A bit distracted...in New Zealand, still

Top 10 fave South Island moments from the final week of my Antipodean adventure:

1. Discovering - or rather being cornered into appreciating - the wonder of backbacker lodgings. The Black Sheep in Queenstown is highly recommended.


2. The old gold mining village of Arrowtown, home to a deli selling the greatest (and largest) ice creams on the planet. A legendary eyes-bigger-than-belly moment when one scoop would surely have sufficed


3. Almost getting swept down river whilst half-heartedly panning for gold. Without a pan. Jane found the most microscopic fleck of gold so we called it a successful day


4. Discovering the best thai restaurant in the southern hemisphere (IMHO!), @Thai in Queenstown


5. Home made hash browns in Wanaka


6. A tankard of Speight's Summit Ale, supped with a perfect view over Mount Cook in the afternoon sunshine


7. Sea kayaking on a glacial lake at the base of Mt Cook (or the mountain next door to it) - the pure mountain mineral water tasted amazing, and the sound of the glacier moving was pretty spooky actually


8. The Te Huringa (Turning Points) exhibition of New Zealand art, particularly around colonisation and the preservation/dilution of Maori heritage


9. Quad biking in Hamner Springs - the tiniest town with the largest fun-quota per square inch. And 7km from Rotherham!


10. Soaking the aches and pains from quad biking in the Hamner Springs spa pools. Still not sure why sulpher and mineral pools are good for you though, as they smell pretty bad

Three weeks on, the thought of returning to work is pretty remote. I have resolved to cut down on shoe and pedicure expenditure in order to fund a return visit at the earliest opportunity. Although that resolve will probably last as long as my tan (honestly, I have one - there are lines to prove it!) and the stash of wine I brought back with me.

A bit distracted...in New Zealand

After the excitement of Sydney, it was time for a change of pace. From city living to the great outdoors...and there is plenty of that in New Zealand!

Once I got over the change in weather (there seems to be a new weather front passing every hour on the hour!) it was time to explore.

Ten amazing moments from a week in the North Island:

1. Seeing my best mate Jane after at least two years on different continents!
2. Swimming round the peninsular at Cathedral Cove on our weekend road trip around the Coromandel
3. Trying to stay upright and keep sand out of our bikini bottoms while digging pools on Hot Water Beach
4. Wine tasting tour on Waiheke Island, a 45-min ferry ride out of Auckland but a world away from city life
5. The lip-smackingly tasty Chardonnay from Mudbrick Vineyard!
6. Finding the Maori 'Talisman of Rango' (the god of the kumara...otherwise known as the sweet potato!) in One Tree Hill parkland in Auckland
7. Enjoying beer actually brewed on site in a pub in Newmarket, Auckland
8. Rotorua Museum - a brilliant and entertaining display of the town and spa's history
9. A relaxing mud wrap with a view to die for across Lake Rotorua at the Polynesian Spa
10. NZ Riverjet safari up the Waikato River - a beautiful day, a rather hot tour guide and stunning, stunning scenery...as well as a few jetboat stunts on the way back. Amazing.

A bit distracted in....Sydney

It's impossible to start this blog posting without sounding terriblly smug! But here goes...

I've just spent an amazing week in Sydney. One of my favourite cities in the world. Here's a quick run down of my top 10 Aussie moments:

1. Wine tasting in Hunter Valley...especially the Shiraz Mourvede from Margan's vineyard
2. Jumping the waves at Bondi Beach
3. The fantastic Yinka Shonibare MBE exhibition at the MCA
4. Rokit Gallery in The Rocks for 1930's jewellery - a treasure trove!
5. Mr Scruffs at Hyde Park Barracks. Becs is a newly converted fan!
6. Veg and cheese pie at Harry's Cafe de Wheels
7. The sparkling Tessarella handmade jewellery shop in Paddington - another treasure trove!
8. A refreshing swim in MacCallum's pool on Cremorne Point - an outdoor, sea water-filled pool with a view across to the Sydney skyline
9. Discovering more of Sydney with a Bounce tour on the hottest day of the year
10. ...last but not least, catching up with old (er...not SO old!) friends and having a truly fabulous time

Arrived in NZ on Friday so more adventures to follow.

xx

You can take the girl out of tech...

After many years as a thorough-bred tech PR chic, it's often a surprise to the system to be talking to clients and prospects from theme park operators ("it's a theme park with a mall, rather than a mall with a theme park...do you see?" Er yeeees) to property developers ("we do big iconic building" Uhu), and shipping companies to fashion shows.


That just covers conversations so far this week.

Proudly I still show my techy roots at every occasion, however. Such as this morning when I was blindly distracted from articles of prospective IPOs, plummeting global stock markets and Um Al Quaimm Sheikhs passing away by an article listing 7 reasons why Linux will succeed in 2009.

Now, I seem to recall being a young Account Executive in London confidently pitching 10 reasons why Linux will succeed in 2003. Does that mean there are three fewer reasons for this breed of technology to succeed six years later? Or has it already knocked it's competitors out of the water on three fronts in a six-year battle, with just seven remaining...thereby suggesting that open source technology will finally rule the computing waves in, um, 2023.

So much for innovation in PR and the newsroom. Come on folks - we can do better than that!

Has 2009 started yet?

So I woke up on this the first day of 2009 sharing a bed that wasn't my own with another woman, sporting a three-tequila headache from just two glasses of wine and wondering when I became the person that brings homemade food to parties (voluntarily!).

A bizarre start to the New Year indeed. Especially the bit about barely having anything to drink.

The hangover was fortunately quick to pass so I headed for the shops as planned and promptly seemed to completely forget that today is New Years' Day. The reason I mention this is that it made me realise why time seems to pass so quickly in Dubai. And believe me - 2008 totally shot by!

As the city and it's drive-fast, party-hard residents dash from one event, holiday, launch or celebration to another there is noticeably very little build up to savour. Events take place and then are tidied up overnight like nothing ever happened. Everything is a mad dash to make it the most spectacular, most fabulous, most bling and biggest, highest, shiniest thing ever...yet the overall experience is like the fireworks so much loved in the UAE - over in a flash. There seems to be a cultural adversity to planning over a longer term, taking time to enjoy the journey rather than dashing head-long to the destination.

Now I'm not exactly blessed with a lot of patience, but I have to admit the pleasure of the traditional build up to a family Christmas, or the anticipation of planning for a holiday. And as much as I approach New Year celebrations with trepidation, it's still nice to fully acknowledge the end and start of another annum.

With New Year plans already muted on order of the Sheikh, and fog blanketing Dubai like a muffler (just in case anyone did break ranks and ring in 2009 with a party popper or two), I was actually quite glad of this morning's disproportionately large headache if only as a brief reminder that something had been celebrated the night before.

Happy New Year!