Scorchio!

Another sunny Sunday, hooray, so I had a second go at having my first swim of the year - much more successfully this time. And it was easy: ferry to Waiheke Island, bus to Palm Beach, bake in the sun for a bit and then straight into the sea - past the oh!-zone and flop ahh! into the water. Perfect. Lots of warm bits to find, floating, only the occasional big wave, and all around blue sky, white boats, green hills and biscuity beach.

Waiheke's such a lovely place, and not just because it's been our family summer holiday place for years: it's so quick to get to, only 45 minutes with the detour to Devonport, and yet it feels miles away from the city. The sign above, at the car ferry jetty, sums it up: Waiheke is all about winding down, looking around and enjoying the moment.

And there are few moments better than hot, crisp salty chips with marty sauce and a cold beer, seagulls swooping overhead, kids busy digging holes in the sand, teenagers being self-consciously laid-back, old people titupping over the hot sand with bare feet, and nothing to do all afternoon except get hot again and go for another cooling dip. I could perhaps have done without the group of gorgeous Latinos parading their perfect young bodies in front of us, but that's just being picky.

And then afterwards, bus and ferry and car home again with salty skin, sandy feet, stiff tousled hair and a faint glow of sunburn, and total relaxation. All that was missing was the orcas.

That extra inch makes all the difference

Story in the news today about a man in the Nelson area who last night set about a campervan with a machete, and then tried to set fire to it, to the horror of the couple cowering inside it. It was, even making allowances for its battered and blackened condition in the report, a particularly ugly home-made campervan - but all the same, that was rather an OTT reaction on the part of the attacker. (Apparently it was blocking his view, and the recent criticisms of freedom campers by the general public were just grist to his mill.)

Campervans get an unfair press. They do look dorky, it can't be denied, especially the pop-top ones when their tops are, er, popped: it totally destroys the proportions. They're like those frogs that can inflate their throat pouches to huge balloons. Or frigate birds, ditto. And it is highly irritating to get stuck behind one on a winding road, as it grinds along so slowly.

But when you're in one, they can be kind of fun, especially when you take it off road, lock the hubs and do a bit of 4WDing through creeks where the water comes up to the top of the wheel arches and where, if you did get stuck, you'd have to risk a croc encounter if you got out and waded.

We spent a week trundling through the Northern Territory in our own little convoy, and it was an unexpected pleasure, even if we did once get a flattie. Pete and James came over all macho and lay in the dust to change the wheel, scraping away the soil when the jack wasn't cranked high enough. "I need another inch," Pete said to James. "I've been told that before," James replied.

Natural balance

The floodwaters in Rockhampton are currently hovering just below the 9.4m that's been predicted, which would put 400 houses under water. The Fitzroy River was very well-behaved when we were there in April, gliding smoothly between its green and shady banks.

We walked along Quay Street under palm trees crowded with rowdy roosting birds, past pretty painted 1890s buildings including the grand Customs House with its pillars and dome: a mini cathedral. At the Heritage Hotel, a fine 3-storey building, its layers of intricate wrought-iron along the verandas making it look like a wedding cake, we sighed over super-tender wagyu beef on a truffle potato mash. The food was so good we happily tolerated the four - count them, four - separate hen parties in the restaurant. Shrill, shrieking, baring startling expanses of ample flesh: these girls could take on their equivalents in Essex or Glasgow and hold their own, no problem.

They were each celebrating the lassooing of another of Rocky's cowboys: this is Queensland's cattle capital, and around the town are six life-sized statues of the favoured breeds — Brahman, Droughtmaster, Santa Gertrudis and others — but even if you miss the concrete cows, the hats, boots and belt-buckles of the locals are a dead giveaway.

All of that will be underwater now, apart from the cattle statues. They'll be standing above the water, much as the real thing will be in the back country, marooned on shrinking islands and surrounded without doubt by marauding crocodiles eyeing up an easy meal.

Croc-hunting was banned 30 years ago when numbers shrank to near-extinction levels, but now there are so many there are calls to introduce it again. I was walking along the Katherine River in the NT one night after a croc-spotting picnic when the guide darted to the water's edge and kicked a cane toad away from a freshie that was just about to snaffle it. "Poisonous: it would have killed the croc," he said. Shame they can't keep each other in check, eh?

When festivals collide...

And it's not even Twelfth Night yet.

Eight legs bad, no legs worse

It must be impossible for Central Queenslanders to imagine playing with water at the moment. When we were there in April, it was hot and dry and their earlier heavy rains were forgotten as they settled in to enjoy their sweltering summer. At the Caves A&P show along the road from Rockhampton, there were camel rides, Brahman cattle dozing in their pens in the shade, horses shiny with grooming and sweat zipping round the jumping course in the main ring, and lots of people cheerful and chattering in the bar.

Now, Rocky has - just - been cut off by the floodwaters that have been working their way down the Fitzroy River from inland where they've had quite incredibly massive flooding: an area larger than the UK and France put together. Of course, Queensland is such a huge state that there are still plenty of people with dry feet - but for the areas concerned, it's literally a disaster. More than 200,000 people are affected and 20 towns inundated, and the bad news is that there's more heavy rain on the way.

Apart from the heartbreaking destruction and damage to homes and infrastructure, the prospect for some of months away from their houses, and for others the certainty of weeks and weeks of hard work to clean theirs, in Queensland they have the extra unwelcome consideration of the likelihood of unwanted visitors moving in to escape the water: spiders and nasties with six legs and, worse, those with none at all. Imagine how fraught it's going to be when people are eventually allowed to move back home to deal with the mud and smell and dampness, all the while looking out for venomous snakes that might have tucked themselves away anywhere in the house.

Doggone it!

Another scorcher today, so off forthwith to the beach with picnic and dog. Except that it turns out that dogs are PNG (that would be persona non grata, not Papua New Guinea) on East Coast beaches in the middle of the day - ie just when fur coats are at their most unbearable - so we had to drive past miles of sparkling sea, wide sandy expanses and shady green reserves and end up, still illegally, at a muddy river mouth.

We thought we could get away with our inoffensive old Labrador and boxed-up leftovers as it was deserted when we got there: tide out, so the boaties gone for the duration, and no-one else around except for a couple of depressed-looking blue herons by the water's edge. That was before the procession began of lovely horses squelching down to the water to splash through to the other side and a bouncy canter along to the point; and the trail bikes that did a few messy donuts before, thankfully, departing again; and the walkers manfully wading through the river; and the helicopter clattering over...

But it was still very pleasant to sit in the shade of a pohutukawa and look out to sea (even if the foreground was mudflats and mangroves) and eat our nice food and tut over how sedate the old dog is these days. I would have liked to swim, though - or, even better, go for a ride myself. I hope there'll be more horses for me this year: that's something to work on.

Calendar

I've just put together the photos for this year's calendar, and though I've done a lot of tutting over the ones that didn't come out as they should have, it's been lovely to revisit some of last year's destinations.

I'm looking forward to what this year will bring: first off will be Tasmania, for the third time. That's where I went on my first ever assignment, which would make me look on it fondly even if it weren't such an interesting and beautiful place. People always say, "But isn't it very like NZ?" - and in places it is, but there are plenty of differences, too: the violent and dramatic history, the fabulous stonework in the towns and bridges, and most of all the swarming wildlife. Wombats, devils, quolls, bettongs... brilliant.

Then there'll be Great Barrier Island, which I can see from here (well, from up on the top road) but have never visited before. And then the UK again, with the whole family this time: that'll be an event. And hopefully Western Australia for the whale sharks; and who knows what else may come my way - or that I'll think to ask for? I love this job.