Surfing in Lyall Bay

It's the end of my first full week out here and on Monday I have my first full day in work. I'm also in the midst of hunting for a flat (well a room to rent in a shared place).

I took a bus out to Lyall Bay today to check out the surfing. The waves were pretty small but clean and I caught a few nice ones in between sitting on my board in the sunshine. It was great to get back out on a board, even a pretty crappy rental mini-mal and it made me realise it's more than a year since my last waves.

Although it's never going to compete with the more serious surfing up the north of the island, I'm pretty happy to have this more or less on my new doorstep.

I only took a small camera along this afternoon, so I'm definitely hoping to get back there with my Nikon and new telephoto lens in the next couple of weeks. If I get any good shots I'll post them up here.

Surfers at Lyall Bay (27 Feb 2011)

Beach and surf at Lyall Bay (27 Feb 2011) 

Earthquake

This afternoon there was a major earthquake (6.2 on the Richter Scale) just outside Christchurch on the South Island. I didn't feel a tremor, although apparently it was strong enough to be felt up here in Wellington.

The news channels have been running rolling coverage and it's even become the top story on the BBC News website. The confirmed death toll has reached 65 and the damage and devastation is really severe. The emergency services are working flat out to rescue people who are still trapped with military support and international teams flying in to help.

It's a stark reminder that New Zealand sits on several fault lines and has experienced a number of deadly 'quakes over the years.

Anyone interested in more data can check out this website - http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/

For now my thoughts are with all the people affected by today's 'quake

Arriving in Wellington

I arrived in New Zealand on Friday morning, feeling about as good as can be expected after a 29 hour flight. Air New Zealand gets my vote for making the journey bearable, although they couldn't do anything about the soulless transit lounge at LAX.

Things have been going pretty smoothly so far. Some of my new team came out to the airport to meet me and to take me into the city to the apartment they are putting me up in for the first couple of weeks. The city was bathed  sunshine for the whole first weekend and I spent a lot of time wandering around getting a feel for the place and staving off jet lag.

It still hasn't really sunk in that I'm going to be living here for the next year. At the moment it just feels I'm here on holiday, albeit having seriously over-packed. I guess it will start to feel more real when I begin work next Monday. Until then I'll enjoy having no responsibilities and getting to know Welly.

I've been in to my new office - the Ministry of Education - twice since I arrived to meet the team I'm working with and sit down for an initial chat with my manager. It seems a really friendly atmosphere and from the little I know about my role it should be interesting work.

I'm setting up this blog as a place to share some highlights of the year ahead with my friends and family and to save their inboxes from long 'time of my life' emails. It remains to be seen how often, if at all, I'm going to remember to post here. I expect I'll also post about other things as and when they catch my attention.