Recovered from the interview this morning – or rather the alcohol induced after effects!

Just as well, as the day was a bit blowy and wet…….

Still up fairly early this morning despite being up until 3am last night, mainly to finish off the security clearance form and get a little bit more info on how the NZDF works.

Left in plenty of time, and got to the interview 10 mins before I was supposed to be there – cool!

Not so cool, the panel decided to have a comfort break and coffee stop after their previous interview. So I ended up waiting for 20 mins, not too bad though and at least the security guard showed me where the water was!

The panel was two male “geeks” and a female HR specialist. I think somebody mentioned that the two “geeks” had flown down from Auckland that morning. (Note. I’m allowed to call a geek a geek, trade professional and all that, takes one to know one etc)

I’m fairly sure the two geeks hadn’t done their Interviewing Techniques course (if there is an NZ equivalent)! After a fairly short “Hi how are you”, the interview launched into a question set that would have seen the combined efforts of Dave Proctor and Dave Aspden (Microsoft consultants often visiting St Athan) scratching their chins! It made the HR questions from the female panel member quite refreshing!

I should have spent some time brushing up on my IT skills too – there were FSMO, Exchange processes, Exchange server “How many networks should you have for Exchange clustering and kindly explain the difference between active/active and active/passive clustering?” to “Explain exactly what happens to an e-mail through after it leaves the users desktop – ie. transaction logs, writing to the database, where does it go from there through which strand of the network cable etc……..”, general Microsoft “Can you quote the difference” and network questions. Struggled in a couple of places as my memory seems to have faded a bit over the last two months – that’s what you get for not working on IT I suppose……….or, it could just be the NZ sun, much more than I’m used to in the UK! On the bright side, I nailed the HR questions!

The interview was due to last from 2.30pm – 4pm. I ended up outside looking for Louise (she’d been shopping and drinking coffee to wait for me) about 5.15pm!! No wonder I was thirsty and a little hoarse -hoarse not horse, its not like I grew an extra set of legs and a long neck and nose under the pressure of the interview….. or indeed a tail, obviously!

When I got back I had a few swift rum n cokes, it was quite a gruelling interview. Louise told me afterwards that I fell asleep about 9.30pm….

Got a phone call this morning from Ellen at New Zealand Defence Force – calling me forward for an interview at 2pm on Tue 9 Feb for both a senior and junior systems engineer. She told me that she’d e-mail me the details later in the day.

Well, the e-mail didn’t turn up until about 4pm, although I had spent the day researching the NZDF. Lo and behold, that’s not all that turned up! Attached were two forms, one easy one – police background check – and one not so easy 16 page security clearance form! I was up until about 3am filling out the security form – I didn’t have all the referee details I needed and was e-mailing 4 people (plus a few backups in case the ones I chose weren’t good enough!)!

Apart from stopping for some tea, not much else going on at all today – can’t imagine why!

We chatted yesterday about where Louise would like to try next on a ride out. We’re both well aware of the differences to biking on the roads here compared to the UK. However, there is certainly a lot less traffic!

Louise decided that she’d like to have a try at Wellington – to experience city traffic. Surely Sunday would be a quiet day…as it turns out, no, Sunday is not a “quiet” day in the city! But good fun anyway.

We had looked up motorway riding in the Road Code, for some reason we’d both come to the conclusion that learners couldn’t ride on motorways a la the UK motorways. I looked up a couple of websites too and couldn’t find anything. Although a lot of bikers had mused that the L plate is a target on the roads, and either left them off or ignored the rules. Not too different to many Kiwi motorists there then! The L plate here is slightly different to the UK, in that its yellow! After that, there’s not really that much you can do with an “L”!

We had looked at the non-motorway roads to get to Wellington, but decided that they had their own issues too – steep hills etc. So we decided to go for it. By now, we had also decided that travelling at 80 km/h, instead of the legal 70 km/h, was a lot safer in traffic. A lot of the towns and minor roads are 50 or 80 km/h limits and you get a lot less hassle from drivers, trying to get past, at 80 than you do at 70! It also seems to be a matter the police are willing to ignore as they don’t agree with the 70 limit either – as we said, its actually dangerous to “slow” the traffic. Having said that, so far we’ve been quite lucky in that a lot of drivers give loads of space to Louise as a learner – long may that continue!

We went straight into Wellington, though we did get off the motorway at Ngauranga (the g is silent evidently, so pronounced as Nauranga) and took the Hutt Rd into the city. After many traffic lights and junctions, we stopped by the side of Wellington Motorcycles for a coffee, louise having done really well on the busy roads and junctions!

We then headed off towards the airport, turning off just before to go to Miramar. Although we’d been to the Weta Cave (the company responsible for Lord of the Rings scenery, models etc) before, I thought it would be lovely to visit again.

I was going to take us over to Lyall Bay, but the grey clouds were gathering that way. So, instead we went across to Seatoun for a quick drink and a loo stop for me. Then followed the headland around back to Wellington City.

I couldn’t remember the way up to Mt Victoria – the easy way that is. We still found a way up, but I think Louise would have preferred not to take it, in hindsight. Whoops! It was fairly steep an narrow I have to say…..but the view at the top is definitely worth the trip.

Found the easy way up after all, but only on the way down

A coffee was definitely on the cards, and Louise suggested the cafe in Petone that we went to after her bike training day. Good choice, although the waitress we’d met last time was hobbling after a fall……didn’t stop her asking for a ride on the VSTROM though…….

Back home via Pauatahanui, and very surprisingly Louise wanted to try out Battle Hill! And very well she did too, taking it real slow on the way back down!

Turned out to be quite a long day after all, and certainly a lot further than originally intended!

Total mileage 150km (approx 94 miles)

Sunny day out on the deck today, reading books and drinking wine – maybe a bike ride wouldn’t be too good an idea!

Lie-in this morning, recovering from the bike ride. It was quite exhausting surprisingly!

Checked e-mails at lunchtime, found a facebook mail from Keith – something about St Athan now being back in Inc 3a DII. For those that don’t know what that’s about, it’s not good! It also means that if I have to go back to UK to work for a few years, I’ll be working for the Atlas consortium (presuming I get a job back at St Athan) and in particular for Fujitsu – that could be useful I suppose, if they let me transfer over to NZ ! I’ll wait and see the letter they’ve sent out to current workers at St Athan – assuming that they remember me of course. I wouldn’t be too surprised if I was left off the list!

Massive notes update for blog. I really should get up to being only a few days behind!

Popped up to Waikanae Beach and back along the coast road by Paraparam Beach on the bikes. Nice windy slow stuff for Louise to get used to!

Spent the day looking for and applying for jobs.

The Kapiti Coast Thursday Night Cruise (advertised on the Kiwi Bikers website) sounded like something out of the movie Wild Hogs – all middle-aged men seeking a bit of “sedate adventure” on the open road……To quote the NZ Tui (a local brew) advert….Yeah Right!!

More like Mad Max on a chase through all the local New Zealand roads you’d prefer to do with your eyes closed, given the choice!!

On the positive side, my VSTROM performed like I never knew it could, out pulling the majority of the race bikes going up the mountain climbs and easily keeping up on the odd 100 yd straight and flat bits!! And all the other bikes were single riders, whereas we were two up!!…

Who needs a bungy jump for an adrenaline rush!!

We went over Battle Hill and down into Pauatahanui to pick up another biker. Over to the Hutt Valley to pick up another and then up over the Rimatuka and down into Featherston for a drink at the Royal Hotel – and for me and Louise a bit of a recovery!

Back over the Rimatuka to the Hutt Valley, but this time taking a “shortcut” over Moonshine Road towards Pauatahanui – single lane bendy road! Then another rapid climb over Battle Hill before dispersing at the top to go home.

I need to get my bike looked at – the speedo appears to be reading incorrectly! Everyone else’s seemed to be reading 100 km/h, whereas mine was obviously incorrectly reading between 10 and 40 km/h above that!! I’ve also noticed that the front tyre appears to be a little “flighty” when pulling away at speed uphill – not sure I can do much about that other than improve my balance. There doesn’t appear to be anything mechanically wrong with the bike – strange……

Louise went off to PaknSave to do some shopping, or so I thought!

She came back and asked if I could be ready to leave the house n the next 45 mins……mmmm……

She had arranged “something”. She drove me into Paraparam, and then turned off onto a dirt track next to the airfield where she spilt the beans. As an early birthday surprise, I was going on a glider experience trip!

Bob the Builder turned into Bob the Pilot for the day, an American who prefers the sunny Kapiti Coast to a very wet, windy and cold Pennsylvania at this time of the year. Cheryl, the visitor who had been attracted to Bob’s online presence in America, Jason the tow pilot and Alex the “Gofer” – friendly bunch!

Lovely trip! I was in the air for 30-40 mins, and Bob let me do the flying for about 15-20 mins. We got up to approx 5000ft @ 160-180 knots. We flew over the Paraparam/Raumati area, over Transmission Gully and Battle Hill Rd to the South, back over Valley Rd, up to the Akatarawa road in Waikanae and then halfway out to Kapiti Island before coming back in for a few circuits around Paraparam.

We got back to the house to get ready for a bike ride, but before we left Fujitsu called to get a bit more info on me and my situation – Cool, crossed fingers there then!

We thought we’d pop up to Otaki for a coffee to give Louise a bit longer out on the bike. We did that and more as we then doubled back and rode down to Plimmerton on the SH1, then around the lake at Paremata to Pauatahanui.

While we’d pulled over at Pauatahnui for a break, another biker pulled over to check we were ok. He turned out to be from Paraparam – another Bob. He told us about the Kapiti Coast rideouts on thursday evenings and invited us along.

Back home for a takeout!

Mileage 122km (approx 76 miles)

Lovely day today!

Louise spent a lot of the day cleaning and polishing her new bike, and admittedly washing the car too! Bless! During the odd break I did look longingly at the bug spattered front of my bike, but to no avail, they wouldn’t come off without some physical input!

The reason I didn’t follow suit was of course because I was doing job applications all day with an updated CV….

Both Road Coded out this morning!

Off to Super Cheap Autos first thing this morning, it’s a lot like Halfords really. We haven’t been to Repco yet, but I’m guessing it must be quite similar. We needed to get chain lube for the bikes, but ended up with some polish and cleaning stuff too and even found some discounted bike covers for when its raining and we don’t use the bikes.

Louise popped into Briscoes, but I stopped in the car, she was looking for a replacement quilt cover set that had just gone on offer today – save washing, drying and ironing the spare bed in a day

We pulled up at the AA office in Paraparam and booked Louise in for a bike theory test, 45 minutes later. She had her photo taken, signature electronically, eye test and application form ($79 test fee and licence application) while I popped around the corner to get a coffee to steady her nerves. While she took her test, I picked up some AA freebies to look at places to go….

35 questions on the NZ road code – Louise PASSED with 35 out of 35!! Not sure I’d have been that confident for me, but, she’s legal now! She handed in her 1 week old new licence and got a temp paper one again, and then registered ownership of her bike ($10).

We drove down to Paraparam Beach for a celebratory coffee.

Got home, me with a headache – too much caffeine I think LOL. Louise was grateful as that meant she didn’t HAVE TO go out on her bike – still suffering from nerves after last Saturdays marathon session!

Louise sorted out her insurance – a grand total of about £90 in the end!!

I grabbed some Panadol, and lo and behold no headache 10 mins later, so I told Louise we were going out on the bikes to get her confidence back. She was a bit nervous but got togged up anyway.

We started off just going to the end of the drive and to the beach access (this alone resulted in a cold sweat as the memories of Saturday came back to Louise) and then going for a couple of turns around the block. We hadn’t filled up the bike with fuel when we brought it back from Waiouru (or rather, I hadn’t) so we popped into Paraparam Beach to fill up, along with a lesson for Louise as she did it herself. We then popped down the road from the garage for a rest and recuperate. Sweaty back syndrome still in evidence.

Louise was feeling a little bit more confident by now, and we decided to pop up the coast to Waikanae and back – about 10 mins there and 10 mins back again. We ended up having a quick break on the beach.

I’d taken some frozen chicken out of the freezer this morning, and left it out to defrost – no issues, it was still mostly frozen when we got back. However, the NZ life-form Cat came in through the door with us, sussed the chicken smell and nearly ran off with the chicken!! Reminds me of the Christmas Turkey and Blob (Louise’s cat now ensconced happily in Torquay) and Missy-Moo (Louise’s other cat now also ensconced happily in Torquay) and the gravy episodes over Christmas 2008. Blob took a chunk out of the turkey while we weren’t looking, and Missy-Moo left a tongue sized hole in the gravy saucepan while our backs were turned!

Hang on, CHICKEN for tea!! Without going to KFC – we must have spent the weeks housekeeping then!