Many thanks to all the wonderful people who made such an effort to make our trip to the UK so fun! We still feel bad for not being able to see everybody, we'll just have to save up and come back again soon!

Since returning to the land of the long white cloud we have been spoilt by some great weather, enabling us to get out adventuring again. We had both thought that we were returning to school (12 hours after getting home!) to a quiet last term before the summer holiday, but we have both been run ragged for the past month. Bernie is seemingly organising the various prize giving ceremonies single-handed, and I have been chasing and hassling students endlessly for coursework deadlines and revision papers.

We were fortunate enough to have a long weekend and headed to the remote Marlborough Sounds for kayaking, camping and fishing in the wilderness. It was a great trip as always, we saw only two other kayakers in the 4 days we were out on the water (Friday afternoon until Mon evening).

Every time we head to the Sounds, I get thoughts of retiring there with a tinny (fishing boat) and enough land to play around with... not that I'm wishing my life away yet!

Back in Moncao (below), I caught heaps of Kahawai - nice fish that like a fight! I made Kahawai cakes and a fish curry which kept us fed for a week!

We have also been back into training. Berns is suffering from a real bugger of an ear infection - a result of swimming in pools for months sadly - I'm really enjoying my morning pool sessions though. 5:30am starts are much easier now it is light in the morning.

We have both been cycling a lot as we have a 160km (100 mile) bike race on Saturday - neither of us has been over 100km in a day but it should be a fab race - through a gorge from source to sea... running is not a hot point, but will be a priority for me after this week's bike race. We have some local triathlons beginning in a couple of weeks and then there are a few national races that I hope to compete in after new year's - the World Champs was an expensive experience, but I'd love to do it again...

Apart from that, we are enjoying our house and garden, the chooks are still laying well and I'm off kayaking for 3 days at a time over the next 3 weeks with school - being paid to go kayaking with seals, dolphins and golden beaches is something I'm getting used to!

Love to one and all,

C&B!

Triathlon World Champs 2009 - Gold Coast, Brisbane, Australia

We arrived on the Gold Coast on 09/09/09 and were really pleased with our self-catering apartment which had a nice view of the sea! We were based about 4kms from the event, which meant a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over the next 5 days.

The Nelson contingent at the Parade of Nations, missing Suzie, Gary and Glenn though - it was hard to get everyone together especially as the event was split over 2 days. We sadly didn't manage a team dinner, which was a highlight of the Wellington race earlier in the year.

12/09/09 Standard Distance Triathlon (Bernie's race)

Running start into the water - 1.5km swim ahead of us! Bernie is second woman in from the left.

Not easy to spot, and even harder when it's in motion, but Bernie is in the centre of the photo heading to the left with a white helmet on her 40km cycle.

And coming in to finish the 10km run, hooray!!

Finished in 2:38:04 - disappointing swim and run times, but still a personal best, which is worth celebrating. We met up with Natalie and Glenn who were our neighbours on Hackney Road in London. Great to see them again!

13/09/09 Sprint Distance Triathlon (Chris's race)

Getting ready to swim 750m...

Looking strong after the swim and over to his bike to cycle 20kms....

Couldn't get a decent photo of Chris on his bike, he was way too fast! Coming into the transition to the run, Chris is looking really good...

Heading out of transition and into the 5km run, Jon (our coach) overtakes Chris on the bridge...

And coming in for a sprint finish is Chris Whitaker of New Zealand, go Kiwi go!! Chris did a great time of 1:07:27 and is now ranked 187th in the world - in his first year of triathlon, that's a fantastic start!

Got the medal and in recovery mode...

Here's the Nelson team with Gary and Suzie, but missing Glenn and Colin, Sunday evening after the sprint event. Sadly no gold, silver or bronze in our group, but only narrowly missed by Suzie who came 5th, Jon 6th and Murray 6th in their age groups.

Back in Nelson on Tuesday 15th September and off to England today, phew! 3.5 weeks of partying, here we come!

Gold Coast

We're finally in Australia... nearly 5 months of training, a whole day travelling with 2 bikes and enough luggage for a family of Nigerians (no offence meant friends!) and worries of a 35 degree heatwave! Fortunately the climate is cooler - high twenties, and the beaches, sea, race course etc are stunning.

We've swum in the sea, albeit behind shark-proof-netting! The only fish we saw were puffer-fish so all our limbs are still firmly attached! We've continued training since arriving in order to get used to the heat - fortunately we're both enjoying the relative cool for this time of year!

We cant wait to finish the races as we haven't drunk in 6 weeks... not that we're counting! We will be devouring a few drinks on Sunday night at the event after-party, a big Aussie BBQ event at the festival village!

In preparation for the event we have been absorbing some of the speediest animals in the country - the might kangaroo...

Yes! At the supermarket we found 100% Kanga Bangas! We ate these for lunch today, and have 2 prime kangaroo steaks sat in the fridge for this evening!! Hopefully, we'll be hopping over the opposition on race day!

If you go to the triathlon website http://www.triathlon.org/multimedia/livecoverage/ you'll see how you can watch live coverage of our race online. It doesn't mention payment so hopefully you guys will be able to watch it for free. Bernie starts at about 8:20pm Friday night and me 8:20pm Saturday night UK time. Below is a picture of the event area before it was developed:

Last night we had the Parade of Nations which was good fun. We marched to the festival event area and us Kiwi males performed and impromptu Haka! This was hard for me as I missed the practice! I positioned myself at the back and copied everybody else - it was really well received and the only other performance was by a bunch of Aborigines who did old tribal songs which were really interesting to watch. I cant find it on youtube yet... hopefully I'll get some pictures together soon.

Love to you all!

Miles of Smiles,

C&B! x x

Te Hapu Holiday!

Bernie and I have just returned from a blissful yet typically frantic holiday near the Northernmost tip of the South Island.

We had to drive for over 3 and a half hours to cover the 160km get there - there is a massive marble mountain in between it and Nelson! There are only gravel roads for the last hour or so as our destination was so remote, and so beautiful.

Of course one objective was to see the Blue Whale which was washed up on the west coast last month. We also had biking, running, hiking and kayaking gear packed for an active break from sunny Nelson.

Friends recommended a remote farm which had a small holiday chalet. We had to take bedding and all food for the time we were there - the nearest shop was about an hour away!

Te Hapu is a near-on 1,000 acre sheep and cattle farm, farmed by a couple and their dogs alone. The terrain is very rugged and as you'll see, picturesque.


We arrived on Friday afternoon, had a good hike and settled to watch the sunset...

Over the next 5 days we covered many miles by foot, bike and kayak - as you can see, I like Lycra!

The land is limestone, moulded by the elements for many years. Man mined gold here not too long ago (hence the area being known as Golden Bay), but vegetation has regenerated through most of the area.

This is the cliff separating the farm from the coast - you'll get to see what we had to do on this cliff later... nothing dodgy but please remember for later how insurmountable it looks!!

This is me BBQ'ing outside the chalet. You'll see the sunset view I have later. There is a Kiwi fruit vine behind me, birds aplenty as well as a stunning garden with naturally sculpted limestone, plants, trees and gardens. The weather was mostly sunny, some spells were T-shirts off weather (sorry ladies, no pictures!), hence the mid-winter BBQ!

I want that one...

I first heard that a 27m Blue Whale had been washed up on a beach some 6 weeks ago. I'd show my students pictures of the beast in as many lessons as I could tenuously link it to and I was desperate to see it whole. Sadly, we came across the remnants of the whale - a mound of putrid skin and blubber after smelling it some way off. We then scratched around a bit and found shards of bones, broken on the rocks before suddenly seeing a spine instead of what we thought at first was a small tree!

Although it is nothing like seeing the whole animal, too see some of its huge components first-hand was mind-blowing!

Although very rotten, the spine was impossible to flex much... its weight was surprising despite its size... how do they swim?!

It is crazy to think that it's spinal cord fitted through that whole...

Merry Christmas! The Department of Conservation had kindly informed me (I pester them too!) that this Whale was not the property of the local Maori people - purely because of the beach it landed on. That meant that all bones were available for the public to take so this beautiful specimen yelled "Take me HOME!" when we found it! We tried to lift it and nearly broke our backs!
I also found a huge rib bone so we hid them in the vegetation above the beach and tried to plan their extrication. The beach we found these on is only a 4km walk from the farm. However, the beach has lots of limestone rocks to climb over as well as sandy beach - 2km in all. There was then a formidable 80m cliff to climb up - it is hard walking up it normally! Then, the next 2km is over rolling hills and fences with rocks, mud and sheep everywhere!

We tried gaining access to the beach by another farm which borders the beach directly. Sadly, other people who asked similar permission left fences open so we were not welcome to obtain our bones by this beautifully simple means... what to do?!

Hardest Game in the World!

This is the 80m cliff we had to negotiate with two backpacks and two huge whale bones! It doesn't look as sheer or as high as it is in real life... in fact this picture makes it look more like 8m - you'll have to take my word for it!
Check out how relieved we are to have got up there in one piece!

Two kilometers gone, three more to go... and night is setting in!

Fortunately we got picked up by some other visitors to the farm in their 4X4... unfortunately we had already stashed the vertebra further back so had to go back for that the next morning... fortunately the farmer took pity on us and gave us a ride on his quad bike... as he sheparded(?!) his Sheep!

After carrying the bones from the far end of the beach pictured below...


...we packed up our care to the rafters. We managed to squeeze in our clothes, left over food and wine (we always take too much!), running shoes, walking boots, paddles and kayaking gear, 2 mountainbikes (yes inside the car!), stereo, pebbles and shells collected from the beach and of course, the whale bones - sinew 'n all!

The weather turned sour only on the day of departure - marking our sombre mood at having to return home. We had to endure 3 hours of driving with the lovely scent of rotting whale, but did get a laugh from the dog (yes real) poking out of his mobile home:

We then had to un-piece the jig-saw puzzle in our boot (fortunately the back seats fold down!), and then it was the clean-up... I had to scrub as much of the remaining sinew (now 6 weeks old!) with my hands as possible!

I can still smell the distinctive (yet, now surprisingly familiar!) scent on my fingers despite scrubbling with washing-up liquid, Ajax and a multitude of different soaps!

Beautiful Bernadette!

Needless to say, Berns keeps us organised so we never run out of food (we eat huge quantities due to training!), clothes and other things that I leave home without - bike gloves, camera, clea underwear etc!

Our five days of fun went so smoothly thanks to Bernie keeping us well fed and prepared for the day's multitude of activities!

Here she is, packing food, food and more food to keep me going:

Now this is quite a rare sight - Bernie sitting down relaxing! Not much time for that when the Whitaker's go on holiday!

Now, Bernie has special powers - she is able to control the sea:

"Show me your power!"

"I want MORE!"

"GIVE ME MORE!!"