paula-fin

Peel - West Coast of Isle of Man

Bree and I in in front of Peel castle

Street in Peel

Bree with cousins Sian & Tim at the quay in Douglas

Buying the famous Manx kippers (a Manx tradition) to have for breakfast!

Sydney Farewell

Thanks for the great send-off guys!! xxx

Ange, Roberts, Scotty

Oli, Mel and Me

Lovely Ladies - Ange and Jo

Andy and Me

Roberts, Veebs and Scotty

On the way to the next pub!

Hokitika Food Festival - NZ in March 2007

Hi All,

A little belated, but here are some photos from the Hokitika Food Festival - held on New Zealand's West Coast every March. Bree and I met up with our cousin Briony, her husband Scott and their housmates for a great day of food/drink tasting topped off with an afternoon on the beach, a bonfire, a 'barn dance' in the festival grounds and a chilly night in our tents!

The festival included such delicacies as cow's udder, possum pie/drumsticks, mutton bird, crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich pie, grasshoppers, wine made out of flowers and huhu grubs...the list goes on.

Thanks Briony and Scott for a great weekend and for taking some great photos!

Scott in Hokitika

Briony, Bree and I enjoying some of NZ's finest wine and flavoured cider

Briony and Scott in front of the possum stall. Possums are a huge pest in NZ... and taste a little like rabbit!

Scott and Bree - I think they were trying fruit/gin shots?

Briony and I trying some 'Tasty Titties', i.e. cow's udder - it tasted like the fat off a chop!

Me and my Huhu grubs before....

...and after. The bits that I did manage to swallow tasted faintly of peanut butter - the rest I spat into the bin! Gross!

Scott trying to get the bonfire started

Briony and I enjoying a beautiful NZ sunset

Some choice NZ West Coast mullets

Scott with their NZ housemates at the barn dance - which featured Abba and Bee Gees tribute bands and, to keep it true-to-form, bales of hay!

Briony, Scott, Bree and I at the Barn dance!

Canberra Farewell - 5th May 2007!

The night started at All Bar, progressed to Kremlin and ended in the wee hours at no where else, than the Moose! Thanks for coming to our farewell everyone!

I've tried to post pics of everyone who was there but didn't get around to saving the pics off my work computer before leaving so there may be a few missing!

At All Bar Nun

Bree, Anona and Boothy

Chat and Niluka

The Couchmans - Nat and Tim. Thanks for making it out Tim!

The Pose - Zile and I

Chat, Sally and I

Ems and Jez

Boothy, Mel and Nick

Gus and Lucy

Drummy!

Dan and I

Simon, Pinko, Bree and Drum

Tracey and I

New Zealand - March 2007

Hello All!

While I initially decided to start a blog to show pics from my trip to California with Conservation Volunteers Australia in September 2006, its now May 2007 and I'm only just putting up my first post! Funnily enough, the pics are not of my trip to the US, but of my trip to New Zealand which I took with my sister Bree, in March this year.

I've only posted a few photos as I'm only coming to realise how annoying the whole process of reducing their size is before they can be displayed. Its a pity there aren't any photos of us 'river-surfing' in Queenstown when I was positive I was going to drown!

As most of you will know, I'm off to England/Europe on 27th May and will do my best to keep my blog updated. Then again, you will also be aware that I can be very slack and lazy at doing these kinds of things so my apologies in advance!

Before shortly arriving in Christchurch