Not just playing possum

The Norwegians have all been identified and vengeance will be ours! It's just a shame they didn't shoot possums instead: then, they'd have been heroes. Nasty things, eating eggs and baby birds, and killing the trees - the only good possum is a dead one, like this one run over on the bridge leading to Waitangi in the Bay of Islands.

Another animal in the news today: a dog discovered alive and well after 16 days adrift on a yacht, with no sign of the owner. There seems an obvious conclusion, but no-one's voicing it yet. The yacht was blown all the way to the Chatham Islands from near Tauranga, and was found with shredded sails but everything else intact.

The last time I went sailing was almost exactly two years ago at Easter in the Bay of Islands, when we took our German exchange student to see one of NZ's best bits. It was the R. Tucker Thompson, a schooner, and we had a lovely day under sail around the bay, stopping for a swim, when the wusses climbed down the ladder into a dinghy to go to the beach while we intrepid types swung out over the water on the end of a rope to have a moment's glorious soaring before the big splash. We were also allowed to climb right up the rigging to where it gets complicated and the ship looks very small down below. Less adventurous but still fun was perching out on the bowsprit where the crew brought us scones with jam and cream. Yum!

Norwegian Blue

Not a good time to be a Norwegian in New Zealand: a YouTube video's made the news, of five young men from there hunting here and not just shooting out-of-season birds and animals, but protected native species, like the woodpigeon, or kereru above. Bastards. They look so pleased with themselves on the video, dangling a wallaby by the tail, holding a dead tahr up by the head, taking aim at a sitting pigeon - as if anyone, anyone, couldn't shoot a woodpigeon on a branch, great fat things that they are. I once walked right up to one that had been feeding on berries on a bush: it was too full to fly away; and this one regularly hung about just above the deck of the bach we used to rent on Waiheke Island.

I hope they catch them and nail them; and the locals here, like the helicopter pilot, who helped them. The authorities in Norway are appalled and apologetic, too, and starting an investigation - unlike Germany when some of their ratbags tried smuggling geckos out of the country in their underwear and in their luggage to sell for around $10,000 each.

I liked Norway, when we went there years and years ago. It was in July, and I remember that it was light when we went to bed in our hotel in Oslo - and light again? or still? when we got up in the morning. The city's on a fjord (shallower than Milford) and we found it really expensive and, though pretty, not quite as appealing as Stockholm; but it had a fascinating Resistance Museum with a radio receiver made out of a set of false teeth; and another with a great collection of Viking ships - as you would expect. In fact, there was a whole cluster of well-presented museums and, as we wandered around the city, many clusters of other things as well: I've never seen so many full frontal bronze nudes in my life.