Lucky Dube

I was much saddened to hear about the murder of Lucky Dube last week in an apparent carjacking attempt. While he becomes a statistic in the appalling litany of murder in South Africa, maybe his death will galvanize opposition to a violent gun culture among young men, many of whom must have loved his music. Maybe...

We became familiar with him Malawi where his reggae music rang out in bottle stores and at parties hosted by both foreigners and Malawians. The song "Prisoner"was virtually the soundtrack to our time there. We also heard him regularly in the Caribbean where again his songs of trials and troubles but also of love and uplifting resonated with many in the population.

Rest in peace, you'll be missed all over the world.

Halloween vs Guy Fawkes

It seems that despite the influence of America in NZ, Halloween (the dentists' nightmare holiday but a good excuse to party in silly costumes as opposed to street clothes) is not particularly significant here, despite the efforts of retailers to turn a few dollars. Meanwhile Guy Fawkes Day (Nov 5th for the Americans among you and an excuse for fireworks and a general melee of burning and blowing up stuff - think July 4th without the nationalism and with worse weather) is commemorated with enough gusto that there are tight limits on the number of days fireworks can be sold, while the fire service and police warn about the hightoll on property and damage to people.

Gisborne and the East Cape

My parents are over visiting and have a 12 day tour of the country to view the highlights, so last weekend (including Labour Day, a Monday holiday) we all headed for the East Coast where the tour does not take them. This also happens to be the most reliable part of the island weather wise and we struck it lucky with 3 days of sunshine while the rain came down on Wanganui.

First stop was Napier and from there we moved north to Gisborne, the "first city to see the sunrise" and a part of the North Island we'd yet to visit. It proved to be an attractive small city with good eating options and a host of monuments commemorating the fact that Captain Cook and crew landed here after first spotting the country (though he had a little contretemps with the locals and didn't hang about long). It was also their annual food and wine festival so by evening more than a few of the inhabitants (temporary or permanent) were having trouble with their grasp of reality and the concept of vertical.

Elsewhere the Cape features rugged country where the Maori culture is still strong, and inland the extensive Te Urewera National Park helps preserve a large area of native forest. The mainly dirt "main road" through the park is beautiful but the feeling of dust building up on every surface of car and skin was reminiscent of African travels. Shame the grey dust here doesn't give the same attractive "fake tan" as red Malawi dirt.

More Running Nonsense

In a clear demonstration of compulsive behavior or stupidity I finished the Wanganui Harrier Club season today by running a half marathon despite hobbling for the last 2 days on a painfully bruised ankle. It was more painful raising the foot than landing so a good dose of Ibuprofen meant the run wasn't too bad but I'm back limping around on an even sorer leg now. Good thing we have an automatic car, pressing a clutch would be a real chore.

For the record I ran 1 hour 24m 08s which was great, 5km breakdowns were 19m 32s, 20m 0s, 20m 23s and 19m 56s. The course was half the Wanganui Marathon course, which I'll hopefully run on 8th December.

NZ, Terrorist Hotspot

Apparently we have terrorists here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7044448.stm

I'm not sure however if these are truly dangerous people or come under the George Bush definition of anyone the regime doesn't happen to like!

Getting Fit

We both have a fairly tough couple of months of physical activity coming up, prior to the undoubted descent into sloth that the Xmas season tends to bring (even in the middle of summer no doubt). We both ride the "Tour of Manawatu" on Nov 4th, a 116 km (72 mile) ride around the region to our west as a buildup for New Zealand's biggest biking event, the Lake Taupo Challenge. This will take us (and 12000+ others) around the country's largest lake for 160km (100 miles) on November 24th. Tim also runs a half marathon on Oct 27th and his first marathon on December 8th.

To this end we are both going to the local cycle club's spin class (pedalling bikes on static rollers) 2 nights a week and trying to fit in a long ride at the weekend. Tim is also running on the cycling off days, and the training must be helping as the 38m 12s posted for 10km today was the quickest he'd run the distance in 15 years. And by the magic/ smoke and mirrors of pace projections and age adjustment was probably the best he's ever run (or not, who trusts statistics anyway).

All Blacks Lose

In an event that will be treated as a national disaster here the All Blacks lost to France this morning in the Rugby World Cup. New Zealand hasn't won the premier tournament in their national sport since 1987 and this just adds to an infamous litany of failure. While the referee didn't do New Zealand any favours they should have been able to make their dominance count, but lost to a late try.

The only positive here is that Australia also lost leaving England and France to fight it out for a final place. All I can say is Go Scotland!