Bloody oaf

Biddy and I looked at each other as he said this. We thought we were having a lovely conversation with this guy from Wellington as we cooked together at the Castlepoint campsite and then he comes out with this "Bloody Oaf". Had we inadvertently offended him?

Seeing our awkward glances he realised we were foreigners (there's a lot of them here in NZ. So much so that one of the normal greetings from anyone here seems to be "Which country are you from?"). Anyway, his wife translated for us. "Oh, bloody oaf just means, 'yep, sure, definitely'. It's obvious isn't it.

Actually we've been more struck by another totally foreign language the Kiwis speak. It's a little like American, though stronger. The best way of describing it is "positive". Everything is positive and the sun is shining (even when it isn't....and it definitely wasn't as we waded through a tidal estuary on the Abel Tasmin 'tramp' (i.e. walk...) at 6am this morning in the Abel Tasmin national park. Ass an example....Biddy was corrected at lunchtime today by the kayak instructor. "No, the weather's not bad....it's just raining". See what I mean. Let's hope I can take just a little bit of this new language , "positinglish" back to the UK when I return to counter the cycnicism and negativity that I realise is so prevalent.

So...what have we been doing, I hear some of you mutter. Well a bit of kayaking and walking in the Abel Tasmin nathional park in the north end of South Island. We drifted into a huge flock of shearwater (look that one up in Wikipedia if you've no idea what I am talking about) , paused in the two day kayak trip to watch New Zealand fur seals frolicking in the surf and marvelled at the Australasian gannet diving for fish yards from the kayak.

We stayed in lovely bunk house huts along the way, visited empty beaches with no road or track to them.

Oh....and to my great delight because it's on a 'list' of things I must see before I die, we spied sperm whales off Kiakoura earlier this week.

Am I enhoying myself? Is this good. Yep, or "sweet as" as they say in New Zealand.

No worries mate.