food, glorious food bro'

Things I have been eating.

Fillet steak, fried with garlic, cloves and cream, with roasted gold kumara, yams, new potatoes and red onions, served with a spinach salad.

Maggi noodles, chicken flavour, adding finely chopped spinach and spring onions. It almost looks like a takeaway meal.

Rowlys famous purple chicken, (chicken marinated in red wine and rosemary, cook in the juices), served with potato and kumara rosti (twice this has been a grey burnt disaster), and creamed parsnips with chopped red capsicums.

Roasted vegetable soup (kumara, potato, pumkin, yellow capsicum)

brie and berries toasted on curry bread.

chillied creamy scrambled eggs on soy and linseed bread.

Rowlys special italian baked beans (tin of beans adding fresh basil, oregano, tomatoes and a little cheese) on toast.

Farmhouse apple crumble, normal crumble mix, using white and brown flour, unrefined sugar, molasses, and muesli, (minus the nuts and dried banana), pour some golden syrup on the apples, add half a cup of water, maybe a little cinnamon, then pour on cumble mix,

sprinking some muscavado sugar on top.

peanut butter on toast.

marmite on toast.

cheese on toast.

margerine on toast.

toast and tea.

thats enough of that.

go the warriors!

Trev wanted to get connected to the internet. He's been using someone else connection for a while and wants to start sending emails but the luddite in him rejects the idea of it being a simple process, and asks for me to do something about it. I have rather enjoyed ignoring computers lately, and the last few weeks have meant I either havent wanted to email, havent been near an PC or havent had the time especially if I have been washing dishes, so I wasnt looking forward to sorting it.

I walked round town to find out what I could about ISP's, and on my return to the Mezzanine cafe, I found the couple from Brighton eating at Dr Nash's table. After the directions I had given them when we had stayed in Opononi, they had driven through Whangarei and found it without difficulty. I guess "opposite Pac-n-save" is pretty simple but its nice when someone listens to me and understands me. I know what some of my directions are like.

Warwick turned up early afternoon and we picked up Jackie and Stu and headed to Auckland for the game.

I dont know anything about Rugby league and I havent learnt anything since, but I think it was a good game. The Warriors won and the best argument I have heard when talking about money, American foreign policy or how much house prices are around the world is "Go the Warriors!". The crowd was good, we had beers and plastic hotdogs, it was cold and it was my first Rugby League match, so it was similar conditions to my first football match (Aston Villa vs Notts County in 1982, Notts won 3-1). The cheerleaders were fantastic and Im having one delivered shortly. The hits were hard and one guy died, but I think he might have been a spectator.

It was an awesome experience, with a great atmosphere, far friendlier than a football match back home. There were kids everywhere and I thought it would be unsafe for them but then I was seeing it with British eyes; all the violence was on the pitch, which made it an even more gladitatorial affair. The Bulldogs are top of the table had a 17 game unbeaten run, but this was stopped by the Warriors who are 4th in the table. I think Im going to be following the Warriors from now on, and I never thought I'd have a Rugby League team to follow. We drove home happy, slightly drunk, and cold.

Starting to get itchy feet again. The Shaolin Monks are in Auckland on Tuesday and I also want to go to the Bay of Islands. Not sure what to do or which direction to go in, although I should go south soon. This is written on Trevs laptop and Im wanting to steal it off him, but two or three weeks of washing dishes doesnt seem a very fair exchange.

guns are bad mmmkay

Friday, only a few hours to kill before heading back and I want to do something. There was a poster in the hostel for a small-bore rifle range up in the hills above Kaitaia, and I gave the guy, Pete, a ring and went up there. Now, I have always been suspicious about guns and rifles, as their sole purpose is to take life. A gun collector is a different breed altogether.

Pete is a farmer and has taken over the land from his father who died a year or two ago. He had a friend, lets call him John. John used to help on the farm, and was Petes good friend, but Pete thought John was a bit dodgy as John had got his wife by stealing her off another man. Thats mates though. Johns wife got cancer and was slowly dying, and on the day she died, Pete finds out that John has been having an affair with Petes wife while his own wife was dying, and they were planning to take Petes family farm off him.

What would you do? Pete has always shot guns, hunted with them and collected them for years. He knows how to kill things. He thinks bad thoughts about these friends of his. What does he do? He thinks about killing his wife and old friend, knowing which rifle would do the job, but keeps his farm going, gets his head together and meets someone new. In the end John gambled that his dead wife would leave him money but has actually written him out of the will, and is now penniless and without friends. I reckon he got what he deserved.

I dont know if I would have that sort of self control, and he goes down as another person that has impressed me. Many people have killed and been killed for less.

We spent the morning talking and shooting. Its been a while since I last shot a rifle but I soon got back into it, and got my grouping down to about an inch; not great but I havent shot in years. Pete has old Enfields from carbines to No.4's, SKS, Japanese rifles, M1, M14, M16, an SLR, Hungarian rifles, Swiss, Swedish and more. We spent most of our time with single shot and semi-automatic .22 rifles. Here shooting is a necessary activity in killing vermin like killing possums and also killing wild pigs, so its part of the rural culture. It isnt made into a sport with nice red jackets, 200 hounds, Pimms, and a trumpet, but in mud, rain and done in working clothes.

Anyway, I did get pleasure out of shooting, which worried me. I thought I had got rid of that side of me, but its still there. It was good FUN shooting, and i liked the sound of the falling plates as I blat away with a semi-auto rifle with fat scope.

Time to head back to treehugging and veggie food.

Trev and Maria werent going to be able to go to the Rugby match as they had a big booking for Saturday night, so it was just me meeting up with Warwick, Jackie and Stu. Jenny and Zoe were coming later as Jenny had loads to do, including some business in Ponsonby.

not 90 mile beach

I have never been one for coach journeys, and while I could have driven on 90 mile beach, having got the car stuck in mud once, I didnt want to risk it again especially with a tide coming in. The people on the bus were; two English girls, a Dutch couple with their two young children, and their parents. The couple had just bought a motel on the edge of Kaitaia.

Sonny, our driver and tour guidetold us various facts about Northland. Some of it was interesting, some of it was tosh, but then thats what you get for coach tours. I hadnt realised that a lot of Yugoslavs came to New Zealand and became gumdiggers, and that they got called Dalmations as this was the area of Europe they were from. I hadnt realised that gun, Kauri gum, the deposits of sap from the Kauri tree that are found in the ground, used to be as valuable as gold. I hadnt realised that Cape Reinga is the place considered by the Maoris to be the physical point on the earth in New Zealand where the departed souls begin their journey to the afterlife. I hadnt realised that 90 mile beach is actually nearer 90 kilometre beach, but then thats just being pedantic.

It was a good day out and took the stress out of driving along the beach and down the main road, and of having the car broken into if I had left it at any point. We went toboganing, on tobogans down the side of a sand dune and the coach was able to drive down a stream to the beach. I think my car would have become part of the beach if I had attempted it.

Still, it was a long shower to remove all the sand.