Category Archives: family

city, Europe, family, food, travel

Windy, chilly Amsterdam weekend

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When I booked a weekend away at the end of March with cousin Trish, I was expecting winter may have been receding for a few weeks.  Alas, winter had not loosened its grip on the UK & western Europe last weekend.  But it was still a good weekend to be away, as however bitterly cold & windy it may have been in Amsterdam, it was dry and therefore better than being at home.

Flying in from Southampton, it turns out Schipol Airport is massive if you’re in a little turboprop that takes an age to taxi to the terminal.  With only a vague idea of which trains to take to our airbnb accommodation (go to Central & get the metro), we fortuitously got off the train at the first stop (after overhearing advice given to other tourists) and eventually managed to get on the metro and cut quite  a bit of time off our journey.

The first thing noticed while walking in the dark was of course all the bicycles still out at that hour of the night.  We managed not to get knocked over by any and find the apartment OK.

After a good sleep, for me, and the start of mass-cheese-consumption-Saturday at breakfast (bread, ham & cheese) it was a short metro ride in to town, then a walk west admiring the old buildings and canal towards the Jordaan area and Anne Frank House.  It was well worth waiting for over an hour (we got up a bit too late) in the wind and occasional sun to get in to see such a reminder of those dark times in Europe’s recent past.  The warehouse and offices do well to hide the small annex at the back in which eight people managed to hide for two years with the help of Otto Frank’s office staff.

The rate (number over time, not price) of admission was such there was sufficient space to linger and contemplate without feeling rushed or that there were too many people around.

Royal Palace from Dam Square in the centre of the city

The front of the Anne Frank House complex

We spent much of the afternoon wandering around the old suburb of Jordaan following a walking tour, popping into various little squares hidden in the centre of blocks of houses, looking at the rather higgledy-piggledy skinny houses. When the cold got a bit much – popping in to various cafes and bars for beer, lunch, hot chocolates and gargantuan pieces of apple pie.

Note the protruding beams at the top for lifting furniture up, to circumvent the narrow staircases

A city with the wisdom not to rip up its tram tracks, there were still plenty of trams around.  As dusk started to draw in, we jumped on the first tram we saw as we walked out of Central Station to rest our legs and generally speed up the wandering.  I think we went all over looking at canals, bikes, and whatever street scenes happened to pass by.

The third, final and best cheese meal of the day was the three-cheese fondue served in yet another bar somewhere in town.  Walking back to the metro there was that often-present lingering smell of weed before we inadvertently wandered through the red-light district copping much too much of an eyeful.

Excitingly, there was even a bit more sun as we took the tram towards the National Museum.  The guide we were using told us that it was under renovation & only partially open.  After walking all the way around, we can confirm that it is completely closed.  At the least, I got a token photo of the sign below.  We followed the red rope up at streetlight level to the van Gogh exhibition at the Hermitage.

The small part of the van Gogh exhibition that is temporarily housed at the Hermitage was well worth seeing – even if I was a little underwhelmed by Sunflowers.  We crossed the Amstel a few times over the course of the afternoon before more food – I had delicious snert (pea soup).

Trying not to look too cold above the Amstel

A great weekend away from England, the first for quite sometime – since late January I think.  Unfortunately back to a four-day week in which I tried to cover three different roles at work and went in to Easter exhausted.  So my first weekend at home in five weeks is much needed – thankfully only one more week until a proper holiday.

bikes, city, Europe, event, family, friends, history, NZ, snow, travel, UK

2012 was certainly different

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For the first time in four years, I’ve managed to live in the same place all year and to be working for the same company at each end of those twelve months.  While this has given life a bit more stability this year, it hasn’t been without plenty of variety.  The event that influenced half of the year was having surgery on my shoulder to stop it dislocating.  Six weeks in a sling and six months before being fit to mountain-bike again was quite the upheaval – but it was all worth it as my shoulder is much more stable & predictable now.

Not being able to ride my bike did have the advantage of forcing me to find other things to do with my time & money.  Consequently, it turned out to be a bit of a travel year with twelve significant trips:

First up was an excellent week of skiing in the Alps with good friends

The day after the sling was banished, I finally crossed Rome off the top of my list – it had been there some time

The Pantheon was the highlight for me, followed closely by climbing St Peter’s Basilica

A week in Turkey was mostly spent in Istanbul, where the architecture continually impressed

Hot-air ballooning early morning in Cappadocia rates near the top of all I’ve done in the last three years away from NZ

Prague – with Te Puke school friend, Levi, a long way from Fairhaven Primary

The country was gripped by the Olympics late summer, great to be around for that

I was lucky enough to take a last-minute spare ticket & made it along to watch some of the mountain-biking – quality athletes & a great course to be a spectator

The highlight trip of the year was finally heading back to New Zealand for a whirlwind two weeks of thirtieth birthday parties (mine), a wedding (not mine), and tripping all around the country & spending time with dear family & friends (not to mention meeting quite a few additions that have arrived in the intervening three years).  There was also the added bonus of the physio declaring my shoulder fit for gentle exercise – so I managed a bit of mountain-biking and a ski too.

Treble Cone, near Wanaka, is a spectacularly beautiful ski field it turns out

These photos don’t come around as often as they should – excellent to have all the family together

Shortly after NZ, a work trip to Italy sprung out of nowhere – I managed to tack Venice on the end

Gorgeous city for a day – but I found the lack of trees, grass and bikes a little disconcerting

Pleased to finally make it back briefly to Edinburgh & even see the sun

I’d waited a long time to see Sagrada Familia, after hearing Dad’s stories – it didn’t disappoint and was, in a word, incredible

Watching football with eighty-odd thousand Spaniards at Camp Nou; Barcelona crossed off the top of the list

Still managing to explore England a fair bit, mainly the south – Leeds Castle (in Kent) was one of the most enjoyable visits

Fancy that, a summary of my year & no mountain-biking pictures, that should change next year – here’s hoping.  In the last few months I have been riding a fair bit (even though my bike-commute is short, the miles add up), but it’s pretty flat & wet (for now, or perhaps always) around here so the riding isn’t too exciting.  Work will be changing a bit next year too; I managed to be a process engineer of sorts for a year but am now moving into a different role scheduling the site’s production, amongst other things.

So that’s about it for this year – thanks to all who had me to stay, travelled with me, helped while my shoulder was out of action or simply kept in touch.  I’ll have to take this opportunity to wish all a merry Christmas and the best for the New Year, as I’ll be incommunicado then – Egypt will be off the list by the end of next week.

family, history, UK

Leeds Castle

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Not having been to London for almost four months(!), it didn’t take much motivation to make the trip up after work on Friday.  The factor in choosing that weekend was to see (childhood friend) Levi, who I haven’t seen since Prague in August, before he goes back to New Zealand.  Contrary to what I thought, he is in fact coming back to Europe – so that’s good news.  With the first spell of proper southern-England winter weather finally arriving, London was a little chilly but not unpleasant as we generally hung out around Hyde Park (the Christmas market was as packed as last time I visited three years ago), Oxford St, Marylebone and Kensington and caught up on all the recent news & future plans.

Fantastic to see Trish after a few months, I was well fed with some scrumptious meals, caught up on all the family news I’ve missed recently and was surprised to look out my window in the morning & see the back garden looking very different.  I was about to say Sunday dawned stunningly clear & bright, but then I remembered that I caught up on a fair bit of sleep after an exhausting week at work.  So, by the time I got up Sunday was still very frozen but wonderfully clear & bright.  That played right in to my plan of finally going to visit Leeds Castle – which, confusingly, is only thirty-odd minutes down the M20 in Kent and most definitely not in Leeds.

From the entry it’s quite a walk up to the castle – which is all very nice when it’s sunny & there are plenty of birds to see (especially the ice-skating & ice-breaking varieties), but I imagine is downright miserable if it’s raining.  That must be what the fake-train is for.

Leeds Castle has been around in some shape or form since the early twelfth century, but most of what is there now is less than two-hundred years old.  Pleasingly, it’s built on two islands (now joined by the castle) so it has a proper moat – which may not be so useful for defence if it was much colder, and the ice thicker.  The castle survived the Civil War well and a long connection with America developed as the owners were granted massive land rights in Virginia.  The last owner (for most of the twentieth century), an Anglo-American heiress (Standard Oil money if anyone cares) spent a lot of money on remodelling & upkeep.

All the Christmas decorations were up – this was probably the least impressive, but I didn’t take any photos inside as there were massive Christmas trees everywhere (& I forgot to)

Finally, a photo of me – thanks Trish

As well as the castle to look through we enjoyed a hearty lunch in the restaurant that looked like an old tithe-barn (or so I’m told), a small falconry display, got lost in a maze and wondered just how cold the people were in the WWI-era biplane that was buzzing overhead as the sun quickly sunk.

A pleasing & beautiful day out; trips to London never disappoint.

bikes, engineering, family, friends, MTB, NZ, snow, travel

NZ Visit – Southern Week

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Continuing the multitude of too-brief visits, I said my goodbyes to Elizabeth & Cara at Wellington airport & flew south to Timaru where Dad & Adele were waiting for me.  With not having seen Dad in the three-plus years I’ve been away (two and a half years for Adele), it was great to see them again.  It’s a relatively short drive down to Oamaru and amongst poring (& laughing) over family photo albums we headed out to the Brydone (was there another choice?) for a meal.

The fleeting visit to Oamaru over (it’s never been home for me), we headed down to Dunedin to pick Mum from university (only eight months since I last saw Mum in London, but of course great to see her too).  It was an afternoon’s worth of leisurely driving through Central Otago to get to Adele’s place in Wanaka.

Adele gave me heaps for taking this photo through the windscreen, so I should share it

We stopped in St Bathan’s for a quick look at the old mining town (bypassed by the highway, so it’s pretty quiet) and a pint in the pub.

This passes for an old building in NZ, nice pub it was too

We were about a day out with the timing for the skiing, missing the biggest dump (60 cm) of the season just.  Still there was plenty of spring snow to play in for Wednesday afternoon.  High winds dictated that we go to Treble Cone – alas only half of their chairs were running.  When I say half, I mean one – a little smaller than the skifields I’m used to over this side of the world.

Still, with the setting above the lake, the snow-capped mountains surrounding and the high country not covered in snow – Treble Cone is one of the more beautiful ski areas I’ve skied at.  As this was my first ski since the shoulder operation, I was keen to just test the shoulder out gently for the afternoon.  (Bizarrely, the guy that hired me the skis comes from the same village that I live in here in the UK.)  Being mid-week & partially closed, the ski area was pretty empty and Adele & I had a good time on & off piste and I was well pleased with my shoulder.

Wednesday was set aside for tiki-touring.  As we got close to Lake Hawea, we could see a big storm rolling in from the west across the mountains.  We quickly did an about turn and headed south for a very pleasant day exploring old Cromwell (the town was flooded when the Clyde dam was built) and old hydraulic mining sites around Bannockburn.  There was a good hour-long stroll around the old mine workings – the gold was in the sedimentary rock & extracted by what was basically washing the side of the hill away with deluges of water.  This involved rather ingenious & large systems for storing and then directing the water to where it was needed.  The landscape was strangely reminiscent of the badlands of both Alberta & South Dakota in some ways.

Part of the mining area – original height would have been slightly higher that that on the right of picture

One of the bigger reservoirs & not a very interesting photo

That storm really did roll in that night as we were going out for dinner & the rain was still pelting down early in the morning.  The time that I was awake that night was pretty much spent thinking that I wouldn’t get to go for a mountain-bike ride with Adele (who thankfully has finally discovered while I’ve been away that MTBing is pretty cool) that morning before we headed back to Dunedin.  But peaking out the curtains at seven o’clock the sky was strangely clear.  I hustled off to rent a bike – I wanted a bog-standard hardtail but the shop was so disorganised that I ended up with a softtail 29er for the price of a hardtail, score.

Riding from home, we were quickly climbing up the Sticky Forest.  My leg work at the gym while shoulder was recovering seems to have paid off, the hills weren’t much of a problem – although that may have been those big wheels turning.  The trails had drained pretty quickly & we stayed relatively mud-free. We skirted around the edge of the lake to Albert Town before crossing the Clutha River.

The object of the crossing the river was to get Deans Bank Track – a recent DOC project.

Wonderful get-up borrowed from Adele – my old Dobies shorts & a commuter jacket

A few switchbacks to get up on to the plateau before north-west

Pretty spectacular spring morning ride

It’s a well thought out loop & I imagine a very fast loop if it’s properly dry – we had a good time checking it out.  Once again I was pleased with how my shoulder stood up to its longest ride in a long time.

Heading back to Albert Town, you can just make out the new trail down there

So that was a great ride out, about four hours and interrupted only by Adele somehow managing to gouge her big chainring in to the top of her calf – still don’t know how she was able to do that while riding uphill.  Back to Dunedin that afternoon, coincidentally good friends the Careys (where I had one of my 30th celebrations) were down visiting (youngest daughter) Fiona – so that was a good excuse to have another meal out, not too mention seeing James & Becca (I lay the blame of me moving to Canada for a year firmly at their feet – not that I’m complaining about that).

We even remembered to have a family photo, I’m sure I’m not that much taller – must be the cowboy boots

Goodbyes were said Saturday morning (best I don’t dwell on that too much) & I was back up to Auckland for a final pack, check progress of Andrew & Shelley’s kitchen and then fly back to London via LA.  After years of people saying how much of a hassle security is at LAX when in transit, it turns out that is all false – we didn’t even have to go through security again, unlike at Hong Kong.  Home Sunday, back to work the next day to find that I was being sent to Italy the following week for work.  That was a real shame.