A small windy island

Last week, Tane and I went to Ireland for a few days. It was an excellent trip, during which Tane turned 30, we put in over 800km of road in our rental car, and saw lots of stunning scenery that reminded us of New Zealand as well as plenty of piles of rocks in paddocks that really didn't.

Ring of Kerry: Stunning, and reminded us of home. Random neolithic stone circle: reminded us that we really were far from New Zealand after all

The highlight of our time in Ireland, apart from driving for the first time in a year, was a day trip to the Aran Islands off Galway in West Ireland. After hiring a couple of bikes, we spent fabulous day cycling around the strange but eerily beautiful and stone-covered Inishmore Island. There were so many rocks on the Island that that there is an overabundance of stone walls. It seemed a little odd, until someone pointed out that it was probably all that could be done with the giant rocks just lying around all over the place. The island reminded me of Father Ted, as the locals had such strong accents it was sometimes hard to know if they were speaking English or Gaelic. The weather was a little chilly and the skies grey, but the island seemed to suit the weather. I note though that Tane was crazy enough to go for a swim in any case ...

Inishmore Island is a must-see for anyone in West Ireland, and I thoroughly recommend it as a place to visit. The next day I really wished that I'd had padded cycle pants (ow), but loved going there nonetheless.

Happy 30th Tane!

Yesterday, we helped Tane celebrate the last 5 days of his 20s. Happy 30th, Tane!

1. Tane with his cake - Before


2. At the Beer garden - During
3. Letting the age get to him and turning in after a drink of milk and a plate of cookies (*cough*) - After

Battle of the titans

Federer vs Nadal, the Wimbledon final, 2008. What a match. It was one of those very rare occasions when you could reach for the box of superlatives and tip out the lot, without exaggerating. The tenacity, the skill, the power of both men was - well, reach into that box and pick out whatever you want. If you like tennis and have not seen the match, sell your house, your liver, your grandmother, if you have to. You must watch it.

I watch very little tennis, so I can't compare it to other classic matches, but it was possibly the greatest sporting contest I've ever seen. How often do you get the top two teams or individuals in a sport clash in an encounter that's consistently entertaining, immensely skilled and so nailbitingly close?

A few contenders spring to mind:

In football, there was some cracking games in this year's Champion's League and Euro 2008, but - tense as the Chelsea-Manchester United final was - not between between the best teams in the world. The only match I can think of that might compare to Federer-Nadal was the thriller between Holland and Brazil in the quarter-finals of USA '94.

In cricket, I sadly didn't see the famous 2005 Ashes Series and only caught the very end of the tied 1999 World Cup semi-final between South Africa and Australia. While I've seen a few riveting Black Caps matches, not when they could be considered a truly great cricketing team. That heartbreaking 1992 World Cup semi-final loss to Pakistan might have been up there, had it been a shade closer.

Rugby league had the ever enthralling State of Origin - the Graham Lowe-coached and Wally Lewis-led Queensland team's victory in 1991 sticks in my mind most strongly.

And rugby? Two Wallabies-All Blacks games: the 'Gregan tackle' match of 1994, and the match in 2000 won by a last-minute Jonah Lomu try.

What about you? What are the greatest sporting contests you've seen?

Oxbridge

Tane and I are lucky to have friends that live in both Oxford and Cambridge. That way we can visit them both, get a local insight to each of the two cities, and hear about why each of the "Oxbridge" University towns are better than the other.

With David and Holly in Oxford earlier in the year

Now, don't tell them we said so, but on the face of it they don't seem all that different. They both have fabulous architecture, stone buildings, impressive colleges, and a high hit- rate of overhearing a really plummy accent. They do have differences. Oxford has a smaller river, but a lovelier centre. Cambridge has a great river for punting. But, in general they are very similar, and both worth a day trip from London.

Oxford

We went to Cambridge last weekend, which was a fabulous day out. As well as having a good look around the city, we went punting. I don't know who thought up punting - it's a strange water activity, cruising down a river at about 2 km an hour with a giant stick and a boat that is hard to steer and prone to getting in traffic jams. Tane got the hang of steering fairly quickly.

Well, mostly got the hang of it.

I, on the other hand, could only go around in circles, and decided that it was much more fun to sit in the punt eating strawberries rather than make an effort. It was a great day out, and I recommend punting. My only regret was not getting a photo of Dean when he fell in the water. But, unfortunately, I was too busy eating strawberries to reach for the camera in time.

With Dean and Deborah in Cambridge

The perfect sporting storm

Poor Lauren. She's been a sporting widow for these last few weeks, as Tane's perfect sporting storm came together. Down at the pub on a Saturday morning to watch the All Blacks thumping England, obsessively trying to find out the score in New Zealand's cricket tour of England, spending almost every third night in front of the tv watching the greatest tournament I've ever seen - football's European Championships. Well done the Spanish! Nice to see attacking flair come out on top, for once. And nice to see the horribly dull, defensive Italians leave early.

It's been great. I've done much male bonding while swilling beer, scoffing chips (or crisps, I should say) and playing armchair critic. The highlight though was been some actual live sport - Wimbledon!

It was one heck of a memorable event - even for the queueing alone. We arrived at 9.30am, and got into the ground about 1.30pm. We queued for a queue card, then we queued for tickets, then queued to watch an actual game. Crazy. Fortunately, this was the first year that organisers had decided to start the queue in a nearby park. So most of the wait was, almost literally, a picnic.

Lewis and Johnathan chill out in the queue.

The English take queueing very seriously indeed. Surely only at Wimbledon would do you a guide to queueing, as well as an official queue card. Mine was number 9482. Yep, that's a lot of people waiting.

Fortunately, we managed to get to a court in time to see the end of up-and-coming Kiwi Marina Erakovic's third round match. It was a tight and entertaining third set, but sadly, she lost.

Marina Erakovic gives it her all on Court 11.

The next game on that court was a thriller. This was the first time I've seen top quality tennis up close, and it was amazing. They're sooo fast. Even the women hit with enough power to make my forehands look as strong as wet noodles. Especially scary giant Russian Davina Safina. Her arms were like my legs.

Wine without cups. We were the classiest people in Wimbledon.

After a couple of sets of that, it was off to "Murray Mountain", where thousands were watching the new British hope, Andy Murray. He won, to much cheering, but today lost to Rafael Nadal.

Then, as the evening wore on, we rounded out watching some doubles and men's singles. What a great venue, what great sport. I'll be back again next year - and with Lauren. Sporting widow becomes sporting wife!

Why aren't we going to New Plymouth?

For those of you on Facebook, you'll be familiar with the "Cities I've visited" function. This is one of my favourite parts of Facebook, as it allows you to map places you've visited all over the world. The other day Tane and I were having a look and discovered that you can see the top 20 places that my Facebook friends have been, as well as the top 20 places all users of Facebook worldwide have been. I know that this is not exactly a great sample group as Facebook users are more likely to be English speaking and under 35 than any other demographic group, but taking that into consideration the top 20 destinations were:

	Where my friends have been	Where Facebook users have been
1	Auckland	London
2	London	Paris
3	Wellington	New York
4	Paris	Orlando
5	Sydney	Amsterdam
6	Christchurch	LA
7	Rotorua	Rome
8	Amsterdam	Las Vegas
9	Melbourne	San Francisco
10	Taupo	Barcelona
11	Florence	Washington DC
12	Rome	Venice
13	LA	Chicago
14	Hamilton	Toronto
15	Napier	Florence
16	Prague	San Diego
17	Singapore	Miami Beach
18	Venice	Boston
19	Vienna	Brussels
20	Barcelona	Berlin

Tane and I have been to 9 of the top places Facebook users have been, and of the list of where my friends have been I have been to 17 of them, and Tane 15.

The thing that struck me the most about these lists was the fact that in the list of places my friends have been so many NZ destinations were much lower in the list than European cities. What's that about? Why have so many Kiwis visited London, Rome, Prague, Vienna, and Amsterdam when they haven't even been to New Plymouth? Not to mention Dunedin, Palmerston North and Nelson. And how on earth did Hamilton get to number 14? Was bribery involved?

Travel around the world is fabulous because you experience so much variety. Travel around NZ, though, is great as well as you see variety within your own country. In many ways small NZ towns like Ruatoria, Murupara and Te Kao have given me more of an insight into a different way of life than Paris, Rome or any other European city that is crawling with tourists. Is it because of cultural cringe that Kiwis travel around Europe but not NZ? Or is it because they think NZ is boring? I have mentioned this list to a few NZers in the last little while, and at least three of them blinked at me before saying "Um ... I've never been to New Plymouth."

How many of the cities on the lists have you been to? Have YOU been to New Plymouth? If not, why not?

A shout out to the parents of the world

Right at the moment, it seems that half the women we know either have recently had, or are about to have, a Zorg, a Tiny, another Jardine-Langston or mini Margenau - in short, a baby. Not that we've had the pleasure, but as the elder children of large families, we've seen plenty of maternity clothes, pooey nappies and bleary-eyed, short-tempered parents. It ain't easy.

So a big shout out to the new and about-to-be-new mums and dads. You guys are awesome.

Inconvenienced by the Luftwafe

As a rule I think that the tube is fantastic - it gets me pretty much anywhere I want to go in London, and is a public transport system that I think should be replicated elsewhere to cut the New World reliance on cars. When antipodean Londoners complain about rising petrol prices, it's because the cheap flights to Europe are going up in price, not because they are struggling to drive to work or supermarket. That is largly because of the tube.

Living in London, however, you get accustomed to tube delays. Signal failures, passenger alarms being activated and engineering works often conspire to make me late for work. On the weekends in particular it's not unusual for trains to be delayed or stations closed because of people throwing themselves on the tracks.

Last week, though, I was late to work due to an unexploded World War Two bomb being found in East London. Apparently it started ticking so a tube station was closed until it was removed, causing delays to the entire District Line. I hadn't realised that over 200 unexploded bombs are still in East London, and that these are being discovered as the London 2012 Olympic site is being prepared. This one was in particular was 5 ft long and known as a "Herman", named after the stout Luftwaffe head, Goering.

I always thought that I was born 35 years too late to be directly affected by World War Two, but now I can say that the Luftwaffe made me late for work. Heh.

Relaxing in the shadow of a Norman castle

Summer is here, the sun is out, and pubs suddenly have outdoor beer gardens that I never noticed before. After spending a glorious day in Arundel (West Sussex) with friends yesterday, though, I think we have found one of the best places within 2 hours of London to relax yet. Glorious.

Travellers in an antique land

There's two main reasons why Westerners go to Egypt - the ancient ruins, or the beaches in the Sinai Peninsula. Geeks that we are, we were there for the former - though as Lauren wrote earlier, turns out when the temperature headed upwards from 30 the appeal of lazing around by and in the water became a lot stronger!

But anyway, the history. It's awesome. Our tour began in Cairo, with the step pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, the oldest standing structure built by humans. Hearing that made me tingle with history geek happiness.

Saqqara, where the ancient Egyptians developed the most amazing technology of all - making Coke with zero sugar.

Next up was the step pyramid's most famous descendants. We've already stuck up a bunch of pics of us and our faithful camels Michael Jackson and Moses, but I couldn't let this entry go without putting up this.
After getting our fix of big triangles (and the Sphinx, which was a bit underwhelming. Asterix comics led me astray on how big it is.) it was down to Aswan in the other end of Egypt.

The overnight train was ... memorable. Kind of like a long haul flight, but with Arabic ringtones and a guy with drinks coming up and down the aisle every quarter of an hour or so. The words "chay, chay, coffee, tea, Cola Light" will haunt us forever.

Outside the train, Egypt passed by. Palm trees, mud brick houses, the domed pastel tombs of imams. Men and women in grey or brown robes tending fields of stubbly grain. Skinny cows, oxen, the odd camel or horse. Donkeys. Many, many donkeys. The desert. And, of course, the Nile.

Looking out the window, you realised just how utterly crucial the river is. It's all that keeps the country going. Beyond the river and the tiny belt of fertile land it supports, there's nothing but stone, sand, dust and heat, all the way to the sea.

One of the other things to hit you in Egypt is how poor the place is. There's plenty of wealthy people there, but the glory days are long past. It's worst in the slums of Giza, right next to the Pyramids, where kids watch over flocks of goats grazing on rubbish dumps. Everywhere you see piles of rubble, and the ugly, unadorned apartment blocks, that are the next generation of wreckage. The countryside is usually prettier - all those palms - but not much richer. Aside from the pickup trucks and sattelite dishes, things probably looked much the same in the days of Saladin.

A country village

Egyptians seem a cheerful, friendly lot - appreciating their sense of humour is crucial to spending time in the markets without biting someone's head off - but when you look at the future, I'm not sure how much there is to smile about. Simply put, there's too little land and too many people.

Still, there's always that history to take pride in. From Aswan we headed back up along the Nile to Cairo, stopping off at various awesome temples along the way. There was Kom Ombo, then the best preserved one in the land - Edfu.

Spot the guy in the Netherlands football team shirt.

Luxor though is the ultimate for ancient Egypt addicts. Our guide said it has one third of the archaeological sites in the world. Bliss. The highlights were:

Luxor temple

The painted walls of the tombs of the Valley of the Kings, and Temple of Hatshepsut. These really gave you an indication of how beautiful the other temples must have been before the paint wore off.

Best of all, the stupendousness that is Karnak. Man, those guys thought BIG.

All the temples and ruins in the desert brought to mind one of my favourite poems, Ozymandias. Especially Abu Simbel, one of Ramesses II's many monuments to his ego.

Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

But two of my favourite memories of the place have nothing to do with old stone. First, there was watching the European Cup Final in a coffee bar with our guide, three tour friends and a horde of young Egyptian men. Talk about atmosphere. I've never been anywhere where they yell Allah! Allah! when someone misses a penalty.

Mohammed, Juan and Juliana enjoy a quiet sheesha before the game.

The other is when I wandered away from the main bazaar in Cairo and found myself in a market where only the locals go to shop. The traders didn't depend on tourists, so there was no hassling to get you to buy some cheap souvenier. People asked where you are from, with no motive other than curiosity. Everyday life. I hope they have more to smile about soon.

5 things about Egypt

Egypt was fabulous. Not only was it packed full of jaw-dropping monuments and temples (which Tane will write about later when I stop hogging the computer), but it has an incredibly vibrant and interesting culture. The people that we met were friendly and up for a laugh, the sky was blue, and the Nile really all that. These, however, are the top five things that spring to mind when I think about our time in what I now consider to be my third favourite country of the 28 that I have seen. (NB: one and two are New Zealand - naturally - and Turkey. Bulgaria still occupies last place)

1. The heat

Egypt was hot, hot, hot. And when we were at Aswan Dam, we were damn hot. (heh). The weather reached an impressive 44 degrees on the day we visited Valley of the Kings, and we all agreed that was well into the "nasty hot" category of heat. There wasn't much discussion about it though as the entire group of us were rendered useless by the heat so while not looking at sites, sat around like giant lethargic slugs. Due to the heat, it should not have been a surprise that in Egypt a cold beer costs the same as dinner. Tane, though, was still able to jump around in spite of the heat.

In the Valley of the Kings

2. Donkeys

While camels are a bit scary and gurgly, Donkeys are plain awesome. They are everywhere in Egypt, pulling massive carts and transporting around all sizes of people. They not only got the respect of a few travelling kiwis, but made the long drives more interesting by playing "spot the donkey".

We got to ride some while at the Valley of the Kings, which was hilarious. Not only are they sturdier than I thought but riding them is unpredictable and exciting. Will they stray off course to eat some plants? Will Sarah's one bite mine in the neck again? Will Tane's donkey (christened Sir Mange-alot) lead the pack and prove to be the Scott Dixon of donkeys? These are some of the exciting questions asked while riding a donkey.

3. Egyptian men

As an example of Egyptian men, while in Egypt I received 4 offers of marriage, numerous whistles and compliments, and one man say that for me he would kill his wife. Tane was asked on two occasions how many camels he would sell me for. At first it was annoying, but once we realised that it's not too serious, it was OK and sometimes very very funny. Having said that though, I still find it creepy that a man said he would kill his wife. Shudder. I have read that many Egyptian men assume that Western women are all easy, and given how rarely we saw women on the street, and that when we did they wore head veils 90% of the time and many were in hajabs, we certainly do appear immodest in comparison. While being hassled isn't always fun, if you keep a sense of humour it's no big deal at all. 4. Haggling

Haggling is a way of life in Egypt, especially in the markets. The markets are chaos, and at first the smells, sights and having to ignore Egyptian men is a little overwhelming. Visiting them is very rewarding, however, and some of the best laughs we had in Egypt were in the markets with locals trying to sell us their wares. Like many things, the haggling and hassling was annoying at times. Once our guide pointed out that these people make a living off selling to tourists though, coupled with the fact that we found Egypt to be much more impoverished than we realised, we became much more tolerant. Tane and I also found that shopkeepers and street sellers were often very humorous people, and the source of some very interesting conversations.

Sarah in Luxor

5. Mosquitoes

I'll let this photo of my legs in Aswan speak for itself.

What kind of traveller are you?

I read something once about how there are three types of traveller: the adventure traveller, the cultural traveller, and the traveller that seeks relaxation. Up until now, Tane and I firmly sat in the first two categories - cultural travellers with a bit of adventure thrown in every now and then. We are ashamed now to say that we have even mocked the third type in the past, not understanding why someone would lie around by a pool when there were exciting sites to be seen. That was, of course, before we lived in London through a winter. And before we travelled to a country with 40+ degree heat where we had our first hotel holiday yet.

The pool in Luxor - note the bar in the middle

We knew that Egypt in May was going to be hot. We didn't think too much about it at all, though, and given that we were travelling to Egypt to see cool old things and another Islamic country, pool side relaxation wasn't something that had occurred to us at all. With the heat around the 40 degree mark for most of the week, though, between seeing fabulous monuments and temples we spent a lot of time relaxing by hotel pools. And, while a holiday that was just about swimming pools and sun would turn be into a sun burnt bored person, I can well see the appeal of factoring in some relaxation by pools in future holidays.

A bit of artsy swimming in Cairo

What kind of traveller are you? I think we are still cultural-with-a-bit-of-adventure travellers, but in future should we find ourselves in such lovely hotels in similar heat again, I will be the first in line for my giant hotel beach towel to lie beside the sun burnt Brits at the pool. And with this view from the poolside restaurant in Luxor, who can complain about travelling to relax, really.

Walk like an Egyptian

We have been in Egypt for half a week now, and it's fabulous. Already there have been bites, burns and bad bellies, but we don't care as Egypt is so much fun in spite of all those things. I don't have much time to write at the moment as we are about to go and chill on the Nile for a bit as well as bask in the 40 degree heat, but here are a few pics taken so far in any case.

Tane of Arabia

I think this was the only time I let go of the camel ..

Walk like an Egyptian

An Aswan sunset

Mad dogs and Englishmen

It's the hottest May on record (which means since the 1700s) and boy, are the English enjoying it. Rather like in Wellington, where warm, still days are also rare treasures, everyone rushes out to lie in the sun. There being no beaches to mooch on short of a train ride to Brighton, in London that means they hit the parks.

Kensington Gardens

Unlike in New Zealand though, the ozone layer still exists and no one seems to much care about skin cancer, so the parks become filled with every shade of brown, pink and pasty white. While playing football I offered some sun cream to a pale-skinned topless, red-headed Pom. "No, I want to get burnt," was his reply.

Mad dogs ...

Lewis and Lauren think the sun is, on balance, a good thing.

Last weekend also saw Manchester United seal the Premier League title in a photo finish with Chelsea. Inside a Kensington pub (deep in Chelsea territory, but filled with Man U fans), when Ryan Giggs scored the clinching goal, grown men yelled, lept out of their seats, hugged and jumped up and down. At the same time. It was a beautiful thing.

The highlight of the weekend though was frisbee at Ealing Common, which was rudely interrupted by a deluge of Noah proportions that was confined to the suburb apparently just to spite us and our guests from central London. We offered them towels and alcohol, but they will probably never visit the hinterlands again.

"Right, I think I can get two squirrels, but the rest of the animal kingdom could be a problem."