davetapson

Also, damn, but rivers with algal blooms due to nitrogen run-off is pretty low down the scale when you compare to elsewhere. The Vaal is pretty toxic, and not with N run-off, and the the big rivers running in to the sea on the E Coast of SA are just thick with topsoil - which is sending your future out to sea not to mention more horrible kinds of e. coli etc than one would care to know about.. https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/sep/05/author-loses-leg-in-lagoon This I know about because we had a holiday home just up from there. I used to hate my kids playing in the lagoon at Southbroom etc because of things like this, and as a kid my brother and I got some form of 'food poisoning' from a lagoon in the Transkei that nearly put us in hospital, so been there, done that. There's not much going on in NZ, so they can afford to get uptight about things that most other nations wouldn't much notice. Which is not to say the N issue is nothing, but a sense of perspective is required.

We went and found the rivers affected by agricultural runoff and - they had agricultural pollutants!! (While showing pics of pristine rivers as we set this up to make you think those are the ones that are affected.) Yeah, needs to be looked at, looks like they are looking at them. Also personally I find the 'us Maori are one with the land' thing a bit hard to swallow when you go and see just how denuded of ANYTHING traditional Maori coastlines are. Once the rocks are completely bare they institute a rahui. When I see the rahui's instituted before that stage, and in Marine Reserves, I'll possibly be a little less cynical. At least in the Transkei there is at least some seaweed and the odd critter (although that's not exactly good either.)

Pretty amazing... https://www.shpg.co.nz/

Speaking of EVs, just saw this comment on a local FB page where a guy had seen a Rivian (EV truck) being inspected at the airport: Everyone is bagging the **** out of these but they actually blitz any ute on the market... 5 tonne towing capacity (would be more if they were heavier), 0-100 in under 5 seconds, heaps of cargo space, the biggest batteries can get over 700km per charge... and at $75,000 USD ($105,000) NZD pretty similar to a land cruiser which plenty of farmers run...and one of the coolest specs is the Tank-turn Before anyone has a whinge too, I’m an agricultural contractor and ex-farmer, I think we just needed someone to be the first to get one in NZ so hats off to whoever has bought this one So, I'm already jealous....

Yeah, this is the fear. But what if the opposite happens - now that it is actually possible to cycle to the city, people actually will? I don't work there, so it's moot for me, but the one guy I do know who works in the city, cycles now and then, even tho it is difficult. I suspect he'd cycle given the chance. There are some things that are tickets to the game - without, no game, with, game. We just don't know what the value of the game is, and the price of the ticket is high. I agree that other forms of access would be preferable, e.g. tunnel. But if bridge costs $700M, what does tunnel cost? I have a suspicion they did all these sums, decided they couldn't afford anything but the cycle bridge and decided to just go with that. "Hey, it'd be better to build a tunnel, and rennovate the bridge." "Yeah! How much?" $15B"* (* number sucked out of my thumb for effect - but whatever, it's gonna be big - rail tunnel is R5B, so double that, plus, for two tunnels, and road tunnels will be bigger diameter and apparently it's diameter that costs...) "Hmmm..., let's build the cycle bridge." Kind of the least worst option. Like when you buy Pinot Noir, paying too much for something you don't really want because you can't afford what you do... It would be interesting to know what the politics of this thing is. They've been promising for so long, but I suspect not at this cost. Unless this is just a round about way of having the decision not to build it thrust on them by the public. Also, who's brother-in-law owns a construction company/bought all the houses on the point...? ????

Oh, and coming up to applying for Permanent Residence in a couple of days - can still remember nervously PM'ing Wayne asking how he did it. Time flies, I think Covid helped by taking a year out of our lives. (Although I did build a boat.. ???? ) Three years to the black passport..?

The bridge is contentious. I like the idea of the bridge, I think it will lift the status (for the want of a better word - gravitas?) of the city - plus connecting up with the pink track going into the city would be awesome. Depends how accessible they make the North Shore side. Also how much they make it tourist (i.e. Instagram) friendly - although the no of Instagrammers will be inversely affect the biking friendliness of the bridge. As for the price - cough! For the price it seems a waste not to be using that capitalisation to improve the bridge, but I suppose that would only be to make it six lane, and that would be pointless as there is nowhere either side for those 6 lanes to join up to. Me, I say do it, but it does leave a slightly sick feeling. Some things are just worth doing. I can see people flying to NZ just to use it (in the same way people go to Sydney effectively for the bridge.) As for the 'but Buttfk, Southland, needs a bridge on the Z99 what about them you callous bastards' I figure Aucklanders have been paying for rural infrastructure ever since there was a bigger population / industry paying tax there than compared to rural tax payers, and they do it uncomplainingly (as they should.) As for the incentive/levy - sure, incentivize the purchase of electric vehicles (although, if they're so great, why do they need incentivization?) but don't penalise the use of the other. This is not to say I don't like ev's, I think they're great, and if I could buy one for $4k like I can a Suzuki Swift, I would. But they don't work for everyone - tow a trailer/boat/horse box? Carry a ton while towing a ton - you can do that with $20k and tank of diesel, not so much EV, even with Tesla trucks and alternatives. The time will come, but it's not now, incentive or not.

Not sure Zurich, Tokyo, Geneva are particularly cheap to live in. Also got buddies in the UK b1tching about house prices - they say up 30% in the last year, also Canada, so maybe we not as out on a limb as we think we are...

My wife is GP - as far as I know it's six months under supervision in a practice, then some form of inspection of your notes and a bit of watching of an appt or two? IT, plenty of work. Edit: this was one thing that the agent got us to change - I was going to come in under my skills, he changed it to coming in under hers. Gave us a more advantageous visa as far as I remember.

We used an agent, would do it again. Like the man says, if it's simple (you're young, few jobs, few complications, job is easy for IRD to understand), yeah, sure. If you're not, get the agent. The agent knows what to say.

Congratulations! Just different. You know your nice, well behaved child? Yeah, not that. But will be a lot of fun... and tiring. What you will learn straight away is that this garbage about unisex this unisex that just ain't the way boys and girls work. Boys are boys, girls are girls. Enjoy...

Ah, maybe I should listen to the radio or something...

Doesn't seem to serious - 4.2. We were camping in Rotorua in Jan when the 5.1 or whatever quake hit - lying on the ground during an earth quake is a visceral experience to say the least. There was no (or very little) damage in that, so one would assume that whatever was gong to fall over in a 4.2 quake in CC would have already fallen over in previous quakes?

What that does show is why buying multiple properties is so popular. The rate of increase of value of property has been so high in the last decade or so, folks have probably jumped the orange line a number of times - you need to add that to your graph... Edit: Capital gains tax / not being able to claim interest as expenses on rental properties will pop that balloon tho - esp. for properties leveraged against properties leveraged against properties leveraged against...

PSA for those that brought LG tv's with them and can't get Netflix / Disney+ / TVNZ on demand etc. (We had this discussion before...) Borrowed a Logitech Harmony One IR contoller from a friend - you set up the controller for your TV, it then knows how to get into the service menu - pin is 0413, set area code to 4833. Done.

Just going back to the 'property here is so expensive moan moan' thing... We've got a couple of English friends and school parent acquaintances (i.e. from England, not souties) and when I discuss properties and what they did when they emigrated, they never much complain about prices. Like for like, they seem to do ok. I think part of the problem is that the ZAR/SA property has become so devalued in real terms that Saffas can't play in the realms of those with hard cash to spend, and that shapes our view here. Which is not to say it's not expensive, but not as expensive as it feels to Saffas. Another thing - I seem to remember when Rich Dad Poor Dad was taking off (late 1990's?), (i.e. buy property to make money, leverage them on each other to buy more property) NZ had gone great guns on the concept, and that had driven property prices up even then. I suspect that what we have now is to some extent (I suspect largely) based on that.

. Fkn Tapatwak.

Ha - I got $250. Per annum. No, not kidding.

I hope like hell that any indication the politicians are going to raise their salaries over this time will be met with righteous indignation and suitable vengeance.

Yeah, that's like saying "Check, a designer shack on Clifton beach is expensive". But yep, property is not cheap here, anywhere. There are some places where the income/property price ratio are better than others, but nowhere is it cheap. Property price vs Income from Core Logic below. Couple of things to think about: House price demand driven by - lowest ever interest rates - cash in pocket due to Covid travel restrictions - low LVR reqts - folk returning to NZ with cash (lots) in their pockets - no capital gains tax charged on investment properties - can claim interest cost back from tax These dropping: - evidence interest rates will rise (longer term fixed rates now 3.5% or so) - borders beginning to open - LVR reqts for investment properties becoming quite stringent - they say more folk will return to NZ post Covid, Tony Alexander says not. (watch this space) - talk about CGT - removing allowance to claim interest costs from tax (this going to be an investment property killer) - personally I think this is wrong, although I can see the point. Either allow business costs to be claimed, or don't. Don't fiddle. So... likelihood is that property prices will stagnate, maybe even drop a little. But no one can see the future... Bottom line: Go live in Christchurch.

How much Kiwis spend on travel, according to Tony Alexander (I suspect that part of this is that everywhere is cheap compared to NZ... but having not made it off the NI (Rangitoto is as far as I've got, not even Waiheke ) since I arrived in Oct 2018 it's just conjecture for me): "... spending $10bn previously allocated to overseas travel each year, we have seen a surge in residential property purchases develop in this unusual point in time." $10b Kiwi. Not peanuts. I wonder what the net balance of inward vs outward tourism is? Could be lockdown has been more injurious to external tourism than local...

Re. the outsourcing of fish stuff, the local Chinese takeaway cooks snapper fillets for $1 - see quite a few folk taking in fresh fillets of a Sunday evening. Filleting is easy, happy to give a filleting workshop... Although I suspect @Intern would probably give my technique a bit of a skeef look. (Start with a slice across fish behind head from skin to backbone, run knife along top of back to slice fillet off bones - angle the knife against the vertical back bones. Half way down the fillet will be a row of horizontal bones, just cut through these using as much force as necessary and continue angling knife against vertical bones. Will hit ribs at some stage, run knife against these until knife hits skin on bottom of fish. Cut along bottom to free fillet. Then if you fancy, flip fish and fillet over so the fillet is skin side down on board, then run knife between fillet and skin, angled towards the skin. If you can get good grip (which is why leaving fillet attached at tail can help) you can slice the fillet off the skin in one sweep. Cut skin off tail, turn over, repeat. Done. If we getting technical, one of the local guys I spoke to said that you can gut snapper by merely grasping the loose skin by their throat and just pull. The skin will tear and the guts and all will come out. I've not tried it, but seems the simplest and least messy way to do it. The thing with snapper being that you have to leave it sufficiently whole for the Fisheries Officers to be able to measure it, so can't fillet it on board...

The mussel farms are legendary. We were camping out on the Coromandel one time at Te Puru and the boaties were catching so much they came over and said 'here you go' and gave us a bunch of fillets. Same time there was a Maori family who where tucking into a bucket of something so went over to have a look and came back with a basin full of pipis. TBH preferred the snapper to the pipis...

Need to get an mtb for 10 yo. Bit stymied with the 'but he will grow out of it' but that's part of the deal I suppose. Small adult 27.5? Probably Torpedo 7?

???????????? Yeah, and the sights you see are not quite what ones fantasies might mislead one with when one imagines nudist beach...