California Dreaming #2

Well, I’ve already made it to my first baseball game! My friend Gillian (an American I worked harvest with in Marlborough), a couple of other interns and I drove down to Oakland to watch the Oakland A‘s play Detroit. Oakland has one of the highest crime rates in the country. In fact we drove past the highest security prison in America where the most notorious criminals are behind bars! As you can see here, while the Oakland As were winning their game, I was busy having my first American hotdog, watching the peanut sellers, the churros sellers and taking it all in. I did learn though that there are 9 innings in a game. And that the game stops for a seventh innings stretch where the entire crowd stands and sings ‘Take me out to the ball game’!

At the end of the game we all went out on the outfield to watch the fireworks…a spectacular light show to music that included ‘Land Downunder’, which made me smile. The fireworks were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Puddles splashing, cubes exploding, fireflies, water cascading, smiley faces and more. A magic moment!

The next day we made our way to Berkley. This is a funky little college town. There was football on that day and so it was swarming with people. The town was a sea of blue and yellow, not Otago but ‘Cal’ (University of California, Berkley) colours. College football is huge here because it’s a lot more raw and real.


By the time I got back to Sebastopol, my roommates had all arrived at the farm house. Laura, is from Mendoza, Argentina and Rodrigo and Marco from Santiago, Chile. We spent a large part of that day in a monster truck which the winery lent us, getting lost in a town the size of Masterton. Marco clocked some miles running into gas stations asking for directions. Failing that we would stop random Mexicans on the street or at traffic lights, so the boys could easily converse in Spanish. Quite an entertaining team bonding exercise! We’re all getting on well and have a lot of laughs at the farm house.

Fact: Males the world over seem to lack a clear sense of direction.


This is a shot of my first authentic Mexican meal. Let’s face it, Wellington doesn’t really do Mexican food. Pictured is a pork tamal (the meat is wrapped in blended cornmeal, served in the husk), a chile relleno (a battered pepper stuffed with cheese) and a chicken enchilada (corn tortilla stuffed with meat). I washed this down with a traditional sweet rice drink, called a horchata.

And if that wasn’t enough, the next night my roommates and I were treated to a meal at the Walker’s. The Walkers own the farm house and also grow grapes that our winery buys.


La comida estubo muy buena - the meal was very good! I am determined to learn some Spanish while I’m here. I’ve fallen in love with the language and all of its variations…Laura speaks Argentine Spanish, soft and flowing with a French influence, whereas the boys speak Chilean Spanish, harsher with a singsong rhythm.

Our first week of work has left me feeling really positive and inspired. The winery is a state of the art establishment and just 3 or so years old. Quite simply it’s gorgeous and the staff are instilled with a huge amount of respect for the place, which is great. Things are done so differently here and I’m learning so much.

I snuck this shot the morning of the harvest party lunch. I think there was a tasting going on. It’s quite common for people to get driven around Napa and Sonoma County wine country in limosines. I had driven us into work that morning in the monster truck ‘Tacoma’ and found driving on the wrong side not half as bad as having to use my right hand on the gear stick!

Funky vintage tops huh? If you can’t read the small print it says: “Paul Hobbs 007 - Licence to Harvest’.


What a day! Up at 4.15am to help with our first harvest for the season! Paul Hobbs and I drove out to Hyde Vineyards in Carneros, Napa Valley. The sun glowed a stunning pink colour as it rose up over the rows of vines. I was working with a Mexican lady, called Maria. She was driving the tractor pulling the bins that I was picking leaves, second set fruit and other junk out of. The Mexicans are a lot of fun. There was story telling, joke making and singing going on as they snipped. Maria was quite friendly. The son of the vineyard owner came over and introduced himself at one stage. Maria exclaimed what a handsome fellow he was and asked for a photo of us together! Mexicans must give and get a lot of love…she comes from a family of 19 children!!


I quite enjoyed being out in the vineyards. It was making textbooks real for me. Row by row I began to appreciate how intimate a winemaker must be with his fruit. You have to know the fruit in order to know how to make it into good wine. The first row was leafy, the second row had a lot of hen and chicken, the third row gave more raisined berries and second set fruit. Such contrasts all within a few rows.

When I arrived back at the winery they were having a safety meeting. The same guy comes in every year and shows them how to work in confined spaces etc. I think there is regulation on this in the USA. You need 3 people to clean a tank here! You need a permit, two helpers outside of the tank, plus a machine to read the oxygen levels when you are in there! ”Man down” is we’ve been told to call out when someone falls over in tank. That sounds so American!

We toasted the start of harvest with some sparkling from the Iron Horse Winery that is down the road from the farm house. The marketing team dropped by to join us as the winemakers ‘blessed’ the fruit by pouring a bit of the sparkling wine into the bins of destemmed grapes, while spraying us a bit at the same time!

California Dreaming #1

You know you’re on your way to America just by looking around at the people at the airport departure lounge. At Auckland Airport I spotted a woman who looked like she had escaped the set of Last of the Mohicans. She had a furry jacket replete with furry tassles and a matching set of furry leg warmers. I managed to count at least 20 chipmunks per leg warmer.

Fact: Americans aren’t afraid of their own sense of fashion, or lack thereof. I actually admire their courage to dress in theme if they want to. If a football game is on, people proudly parade in their team’s shirts and colours. Another intern from NZ told me that he saw a motorcyclist riding a tiger-striped motorcycle, wearing a tiger helmet, tiger gloves, tiger body wear and even a tiger tail. I'd say this crosses the line for me.

Was the guy at customs in LA being friendly or were all those questions about how old I was and when was the last time I was here that would have made you just 6 years old right? just a sneaky way of trying to test me out? I dunno…the highlight of waiting for half an hour to get your passport stamped after a 12 hour flight was my first celebrity spotting! I touch down in LA and the first person I shake hands with is Sir Ian Mckellen! He wasn’t up for a photo but shook my hand and said photograph this onto your memory! Gold!

Fact: The first person to greet you once you get past LA customs is George W Bush himself. There is a framed picture of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney at customs that you can’t miss after you’re passport is stamped and you’re sent to claim your baggage. Lucky I left my I hate Bush T-shirt at home.

Fiction: The people voted Bush into the White House. Get a load of these T-shirts…



The highlight of San Francisco Airport was this guy who was doing bicep curls with a rubber workout band tied to a railing at the bus stop! I went over the Golden Gate Bridge on the bus ride from SF Airport to Santa Rosa. I wasn’t sure whether it was this bridge at the time though, as it was a red sort of colour. But they tell me that’s the one! The fog rolling in down the hills around the San Francisco Bay area was quite a stunning sight. The fog is rather choosy about which slopes it will dress and you will see only certain hillsides covered by it.


I went on to stay with the winemaker’s parents for 4 nights. They live in a gated community of about 5 ranches, and have pinot noir, chardonnay, grenache, syrah, mouvrede, and aligote planted on their property. The hospitality that they showed me was overwhelming. On arrival to their gorgeous home a bottle of La Crema pinot noir was cracked open. One of their other sons is also a winemaker and he used to work at this place. It’s a funny coincidence that I was offered a job at La Crema (after being interviewed at about 3am NZ time!) but turned them down. After a toast I feasted on my first home-cooked meal in America…spare ribs! Yum! I was sent to bed with an armful of cookies and nibbles. They put me up in their barn, which has been converted to a guest house.

Fact: Northern Californians are friendly people.

The next day I chilled out by their pool and took a look around their vineyards while they had to make a trip to Napa. I’m quite unacquainted with Californian wines, as very few are brought in to NZ. Jim kindly left a whole bunch of Wine Spectator magazines around the barn for me, and from reading these I discovered that Californian pinots are big, and often get a bit of flack for this. This was confirmed the next day when Jim and I were checking the brix of his fruit. Some of the pinot was around 22 and he was talking of waiting till it was 25! I think that most of the pinot back home was picked at around 22/23 brix during my last harvest.

Fact: Californian wines are big. Some pinot noirs reach 15% alcohol or even more!


Some ‘firsts’ I’ve had here so far are: my first root beer float, and my first Costco and Safeway experiences. Costco is like Moore Wilsons (bulk food) but it also has appliances and clothing and all sorts of things. Stock changes quite regularly as it’s end of the line and clearance stuff and they sell it at really competitive prices. I found Levis and Calvin Klein jeans there for around US$30! I also found Central Otago Pinot Noir! I picked up a bottle and was quite astonished to see NZ wine under the Kirkland Signature brand! This is the brand that Costco owns. And right beside the bastardised Otago pinot, was Kim Crawford Sauv Blanc! And only US$12.99! I needn’t have bothered hauling a bottle of the stuff all the way from home!

As you leave Costco you are met by someone who checks your docket and your goodies to make sure a few extra tubs of red rope liquorice haven’t made it into your trolley. At this Costco, a rather large guy, whose nametag read ‘Tree’ met us at the exit. He looked like he should‘ve been wresting for the WWE or something!

After that, to Safeway, a supermarket. And what hard work this place is! And most other supermarkets I gather. Price tags jut out from shelves all over the show, not just the promotions. And most of them read ‘2 for $7’ or ‘Buy one get one free’ or something like that. How much just for one though? You have to read the small print. And then there is a member price and a non-member price... Most of the time though, you can just buy one, and the price is just half the price of the cost of two. But it’s still so complicated!

After a sumptuous family feast that night, my head hit the pillow to the sound of a family feast of another sort. That of the coyotes who were yelping and yapping somewhere across Bennett Valley. They throw a bit of a party when they get lucky with some of the wild turkey in the area. Speaking of wild beasts, it has been intriguing to see such different flora and fauna. Apart from falling in love with redwoods, I have been taken with hummingbirds, skunks and woodpeckers! There are a lot of wild deer about too which often jump into the way of cars at night.

Fiction: California is full of big cities, big egos, bleach bottle blondes and beachy bling. This is the view from the back of the barn where I stayed and is one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever woken up to.

Planet Blenheim

I started my job as a lab technician for Kim Crawford Wines about two weeks ago, and I’m loving it. I’m one of four ladies who work in the lab, running analyses on the musts, juices and wines. There is a real buzz about the lab – it’s a busy place with cellar workers and winemakers popping in and out. There are also a number of dogs who like to visit. I was trying to concentrate on a yeast count the other day but Michelle Richardson’s dog Erik kept imploring me with puppy dog eyes to play. The rubber bungs used in oak barrels make a great fetch toy – they bounce all over the place. Erik is like a teddy bear – loves to play and loves cuddles. Kim Crawford has a similar dog, called Spooky. They look like a husky crossed with a corgi. Unfortunately he was worse for wear the other day, as he had swallowed some caustic. It was off to the vet’s for Spooky.


I’m staying at a place called Spring Creek, around 5 minutes south of Blenheim. It’s such a haven. The landlords, our neighbours, are lovely, welcoming folk. The have a gorgeous cottage garden that attracts the biggest butterflies you’ll see, as well as a vegie garden to die for. We often find freshly picked sweet corn left on our doorstep.

I’ve been getting out and exploring a lot, and have developed a real love affair with the landscape here. So dry and rugged. Rugged like Wellington’s south coast...dry like the Wairarapa. I love it. I discovered White’s Bay the other weekend and felt like a little child again. Just bolting for the rock pools, exploring, running up slopes to look outs and climbing up rock faces to see what’s on the other side. There is some fantastic scenery here that I’d like to revisit...maybe even try the day walk to Mt Robertson...perhaps in training for the Queen Charlotte track which I’d like to do after harvest.


Yesterday I took 2 of my flatmates – Enrique (a vet and port-maker from Portugal) and Hesus (a cellar master for the Mondavis in the Napa Valley) – to the Wither Hills. I watched the sunset from the Rotary Lookout last week and was mesmerized by the beauty of the land and the light. The guys loved it up there. Unfortunately a park ranger told us on our return that he was having to tell people to head back as a fire had broken out behind the park. There have been a few since I’ve been here. Apparently a whole hillside, hundreds of acres, can go up in 30 seconds. Scary.


I’m the only girl living at Spring Creek – I share with 4 other guys – 2 Americans, 1 Portuguese, and 1 Mexican. They’re all good sorts and we get on really well, be it sharing stories over wine in the evenings, getting out and about in our spare time, or mucking around in the slim selection of night spots in Blenheim. While not the sorts of places I’d got to by choice, it’s been a lot of fun. Especially St Patrick’s Day at Paddy Barry’s. Country folk are so honest, transparent, uncomplicated. This guys from Gisborne was telling Barrett (my flatmate) and I about his recent trip to the States. Imagine a bunch of boys from Gizzy in the bright lights of Las Vegas...We all knew that someone had made an unsavoury smell – but you don’t say anything do you? You just hope that people don’t think it was you. Well, Gizzy boy just outs with a “Poooohweee! Ya smell that?!”. It was rather funny, not that he noticed. He also enquired as to whether Barrett ‘was my shag’...That really made me feel a long way from Wellington and it's jazz lounges - places that this homebody goes to when she gets out... Apparently there’s a jazz bar in Picton. We may just check it out! But 12 hour shifts start this week so I can’t see it happening any time soon.

A shot from the Grape Ride – a 100 km cycle that starts and finishes at Forrest Estate. Virgin riders jump into this vat and crush the grapes for the 100 Virgin Pinot Noir the estate makes especially from the rider-trodden grapes. They receive a bottle of it if they ride again the following year. I tried last year’s vintage..a lovely bouquet of sweaty handle bars, smelly feet and sticky cycle shorts. Kidding, it was quite lovely actually, however I came home with some of the Doctor’s Riesling instead. Happy to share it Lauren if it lasts till I get home!

Vine sampling – I went out with the ‘viti’ girls this week. Just before harvest we get in a lot of grape samples and test for ripeness – brix, pH and TA. I had quite a tummy ache after sampling a few too many pinot gris berries. Managed to find a pinot gris vine that had mutated back into pinot noir though...pretty cool. The girls also pointed out two giant white golf balls in the distance in the Wairau Valley, which are an American spy base. I think that's how Spy Valley got its name.


Finally, a shot of the folks at Kaiteriteri– they came down with me 2 weeks ago and we tiki toured around. Had some lovely lunches – thanks guys for everything. I was worried the other night that I had lost my cooking mojo. After all those lovely meals together my cooking seems to pale in comparison. So I bought myself the Edmund’s Cookbook the other day. And I think I’m slowly on the mend! It also helps when one of your flatmates is a Mexican who loooves to cook! I got home tonight and found Enrique and Hesus grinning..there was an empty packet of nachos on the table and 2 bowls which had been cleaned of the seviche Hesus started preparing when I left this morning for work.

Home

Life is good…

It’s warming to have the security of home - a place of connection and understanding: friendly kiwis, good kai, clean air, and the harmony of the history you have with a place dancing with the future that it will bring forth…

I love the prickly scent of salt and vinegar that radiates from piping-hot, golden nuggets of fish, and chips, tightly hugged inside a paper parcel, folded up at the bottom then rolled around; the sting of salt and sand you get walking along the rugged south coast, curtsying katikati grass and lonely fishing rods sprouting out from the jagged, volcanic rock splattered close to shore thousands of years ago; a shy smile from the girl with dyed-black matted hair and an eye-brow piercing behind the counter at the petrol station...

I’m weary of indulging in it though…getting heavy with it. Getting away from Wellington and working down in Marlborough will help keep it light for me. To stay here without a game-plan could lead to stagnation…retracing old routines, having the same conversations with the same people, slowly closing me off from what lies beyond the hills of my home town and the boundaries of my mind.

I am home, but with new eyes…with a different outlook on the place, and on life. Constantly moving-changing-growing…living and dieing a new person each day. Things are bubbling right now. I am waiting for my wine adventure to boil…hhmmm I wonder what will it bring? I don’t mind sailing on whatever breeze blows my way.

In trying to balance direction with freedom, I have found that discipline and structure lead you liberation… A frame of reference is a platform for growth because it allows reflection. Such is the case with my yoga practice, as life in general. Bringing my practice home has been curious. Watching what happens when you fall out of rhythm during the transition of moving countries and homes…practising at different times of the day, in different rooms, the different feelings that different spaces and a different country can bring to the yoga mat.

I’ve grown to really appreciate the group I was a part of in Sydney, the way the classes were structured, and the way they were delivered. And I thought that was impossible as I already considered myself so appreciative of the school. But it’s the old adage – you don’t really know what you’re missing till it’s gone.

There is a positive side to being largely alone in my practice: I feel a surge of responsibility, a sense of teacher, and an evolving body of work around my inner and outer strengths and weaknesses. But most importantly, I feel as motivated as ever in what I am doing on and off the mat.

I am temping until I go down south, which is another learning experience. Different places and different faces, and I like not having to commit to a chair, desk and computer-screen indefinitely. I am having fun noticing all the archetypes that are all around us. I am intrigued by parallel universes and the faces of your ‘strangerhood’…people you often see during the course of a typical week, but don’t ever get to know…but probably develop opinions about: plastic surgery lady, blanket man (with or without blanket…in Sydney you don’t need a blanket, but most homeless people there wear clothes), Gomez Addams’ missing twin, armies of teen-goths all clad in black, and let us not forget the malnourished beauty queens that line the footpaths outside fashionable bars on a Friday night, stilettos winking, eyes twinkling...pretty maids all in a row who think Paris Hilton is just misunderstood, and that Vince really wasn't right for Jen anyway...They all have their carbon copies, no matter which country you are in.

And when you examine your own world, there is the friend you can call on for advice that you’d rather not hear, the one you can drink tequila shots, and dance the night away with; the arty ones who you give you a dose of inspiration when you are with them… I’ve seen personality traits and even mannerisms of my New Zealand friends mixed up in the friends I made in Sydney. What I term the ‘personality continuum of existence’. I saw a bit of Becky come out in Emily, a little Amber in Pamela and some of Nick in James. Sillier still, I wonder sometimes whether I am in Sydney. Was that Pamela down at the beach with Andy? But I’m in Oriental Bay now, not at Coogee Beach…

I am missing those souls who sparked something in me in Sydney. I felt home with them. Home the understanding, not the place. I look forward to future encounters with like minds here, and re-establishing connections with the minds I left behind. This raises the question, Where do I fit in? I feel so loved here in Wellington, but for the first time, lonely too. A natural loneliness, the one we are born feeling, the one we will all die feeling. Even close friends have their own lives to lead. Even partners do. It’s your life, but for some reason we are all drawn in to the search to find the ‘one’ who will make the loneliness go away. Sharing one life together doesn’t sound as scary. We run away from our loneliness without even realising it. I’ve even started to reassess things like, whether monogamy is natural? Is that all we are here to do? What happens after I get married, have children and live in a house with a white picket fence?

I can hear my yoga teacher tell us the story of the bull ants, who despite their size, when threatened will bravely turn and face their opponent no matter what their size…insect, animal or human! I feel a little like this at times, eyeballing a hum-drum 9 to 5 existence, and not flinching because I’m looking for something else…


After a picnic dinner at Breaker Bay my folks and I shared this sun set over the South Island, sipping our cuppatea dad had brewed using his 'thermet'. This is one of the most magic sunsets I've ever seen, the clearest view I've ever had of the South Island from Wellington, and is already a treasured memory...

Chilled out in Ubud

How lucky was I to get to Bali! I spent the first two weeks of June on a yoga retreat in Ubud, central Bali. A group of Iyengar yoga students, around 20 strong, from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Indonesia met at the Santra Putra studio for a fortnight of daily yoga classes given by one of the most inspirational, challenging, dedicated and passionate teachers you'll meet - Peter Thomson, director of Sydney Yoga Space.

Our days began at 7 am with a 3 hour yoga session. Three hours you may ask? It sounds like a long time, but it really flies. Peter is not there just holding our hands as he instructs us to 'do' poses - that's not his style. As a teacher at a yoga 'school', he gives us the tools to make discoveries on our own. So while he guides the class, he also teaches through the things that may arise - see here how her arm is buckled, look here at the alignment of his legs...It was an extremely involved workshop around yoga practice - its physical, mental and emotional aspects.

After class at around 10 am most of us would gather around for a breakfast of Made's sensational banana pancakes. They were green because she makes them with pandan leaf essence taken from a plant in her garden. She accompanied them with a carefully made banana leaf 'boat' of palm sugar syrup! Mmmmm - delicious food discovery number one was the palm sugar syrup!

Made is the wife of Karja - the man who owns the studio where the yoga retreat was held. He also has accomodation where some of us stayed, and where we were also spoilt rotten by Made's home cooking!


A note on the names in Bali. I found myself getting seriously confused a couple of days into my stay. There seemed to be so many Mades around - not only Karja's wife, the reputable masseur down the road but even one of the drivers. Hang on! Guys and girls sharing the same name? Apparently in Bali, you are called by the number in the family you are born - first, second, third...or made, ketut,...and it doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl - the same name goes. Now since you see less and less 3+ children families, it means there are more and more Mades and Ketuts flooding the scene - hence my confusion!

After breakfast I typically spent my time reading or just soaking up the view over the rice paddy fields from my room. I was lucky to get a top floor bungalow room right next door to the yoga studio. It rained quite a lot so most of us kept a low profile. Town was pretty low key - not the tourism there once was, and this was extremely saddening.

I got out on a few walks over the hills and through the rice paddy fields though. On our day off I ventured even further afield than I had on previous occasions - 3 hours later I found my way back home! How ironic - the one time I really needed transport and no one was there to offer it to me? In Bali you get used to being asked for transport about 50 times a day! I could tell I must be getting lost because the kids playing outside would look at me like they'd never seen a Westerner, like they almost wanted to clap me as I proceeded on through their village. I had nearly reached an Elephant Park in the middle of nowhere, by the time I calculated that I should've been back at my bungalow. Luckily I managed to hitch a ride with a kind woodwork teacher back into town!

There were also afternoon yoga sessions - between 4pm and 6pm everyday. Such a luxury to have a decent afternoon practice. It is a challenge getting time in the evenings now that I'm back in Sydney, to have a really good unwind from the day. But the good thing is, I got to see what a difference it made to touch base with things again later in the day. Nowadays I try my best to at least get a couple of inverteds or just supta baddha konasana in, when I get home from work.

I have mentioned breakfast, but did I mention dinner? Most of us would stroll over to 'Made's Diner' (a different Made!) after the afternoon class where we'd feast on steaming gado gado, sizzling nasi campur or nasi goreng, mouthwatering tempe any which way you want it, dreamy banana fritters and fresh watermelon and ginger juice! All for about $4 per head - including the tip! How I miss their tempe! Delicious food discovey number tow! Most people played it safe and stuck to vegetarian food - and it was neat to see those who are usually big meat-eaters, be converted! Well, not completely, but to hear them say that tofu isn't that bad was worth a giggle!

I don't think I've ever been so mentally exhausted after a holiday in all my life! By the end of the two weeks, it was really time to come home. And I had so much to come home with! While my bags were practically empty, my head was full and ready to burst! I think I'm still feeding off that retreat - it has been massively inspiring for my practice. And I feel charged with a certain responsibility too. To make the most of that inspiration - the awareness and energy that was raised during my time there. I was so lucky to be a part of it!

Magazines, mountains and Melbourne

Hello everybody!

I started a new job in January – working at Pacific Magazines in North Sydney. My title is Market Research Analyst and I’m in charge of all their homemaker titles – Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens, Home Beautiful, Diabetic Living and Monument. I’m just so happy to be here – it’s so me and our team is awesome. As well as analyzing quarterly readership figures and bi-annual circulation figures, my job entails writing reader surveys and presenting the findings, reporting to publishers, editors and sales and marketing managers about readership performance, keeping apace of societal trends that impact the business/magazine titles, investigating new magazine projects and this list goes on. I’m a busy beaver – and happily so.

Apart from the new job and new location (North Sydney is gorgeous! I walk to work every morning over the bridge!), I have been dabbling in a new interest. Well – I’ve had the interest for a long time, just never did anything about it. I have completed a Wine and Spirits Education Trust Intermediate Certificate (with Merit!) and am now studying towards my Advanced Certificate. These courses involve wine tasting and learning all about varieties, styles and wine regions. There is a lot of geography involved! It’s going really well, but this paper is a real step up, so I am beginning to brace myself for the exam, which involves a wine tasting component …gulp!

The old faithfuls are still around – philosophy school and yoga school – both of which I still love very much. I go along to the yoga school 4 times a week plus practice at home. It’s such a grounding activity, I couldn’t live without it. The yoga and philosophy are a nice marriage…funny how things work out!

The biggest news is that mum and dad came over for another fabulous Easter holiday with us. We hired a car for 2 days and headed down the south coast, stopping at Wollongong, enroute to a wee town called Kiama. Some gorgeous sea-side scenery there. I think the pace of life was really what made things gorgeous for me. I have been craving escape from Sydney’s racy city centre for months. The next day we went in another direction – out west to the Blue Mountains. And what a change of temperature! We all put on another layer and hurried to a warm café for soup and warm pita bread sandwiches, dribbling with melted cheese, before venturing out to the peaks/rock formations known as the Three Sisters.

Over-looking Bondi Beach

Taking in the view - The Three Sisters at the Blue Mountains

An added bonus this year was we got to catch up with Anita and her mother, plus some family friends of mum’s and dad’s. Seems like half of Wellington was in Sydney at Easter! Well, not quite…

If that wasn’t enough excitement for one month, the following weekend Gareth and I made a long awaited trip to Melbourne. We both had a great time – I soaked up the culture in little Greece and Chinatown while Gareth, er, um, soaked up the ‘culture’ at some Aussie rules museum there! The highlight of the trip was that we finally drove the Great Ocean Road. Immediately my favourite drive ever – probably because it reminded me so much of home. The coastline is very rugged there, and the fact that it was slightly overcast gave things a dramatic edge. By the time we made it to the 12 Apostles, it was nearly sundown, and the atmosphere was incredible. We just gazed in awe at the beauty and at the same time the harshness of such an exposed coastline. Amazing – it’s falling away at about 2cm a year. Now that sounds like heaps to me. A few years ago (1990?) some tourists actually got stranded on London Bridge, a rock formation, when the ‘bridge’ connecting it to the mainland got washed away. They had to get helicoptered out! We didn’t quite finish the road in a day, so overnighted in Port Campbell so as not to miss the last remaining sights before the end of the road at Warrnbool. We originally decided to try and make it to Warrnbool that night, but made a big U-turn when we realized there were things like the Blow Hole, London Bridge, and Thunder Cave we were driving past in the dark. Plus, I think G had spotted quite a nice wee fish and chip place back there…and can you believe it was already closed upon our return to the town just ½ later!! His face dropped, but luckily there was another one still open. I had nearly forgotten how early some of those small, sleepy towns put things to bed.

Bells Beach - not a bikini-clad bottle-blonde in sight - this is a hardcore beach for diehard surfers

The 12 Apostles(minus one now)

London Bridge

Bula Fiji!

Here are some holiday snaps from our trip to Fiji!






The friendly welcomes you receive in the Yasawa Islands


Traditional Fijian dancing




I think she's going to marry Gareth when she grows up!


Celebrating Lai's birthday at 'Bad Dog' with Lilian and Melania


All good things come to and end - the plane trip home!

So this is Christmas 2005

Where has this year gone? I can’t believe this is my second December newsletter. Apologies for falling off the radar the past couple of months – all good intentions were there for regular quarterly instalments, but I see I have only managed 2 updates in the last year!

Since we last spoke, which was in April, I suppose a lot has happened. The visitors have kept coming in a steady stream – Gareth’s folks, my brother JP, Lauren, Sarah, Chris, Sally and Helen.

We’ve certainly had our fair share of the Hunter Valley this year - and I have absolutely loved it! My fascination with wine has spurred me on to do a wine-tasting course in January next year. It’s internationally recognised and is the first rung on the ladder to becoming a MW – what Bob Campbell is! Gareth can’t understand why I want to do it. My answer is twofold: (a) It’s not about drinking lots! I enjoy the sensual art of tasting and describing quite fun, and in a completely non-tossy way either! You don’t need to consume a lot to be able to this; (b) Maybe I would drink more if he spent more than $5 on a bottle!

I think Ma and Pa Dixon had a great time out in the Hunter, enjoying the sun on an Irish pub’s deck where we had lunch over-looking the fields, and I know Lauren loved it too when we took her there. A mix up with the booking meant that instead of an old tin can rent-a-dent to get us up there, we had a convertible SAAB!!! Again – mid-winter and the roof was down all the way baby!

We’ve also had our fair share of trips to the Superdome this year. In July we went to the Delta Goodrem concert. Yes, it’s out in the open, please don’t excommunicate me. It was my Christmas present from last year – I was young, naïve, and new to a country where the overwhelming majority of women sport muffin-tops, jeans they buy brand new but which have holes in them, ‘thongs’ or ugh-boot equivalents (winter), and usually go by the name of ‘Sharon’ (pronounced ‘Sheear-ynn’). Delta was like a beacon of light!! And she is actually – a totally amazing, beautiful, talented woman…but I think I’m over her. I never really listen to her CD anyway…just think she’s alright!

And let me tell you – I’d go to a Delta concert any day over the WWE Raw Survivor Series. I think this was where Gareth got his pay-back. Boganity is certainly alive and well in the West. I must have been about the only person in the entire stadium without long greasy hair, black jeans and black wrestling T-shirt that wasn’t swearing praise at the entertainment thuggery going down in the ring below. Gareth kept saying – it’s sports entertainment honey. But the audience reacted to as if it were real anyway! By the end of the night I myself even felt like throwing the guy beside us a punch…for the entire 3 hours he kept screaming unfunny one-liners that 2 teenage girls (giggling and drooling over posters) found hilarious. I had one or two fingers in my ears most of the night. Never again! But all that aside – I was stoked G loved it so much.

October was quite a busy month at work with courses and conferences. I attended a conference in Brisbane, and stayed on the weekend to have a look around. I know now why they call it Bris-Vegas…a little city trying to be big. There’s not much there apart from shopping, and that doesn’t really interest me (I live in Sydney anyway – shopping capital of Australasia!). I did get to catch up with my good friend Doug, who was over from NZ on a course. We dined at a fabulous Italian restaurant ($$$ - thanks work!) and caught up on all our news. I managed to do a lot of running there – I hooked up with a friendly bunch of runners, won myself a new pair of running shoes at a 3k race (spot prize – not place prize!), and got to run up Mt Koot-tha – just stunning! I even made it out to Surfers Paradise on the train! My opinion? Overrated.

Speaking of running, I spent a few months mid-year training for the Oxfam Trailwalker – a 100k run or walk to raise money for charity. There were many early morning starts during winter – both Saturday and Sunday. But I really enjoyed going bush. My team’s aim was to run it all in 20 hours – non-stop! And they did it!! But I wasn’t there…unfortunately my grandfather passed away just days before the race, so I returned to NZ for the funeral and couldn’t get back in time. Them’s the brakes…

I’ve also partaken in 2 rogaines this year – orienteering-like events in the bush. They were great fun. The second one was extremely tough – scuttling up slippery cliff faces, I realised why we had to sign a disclaimer at the start of the race. It was a 6 hour event but we came back to the hash house in around 7 hours…2 group members thought we had more time and energy to get more checkpoints than we actually did…the penalty for being more than ½ hour late back to camp was that we were stripped of all our points!

I think the sporting highlight of the year has to be the visit the Anderson twins paid to Sydney. Sally and Helen came over to run the Sydney marathon on 11 September. These 2 ladies never fail to perform – and the elbow grease I spent colouring in a giant poster saying ‘Made in NZ – kia kaha – Sally and Helen’, was well worth it. I wasn’t going to run it, but I was going to be the best support crew I could be! Oh yeah, plus the black and white clown’s wig went down a treat – I didn’t expect to feel as out of place as I did at 7am on a Sunday morning on Oxford St with hair that big, but I did! I got a few whistles! I was so overcome with emotion when I saw Sally coming in at the finish…I was ready and waiting, after seeing them at a couple of points on the course, I aimed to be near the end just under 3 hours after the gun went. It brought tears to my eyes – Sally came third (3:05) and Helen fifth (3:07) in the women’s marathon. Well done girls!

I’m attending my philosophy and yoga schools regularly and really enjoying the way they compliment each other. I have been doing Iyengar yoga since April this year – and it has really blown me away. I just find it so enlightening and challenging at the same time. It’s a mental as well as a physical battle whenever you are on the mat. The philosophy school continues to be a big part of my life, with a commitment 2 nights a week and the odd study day or Sunday lecture (or Christmas party next week!) thrown in as well.

Hot off the press – Gareth is now a fully qualified patent attorney!! There was some doubt cast over whether he would be registered before Christmas as exam results weren’t through yet (long story!)…but he’s done it!! He’s worked so very hard – this is really the culmination of his academic career to date…all 26 years of it. He’s been studying towards this one last qualification since he arrived 2 years ago and his aim was to be qualified in 2 years – and he did it!! Big mmmmmmmmwah for you G!

Well this seems like a good place to finish! I hope everyone is well, and I look forward to catching up with as many of you as I can when I am home over the Christmas break…please forward all Christmas Pressies to ‘Santa’s Little Helper’ at 11 Wentworth St…kidding!! But I will be there from 24 December – 5 January so please drop by!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Ange xoxox