Another Fab Kiwi Recipe

Afghan Biscuits

Ingredients:
200g (7 oz)
butter75g (3 oz)
sugar175g (6 oz)
flour25g (1 oz)
cocoa powder50g
cornflakes (or crushed weetbix)

Instructions:
Soften butterAdd sugar and beat to a cream. Add flour and cocoa. Add cornflakes last so as not to break them up too much. Put spoonfuls on a greased oven tray and bake about 15 minutes at 180 oC (350 oF). When cold, ice with chocolate icing and put walnuts on top.

Yummy!

Quail Island

Quail Island, within Lyttelton Harbour (Te Whakaraup), has an interesting cultural heritage in a unique natural environment. Named after the now extinct native Quail, the island was used for the collection of food - mostly seabirds eggs and fish - by the local Maori children. The Maori name for the island is O Tamahua, which means 'place to gather seabirds eggs'.

Today the island is home to native birds including the fantail, kingfisher, silvereye and many sea birds. To reach the island, you catch a boat from the not very attractive port of Lyttelton (where our container arrived all that time ago!) for a 15 minute trip over to the island. Here is a picture of one of the container ships about to leave.

The yellow arrow indicates the location of Sally and Seans' entire household which still hasn't left for the UK yet - Sally, just thought you might like to see it again!!!
As usual, Alex thoroughlyy enjoyed the boat ride and was very happy that from his position on the top deck, he could see the driver!
The walk round the island takes about 2 1/2 hours and takes in the remains of the leper colony which was set up in 1907 and was the only such colony in New Zealand. At its peak, up to nine sufferers were housed on the island. The remainss of a radio mast still stands, this was their onlycommunicationn with the mainland. One poor soul died on the island and was buried near to the colony.

The island was used for quarantine of humans and animals from 1847 when a quarantine station was built. Any person or animal coming in from England was held there until the chance of them passing on any sickness/disease was considered to have passed.

In 1901 and 1910, Robert Falcon Scott used the island as a base to train the dogs, ponies and mules for his Antartic expeditions. Ernest Shackleton used it for the same purpose in 1907.

The scenery is fabulous as the naturall harbour in which the island sits is surrounded by the port hills.
A brief rest at Walkers Beach before we catch the fast ferry back to themainlandd. Chris, Shannon and Alex got soaked on the way back as they insisted on standing in the area where all the boats spray came on board - mad or what?!?

Muscle Car Show

more l8r

Orana Wildlife Park

For months and months before leaving England, Alex and I watched the series The Zoo on the TV. The one thing he wanted to do when we arrived was to visit it so, on Friday we decided we'd give it a go. Obviously, the series was based at Auckland Zoo, slightly far away for a day visit, but Alex was none the wiser when we headed off in the direction of Christchurch Zoo!

First of all we checked out Shannon's favourite, the spider monkeys.

They had loads of lions and Tigers which Alex and his friend Max really liked. They are in the process of building a massive new lion enclosure and a matching one for the tigers.

Orana Wildlife Park is New Zealand's largest wildlife and conservation centre and only open range zoo. The Park has been developed as an open range sanctuary for endangered animals, providing them with enclosures as close to their natural habitat as possible. Streams, moats and banks are used as barriers to allow visitors the opportunity to see the animals in a natural manner. Over 400 animals from 70 different species are displayed. The name Orana is the Maori word for welcome or place of refuge. The zoo is mostly staffed by volunteers who, it is plain to see, really love the animals there.

This bird is a Tui - a native New Zealand bird. The zoo are trying to increase the numbers as is endangers, as are many NZ native birds.

We saw our first live Kiwi bird - they are HUGE! We expected them to be quail size but they are more like the size of a turkey. They are creatures od the night so you have to go into the specially built, very dark Kiwi House and wait until your eyesight adjusts to the dark - no photography was allowed unfortunately.

Beach Combing

One of our favourite activities on our frequent trips to the beach is beach combing. For those of you not familiar with this activity, it involves picking up interesting shells, sea-worn wood and other natural items relinquished by the tide.

Chris has taken the whole concept of beach combing to a whole new level. After having his (very expensive) prescription sunglasses swept off his head by a large wave, we decided to have a beach combing expedition to try and recover them - these were after all the 2nd pair of prescription glasses he'd lost in the same number of weeks! We duly worked our way down the beach resulting in:

a fantastic pair of classy jandels and a brush suitable for scrubbing the most esteemed of floors. Did we find the glasses?

a frayed knot!!!!!!