This is not all of the next installment

Hi Guys

Sorry for the delay in updating this thing, and this isn't really an update. It's just to let you know I'm still in the land of the living.

Since the beginning of Jan I have been travelling around the North Island of NZ. My first 3 days were spent in Wellington staying at the house of a hitch hiker I picked up on the way to the ferry terminal. Wellington is a great city, though I did have the window of my campervan smashed, othing was taken though. I haven't been able to contact Pat (the lady I used to work with at Enlish Nature who has emigrated here), I guess she is using a different email addres to the one she gave me.

I spent the next few days travelling up the west coast calling in at varoius bays and beaches and generally being a tourist, and going for walks in the bush. I attempted to walk up Mount Taranaki (Mount Egmont) but the weather was so cloudy rainy and overcast I couldn't see a thing so turned it in to a lower level walk. When I returned to the car park at about 7pm the wind blew away the cloud and the mountain bathed in bright sunlight with snow on it's peak.. From here I travelled in land to do another mountain walk, the spelling of which I can't remember at the moment. But anyway by the time I got there the weather had turned rubbish again, so I decided to put the walk of until I passed back that way which will happen in a week or so from now. That journey inland though was along a 2 day long forgotton highway, which was mainly unsealed but passed through some fantastic scenery. I got to eat alot of dust along that route. I will add some pictures to this blog when I remember to bring my camera in to the internet cafe.

I trundled on back to the west coast to Ragland a bit of a surfing town, where I thought I may have a go at Kite surfing or normal surfing, but once again the wind and rain and a rather delighful cold (not) put a stop to this. Apparenty NZ is having one of it's worst summers for years, though it does mean it's nice and cool when I'm tramping up hills, and I am becoming pretty expert at the formation of the inside of clouds.

I spent 3 days at Ragland feeling sorry for myself and cheering myself up with nice food and music from the various bars and cafe's before heding north once more. I had a long old day of driving and bypassed Auckland and headed up the west coast to the North of Auckland and spent threedays exploring Tarhanui Regional Reserve run by Auckland City Council which is a peninsular that has been fenced of with a several kilometer preditor proof fence, so that possums, stoats, weasals, cats, hedgehogs and the such (all non native) can't get into the reserve and eat the native birds or the young shoots of the regenerating bush. The reserve is now more or less predator free. The northern coast of the peninsular has bee designated as a marine reserve, with good snorking and diving, unfortunately I was unable to go snorkling due to the high winds and rough seas, though the surfers seemed to love it. I spent my time walking in the rain, in cluding the most fantastic walk which took me of the designated paths by the directions printed in a leaflet which included things like; turn left at the third fence post walk up the hill and enter the bush by the old collapsed gate, then follow the stream bank until you reach the big rimu tree. It was a great way of exploring as the path was little used and I had to push through overgrown vegetation. It was the best self guided walk I have ever done, in a country park type setting. The Regional Park has really made me eager to get back to work with conservation, countryside recreation and the public. Just the inspiration I needed.

Any way it is time for me to leave the computer behind and get back on the road, so I will get bach to the computer in the next couple of days with tails of diving, meditation and more wading bird ringing.

But before I go, my eyesight has been improving over the last month and a half and I now only use my glasses for driving at night or at the cinema. I downloaded an ebook from the internet, which gives exercises (15 minutes a day) to do with your eyes to strengthen them. I am very impressed with the results and highly recommend it. The website is www.perfect-eyes.com and costs about the equivilent of 15 pounds.

Have fun, the suns out at the moment so I'm going to make the most of it.

Cheers
Nick