Brief update

well my nomadic ways are still continuing - everything I own is packed into my car and I am on my way down to Melbourne from Brisbane. I've decided to finally name my car "rustie" as in good ole' rust bucket - but it's treated me well thus far and hopefully will get me down there all good. I just hope it doesn't rain because when it does, it starts dripping and leaking on my foot and into the back seat - hmm...i really should get that fixed.

Anyway, am going to be in Melbourne until January, living it up in Brighton in my new place with Wai and two other guys who I am yet to meet, but I'm sure are all cool.

Coming soon: New zealand & Cuba, so keep on checking...

Lambs are cute...and tasty!

Arrived in Wellington on Friday night and was met in the airport by Uncle Ken and Aunty Laura, who took me back to the house we were staying, which they were using with a house exchange program. It's a pretty cool program where you exchange your homes with another family and you then get to use everything they have including the cars and even mobile phones. So we've always got this free place to crash at in Wellington and we can then use the cars to drive all around New Zealand.

Anyway, my first day there was pretty relaxed, but we then went out and met an old high school friend of AL's, Hui Pee, who has lived in Wellington for almost 20 yrs. Here's a picture of the three of them:

We did a tour of the parliament building and library, which was actually quite interesting - and free - ahh..the golden word. Hui Pee then let us know about the start of the tulip season at the botanical gardens, so we went to go check it out, which was really pretty.

We continued to walk around the gardens and up to the highest observatory point and looked out all over Wellington, which was really cool. It's a really beautiful city - based around this huge bay, with hills everywhere giving a lot of the houses hillside water views. Anyway we then went and had dinner at Hui Pee's house, which was really nice and they fed us this huge feast. So friendly.

Emily arrived the next morning and we went to go and pick her up. This is the first photo she took, which I thought was pretty funny - and so did she.

Translation for the british-speaking impaired: rubbish = trash ;)

Querida's Pie

This is a really top casserole pie we had in Kerikeri:






1 Chicken (cooked - flake flesh)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup milk
3 tbsp flour
4 tbsp butter
1 tin creamed corn
1 onion
mushrooms
1 capsicum
Salt & pepper



Put chicken into deep oven proof dish with lid. Add corn, mushrooms, onion and capsocum. Melt butter in pot and add flour then liquid (stock and milk) gradually.
stir with spoon till thick. season



TOPPING
3 slices bread crumbed
1/2 tsp mixed herbs
2 rashers bacon
2 tbsp butter



Crumb bread, add herbs and melted butter and chopped bacon. sprinkle over chicken.



Bake 3.4 hr @ 350F (180C).