Try to picture my surprise on my face when Bhav appeared on the entrance security camera on a very cold and wet Friday afternoon and told me we were going to the airport. It soon became obvious that everyone was in on it and before long we were sat in the airport waiting for our flight to Auckland. I wasn’t expecting much for my birthday and would gladly have settled on a weekend in Auckland but much more was to come.

I had my first birthday in Auckland where we had a great lunch cooked by Bhav’s mum in her new house. The strange thing about the International Date Line is that when travelling east you get the same day again. The Cook Islands, whilst only 4 hours away in a plane are essentially yesterday compared to New Zealand. We left in the evening of my birthday and arrived in the early morning of it. We spent my second birthday of the year (who says the Queen is the only one who gets two?!) on the south pacific island of Rarotonga; exploring the market and “Capital”, relaxing on the beach and snorkelling/swimming in the crystal clear water.

On our second day in paradise we flew to the coral atoll of Aitutaki, regarded by many as one of the most beautiful places in the world and has to a large extent avoided mass tourism. We rented a scooter to get around the island and fell off it on the first day. To explore the lagoon we rented a kayak and also enjoyed a cruise and snorkelling trip taken by Teking, a local tour operator.

We had a great time in the Cook Islands, one that came to an end all to quickly. We left on the 4th of June and arrived on the 6th. We might have had two 29th’s but we’re also in the bizarre position of having never had a Saturday 5th June 2010. Well worth the swap if you ask me.

Paradise

Fire Dancing, part of the cultural show we enjoyed one night over dinner purely by chance

The lagoon cruise

One of the many deserted tropical island paradises

This time we were catching groper, probably the largest fish we’ve seen and about 15kg in weight. We were only able to catch one or two each so as to not over fish them but considering we’ve still got fish in the deep freeze from the last trip and that we gave over half of our catch to friends we’re still doing well for a supply of food!

Our Catch

Bhav and her fish

Bhav reeling in her fish

The drive in itself was fun. We took the scenic route that locals apparently take stopping off to visit a cheese factory, drive through vineyards (and stop off for a free wine tasting) before watching people jump off an old bridge at the site where the “sport” of bungy jumping was invented.

We spent a day and a night in Queenstown, enjoying the spectacular scenery. Easter Weekend as might be expected is a busy time and the streets were packed with people. The queue at the cable car up one of the hills seemed long but moved quickly and we were soon at the top enjoying the views. We could have been up and down in the time it would have taken Bhav to climb up if she had stuck to her plan.

On the drive back towards Dunedin we took a detour to Arrowtown, a historic ex-gold mining town and then to another beautiful setting in Wanaka (which just so happened to be hosting the 4th largest Air Show in the world). After enjoying the view, which was occasionally punctuated with low flying aircraft, we set off on the long ride home.

Lake Wakatipu

Crazy person jumping from the worlds oldest bungy

To get to the vineyard we drove through “Bannockburn – Heart of the Desert”

Historic Arrowtown full of tourists. It felt a bit “wild west”

Lets get this out of the way early on, lakes in Scotland are usually called lochs but this one (which I’d always thought was the only lake in Scotland) is called a lake. It isn’t very deep and we were told in Geography at school that it is a kettle lake. It has three small islands, the most famous being Inchmahome, the location of a Priory where Mary Queen of Scots took refuge for a few weeks in 1547. I’ve been to Inchmahome Priory before as a kid and it is a local tourist attraction maintained by Historic Scotland who usually provide a boat service over to the island from the strangely titled Port of Menteith village.

The lake hasn’t frozen over since 1979 but when it does to a depth of at least 7 inches an outdoor curling tournament called The Bonspiel or the Grand Match is held on the loch. Unfortunately the event was cancelled but at least Dad and I got the opportunity to walk over to two of the islands, Inchmahome and the nearby Inch Talla with it’s ruins of a castle usually unreachable to the public.

It was a strange feeling to walk on the ice. Any concerns of it cracking were quickly allayed and throughout our time on the ice we saw some stable cracks but never heard any new ones. In places there was a covering of snow which made it easier to walk on without slipping and sliding around. We wore the wrong footwear though, we could have been over to the island in minutes if we’d brought ice skates.

The frozen lake

Mum and Dad standing on the ice

Approaching Inchmahome Island with the priory in front

A wall of the ruined castle on Inch Talla

Dunedin, Gaelic for Edinburgh has the rough road layout and all the familiar street names of its name sake, it has its own bagpiper that can often be found outside the Scottish Shop on George Street, Irn Bru, haggis and a variety of Scottish things can even be bought in the local supermarket, the tourists often taking pictures of the statue of Robert Burns in the centre of town. It all makes me feel very welcome and proud of my culture.

Bhav, my partner had enjoyed a ceilidh last year held during the festival and while we missed that this year we at least attended the opening ceremony, highland games and the St Andrews Day lunch.

Being on the opposite side of the world never felt more like home.

Me with the Mayor, Peter Chin at the Dunedin Highland Games

Mass pipers at the Highland Games

Growl (free) and OmniGrowl (free)

Growl (free) gives you notifications on your screen when something notable happens. It’s able to notify you of events that originate in other apps, like Firefox and with OmniGrowl (free) you can extend that functionality to notifying you of the weather, birthdays, flights arriving, etc.

Perian (free) and VLC (free, also for Windows/Linux/etc)

Perian is the Swiss army knife of video codecs. After you install, QuickTime Player will be able to playback almost any type of video. Simple. If what you’re trying to watch still doesn’t work, try VLC (free).

Dashboard Widgets (free)

If you don’t use the Dashboard you’re missing out on a lot. Simply by pressing a button on the keyboard you can view lots of information, make calculations, check cinema times, view weather info, snow reports and even tweet. Personally I use iStat Pro (free, shows you statistics on your computer like CPU and memory info), Twidget (free, allows you to tweet and view the tweets of people you follow), Currency Converter (free) and a handful of built in widgets Apple provide such as the calendar.

Adium (free)

iChat is great but with Adium you can send instant messages to users of: AIM, MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac), ICQ, XMPP (formerly known as Jabber), Google Talk, LiveJournal, MSN/Windows Live, Yahoo! Messenger, Bonjour, MySpaceIM, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Tencent QQ, Facebook Chat and a whole host more with plugins.

AppFresh (free)

Some apps tell you when they have software updates available but AppFresh will search your hard drive for applications and then check to see if you have the latest version. If there is an update it will even direct you to the correct page to download it.

AppTrap (free)

Trying out software on the Mac is great. To install you drag it to the Applications folder and to delete you simply drag it to the Trash. What isn’t as widely known is that programs leave behind preferences and other files. That’s where AppTrap comes in handy; drag the app to delete to the trash and it searches your hard drive for associated files then present a list where you can choose what to get rid of.

Cocktail (from USD $14.95)

Computers can be a bit like cars; from time to time you need to have them serviced to keep them in perfect working order. With Cocktail you can easily perform otherwise complex maintenance tasks outside of the remit of Apples otherwise excellent Disk Utility. Cocktail also allows you to customize look the look and feel of you computer and alter system settings.

BetterZip (USD $19.95)

With the advent of Mac OS X you could expand and compress files without the need of other software such as the classic Stuffit. The operating system can’t decompress everything though and occasionally you will still come across something a little more exotic than your standard Zip file. BetterZip has inherited StuffIt’s crown in my book with it’s easy to use interface and ability to handle zip, tar, gzip, bzip2, rar, 7-zip, cpio, sit and hqx archives.

So what is threadjungle? It’s an ecommerce platform where users can set up their own store to sell customised items without having to worry about inventory, order fulfilment, customer service, paying for an ecommerce website, etc; we’ll take care of all of that for them. Oh, and the best bit is to open up and run a store is free and always will be.

We’re (or should I say I’m) still in the process of writing the code but we already recruiting testers to open stores, our first being RetroKiwi. So unlike Twitter, we should actually have some money coming in!

We spent the majority of out time in Kota Kinabalu (KK to the locals) with Bhav’s Dad but visited Kuala Lumpur (KL, the capital) and Bhav’s extended family for a weekend too. I’ve never really been to KK before, my previous experience was getting a taxi from the international to domestic terminals before the recent building work. The city is quite spread out with a few hills separating residential parts. The waterfront area is the main location for tourists but even then KK isn’t a very attractive city and doesn’t have much in the way of tourist attractions. The Sabah Museum and Heritage Village is probably the main attraction. The museum is poorly laid out and quite dull but the heritage village outside is much better. Like its counterpart in Kuching, Sarawak (the other Malaysian state on the island of Borneo) the heritage village is a collection of buildings in the traditional style of the various tribal groups.

We enjoyed our time in Malaysia, and who knows, maybe it’ll be the next destination after New Zealand.

Me, Bhav and her Dad with KK behind us

Bhav and I at the Sabah State Museum and Heritage Village

Bhav on TV at the pretend studio in the Sabah Museum

The Heritage Village, Kota Kinabalu

The first morning we went out to Mission Bay for brunch, a beautiful drive to a really nice part of town. I also visited the Sky Tower (you can’t visit Auckland and not see the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, apparently), the War Memorial Museum, Devonport, Mount Victoria, New Market, my first kiwi bbq and One Tree Hill.

From Auckland it was on to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia via Brunei.

Auckland from Bastion Point

Bhav enjoying the trampoline

View from One Tree Hill

View from the Sky Tower, Auckland

The glass floor to the Sky Tower that is apparently as strong as concrete

Our detour to Brunei was only short but was our first taste of things to come; the food, the heat and the way of life. It’s funny how you fall so quickly back into things.

Kampong Ayer, Brunei

The Kampong Ayer Cultural & Tourism Gallery

Me eating a banana at the Kampong Ayer Cultural & Tourism Gallery