1000 km Weekend

Last weekend (13th-15th July) we took a Friday off to spend a long weekend traveling and partying The plan was to visit an American friend in Hamilton (4th biggest city in NZ, south of Auckland), take in a Friday night party near Tauranga (fast growing city on the north coast, will soon be bigger than Hamilton) and end up at a Hashing event in Napier on the east coast. Luckily the weather was unbelievably good for strolling in Hamilton and Napier and partying the night away outside in Welcome Bay... which we'll certainly take in the middle of winter.

Temperatures all weekend were well in the 60's F (~17C) with warm sun, while the nights were clear and even a bit frosty. We finally managed to get the classic view of the volcanoes from Taupo too as we drove through, and the whole country looked good (other than a stretch of fog). This week though Napier has had severe flooding, so I guess we were lucky. This is after severe problems in the area with low rainfall this year.

Team Nicknames

Most sports teams these days have nicknames, whether long used or invented to go along with pretty coloured pyjamas (yes I mean you English cricket). New Zealand however has taken the naming of its teams to new levels without departing far from the theme of the classic rugby "All Blacks":

Football (soccer) - All Whites
Basketball - Tall Blacks
Cricket - Black Caps
(Field) Hockey - Black Sticks
Netball - Silver Ferns (which might seem novel... except the silver fern is the non-black bit of the All Blacks all black rugby shirt).
Softball - Black Sox
Women's Rugby - Black Ferns

I'm sure there are a few more...

Winter Weather

We've been "enjoying"quite a mix of weather here. A couple of weeks ago it seemed like the ski season would be getting going with snow falls on the hills and cold temps all over allowing snow making. Then last weekend torrential rains hit much of the north island with warm temps (up to 20C, 68F) wiping out much of the snow base. This week has brought thunderstorms with destructive tornadoes in Taranaki to our west (and a couple locally) and hail.

This weekend has been more settled and we finally had the first sub zero temps in Wanganui. On the whole though it's mild and not too wet in the day, I've still only donned a jacket once to walk the 10 minutes to work... though one night was very cold for running. Right now Ruapehu has pretty good snow cover and there is some on the lower Ruahine hills north of Palmerston North. I'm told it never snows here though.