United Kingdom

We are currently sitting in our hostel in Munich, just off the flight that will see us start our 7 month odyssey through Europe, Egypt and the USA. And now we can finally take a deep breath from the insane last month we've had in the UK.

Rewind 3 weeks and we went down to Horton-on-Ribblesdale to tackle the 3 Peaks of Yorkshire. We were there with Rach’s cousin Carrie who is doing the 3 peaks of Britain and wanted a training run and some company.

The hike was 26 miles including 3 peaks, all around 700 m high each.

There was fog


There was bog

The challenge is to complete the route in under 12 hours but being the finely tuned athletes (FTA’s) that we are we got it done in 10hr 40min, stoked.

There were a few hiccups along the way, not to metion the fact that we had no accommodation when we got back from the hike as the hostel ‘misplaced’ our 2nd nights booking. Ah well Carrie laid down the law and got us a tent from one of the bar staff (which was much preferable to the plastic sheeted, snore city of a 16 bed dorm).

Rachel (small bladder shots)

The weekend that followed the Yorkshire 3 peaks and we had booked in a weekend of mountain biking with Mark and Sylvia (kiwi FTA’s from Edinburgh). So we packed up there car and went to the Scottish Borders to tackle 2 of the 7 Stanes mountain bike parks.

The trip was pretty cool, no major injuries (surprising since mark took a wee detour off the track in the Forest of Ae).

Come on Rach, Sylvia can do it, so can you.

It’s not what it looks like.

Finally on our last weekend before our big trip we took a mini break down to London as our first trip was not nearly long enough.

We visited the Natural History Museum,

Got lost on our way to the Design Museum

Saw a boat go under Tower Bridge, (note the ‘gherkin’ on the right)

Caught the Lion King on stage, which was AWESOME!!! (sorry no photos of the performance allowed), and yes Pam I knew all the words

Took in a street act, which was also awesome (but not capital letters awesome)

The audience member holding his arms out was freaked. He also jumped over 5 kids standing in a row but was too quick for me to get a good shot.

Rachel being arty

Between all this Rachel turned 26, and we had a leaving (but maybe coming back) party.

Birthday girl

Who said we had no friends.

Ps. Yes Rachel only owns one party dress.

On one of our rare weekends free, one of rach’s workmates (a dude from Chch) organized a hill climb up at Glen Lyon in the highlands. So after a 3hr drive on a Saturday morning, we drove through the glen, got to the loch and the start of the hike. So without much of a story here’s some photies of up and down again.

At the end of the loch was damn impressive dam (for the middle of nowhere)

Rach, looking down on those that couldn’t keep up with her blistering pace


Long story short, a Munro is any peak in Scotland which is over 3000 ft. And even thought our GPS’s said it was over the limit I had to make sure. Only to find out that the peak we were on wasn’t classed as a Munro as it wasn’t 500ft vertically clear of another peak.

So sorry rach, all that effort and all we got was a couple of stinky corbets

Ya canny get me ye harpie

Back down again

The biggest outdoor urinal cubical in the world

Ahh well, that was fun….. where the nearest pub then?

If you’ve managed to read all of the last 3 blogs……..well besides having nothing productive to do you should be right up to date with what me and Rachel have been up to since February.

Keep an eye on the site over the next month as we’re off to Greece and Turkey in a weeks time, so hopefully lots more sun kissed photos and tales of magical places outside of the bubble that is NZland.

And so started May, it was past daylight savings and it was actually starting to be light when I got home from work. On her way out of the country, Tracey (rach’s uni friend) was finally convinced to make a trip up to Scotland. And she decided to bring some warmth up from the south with her, nice.
It finally made it past 13 degrees (the high since mid November). The sun was shining and it was positively balmy.

We’re becoming pretty good at being tour guides for anyone coming to Edinburgh. Arthurs Seat, Botanic gardens, Castle, Dean village New and Old town ect. And so on what was the best day we’ve had in Edinburgh since arriving last year (over 20 deg, I even got a little blushed) we took Trace on Prier’s magic tour of Historic, Relevant and High Places in Edinburgh.

View from the top of Arthur’s Seat

West Princess St gardens


I just had to climb something


Standing on the seat

Under dean bridge

Catch that baby


Bluest skies in 13 moths

Just last weekend, (mid may) and we got to go down to Peebels in the Borders where the company I’m doing design for now were having there 25th year anniversary. We stayed in the Peebels Hydro, massive old building with heaps of facilities. But most importantly right next to Glentress (arguably the best mtb course in the uk).
So the Saturday started with a early morning ride round the red track. 2nd time on it for me as the boss and I had bunked work the previous Friday for a ride. There are hours of good trails here, only really compares to Rotoura’s tracks

Just laxed out that afternoon in the pool and spa, then got ready for the dinner and obligatory caliegh. Dinner was good, lamb… which I just kept pilling on my plate. Went down nice with the NZ savvy which I made the boss get as the table wine.

3rd Ceilidh so far in Scotland, im starting to get the hang of the dances, ahhh the gay gordons

There was also a pitch and put 9 hole on the grounds. Which I wrangled rach into 2 rounds of, as I wasn;t happy with my first 9. Rach was getting consistently better, just a shame her best shot sent her ball into the hedges.

Where’s that pitching iron gone

Come on rach your supposed to hit the ball not take pictures of it

I’ve been inundated of late with messages asking what rock I’ve been hiding under and if me and rach have actually been doing anything over here at all. Simple answer is yip, heaps but haven’t been able to put anything up as BT (British Telecom) are the worst service company in the world…ever.
But dinna worry we’re back online and got lots to say.

Since Paris in February we’ve been UK bound, just waiting for the winter to break. Edinburgh’s been pretty cold, not too much snow (mainly cause it’s to cold and windy for it to snow). But it’s not like us to let the weather get us down so we’ve been out and about over Scotland and England.

Over Easter we hired a car and went up to Aberfoyle (near Stirling) for a day trip to go on a high wire / ropes course.

As we were doing the mandatory training (this is a carbineer, don’t fall out of the trees ect) it starting snowing/hailing……….. good solid Scottish weather

Hmmmm, did I bring my gloves

Longest flying fox in the UK, it kinda just kept going

A sunny day in Stirlingshire

Nothing was really planned for April so we decided to do another Adventure race. A month of solid training 6 days a weeks running and biking leading up to race day. 6 hours of mountain biking, kayaking and running around the Peaks District near Manchester and Derbyshire (pronounced darby, we’re not at the trots).

The day wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the sunshine promised by the BBC and I was pretty keen to flag it altogether. But Rach wasn’t about to let me waste the training and money we’d spent to get there so on with the thermals and get on that bike.

We ended up coming 4th, just missed out on 3rd by 11 poins (should’ve dragged Rach up those hills a bit quicker). 30k’s bike, 13k run and a small but wavy and wet 800m kayak.

It stopped raining long enough for me to get a shot of the lake

A week or two after our race in englandshire the belatne fire festival was on in Edinburgh. A bunch of wannabe pagans dancing about with fire ‘bringing in’ the solstice. Im sure it would have come anyway (oh and most of them were naked).

So we met up with some friends at a city pub, had a few pints and walked up Carlton Hill. Where we proceeded to wait for 4 hours while, unbeknownst to us (and the rest of the crowd) the fire dancing and general paganess was happening on other parts of the hill. But not to worry, as many a good Scottish crowd has done before and will do again semi drunk people took to the stage a performed mock break dance battles and sumo fights.

Ohhhh ahh, drums and fire

The pagans eventually made it to the central stage, but it was kinda hard to take them seriously as there was a troop of Charlie Chaplin clowns in a brass band playing ‘Im the king of the swingers’ form Disney’s the jungle book. It dinna seem to fit.

Ahhh, scary red pagans dance around fire bird, make big noise.

So now for all of you who have been asking how our xmas and new years was this is for you. I know it’s a bit out of order (there is still 2 weeks of our European trip to go) but I thought I’d slip this in anyway.

Christmas was pretty low key, just me and Rach at home with our little tree. A leg of lamb and bottle of red for me and ample roast veggies for Rach.

On the 29th James F had come to stay with us for the new years break mainly in anticipation of the Edinburgh hogmany festival and since it was more of a holiday for him he wanted to go and see Glasgow for a day as well. Sweet I thought, we haven’t been there yet, what a good idea James. Well if you ever have the privilege of going to a city with Mr. Fletcher then ask him this question first. “James why do you want to go to ‘place x’ is it a) you want to walk around the city and see the sights (which I assumed) or b) do you want to go for a bit of a shopping trip. When we arrived I found out it was more of answer b). Ah well after a good few hours of James and Rach (who was loving the shopping trip) dragging me around different shops I put my foot down and made us walk out to the Glasgow Necropolis and all of the overindulgent graves and tombstones of the old Glaswegians.

Back in Edinburgh on New Years Eve Jasmine and a flat mate from Birmingham also came to stay for the festivities. This stated with a party at one of our mates places in the east end. I think they were a bit sick of the cold weather as the theme was a beach party, where if you wanted entry you had to dress up in beach attire.

ohh, nice face rach

From the beach party we headed out to the hogmany festival street party where we were greeted by another 300,000 new years revelers. Princess St was packed and what would have been a quick 5 min stroll to the middle of the st ended up taking 30min, all holding hands so we didn’t get lost in the crowd. It was a bit lame just standing there waiting for the countdown but once it got going and the fireworks started it was pretty cool.

aparently james forgot that we had left the beach party

why is james trying to lick me, i just don't know

It hadn’t been all that cold since arriving back in Edinburgh only 1-5 degrees compared to the negatives of central Europe, but after getting over the New Years celebrations the weather decided to take a bit of a turn. But not really in a bad way more of a nice snowy sunny way. So we decided to go for a bit of an ice skate in the festival grounds

come on james, you have to give up the beach theme, it's snow for heavans sake

Anyway that was our Xmas / New Years 07-08; low key gullton on the 25th, fooling Jamie into shopping trips in Glasgow, massive parties on new years eve and running about in the snow.