Kiwi Sabbatical 2018

Richmond is a very nice place to run, cycle, and swim. Our house is about a 10 min run to access points for running in the Richmond Ranges . These are not for the faint of heart. kms of mountain biking, running, and hiking trails in steep and challenging terrain. Malcolm has a favorite run route with a hill he named "the gut buster" - I have yet to run it since we arrived because it is too hard 😀 I hope to tackle it in a month or so when I am fitter. My favorite run is up a mountain bike trail called "the escalator". About 28 minutes up (~500m elevation gain) and 25 min down! Here are three pics from one run up the escalator.   About 1/3 of the way up looking Northeast towards Richmond Range.   Nearly to the top of my run looking North over the estuary and Tasman Mountains on the other side.   This is where this run ends for now as there is active tree felling. Cycling is also very nice with plenty of mountain biking options and road/trail ridin...

Our house backs onto this park. It's huge, contains a cricket field, and reminds me of the huge field we live next to in St. John's. This is right before Mathieu threw the nest into the creek - he didn't seem to know what to make of it. Gettin' 'er done It's only been 1 week, but we got most of the final stuff done to be fully settled: we bought a car (2006 Toyota Corolla hatchback with ~ 100K). Our car is a Japanese import (this is a very common thing in New Zealand) and when we start it it says something loudly in Japanese. It took me a while to notice, but every time it does this, Nico proudly says 'my car talks!'  We also moved into our house.  Here are some outdoor pics of our house.  Facing King St. Small deck with large driveway and rocky play area in front. Toyota Corolla is on left!          Facing the back. We have a garage and a yard shed. 99% of laundry gets hung up to dry here.    ...