Winston Churchill and the BRAVE Project

Well I didn't manage to get on to the blog yesterday. I've been travelling in the far east of North Island, and it's a pretty wild and desolate place.

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Sue's at her women's gathering in Taupo, so I'm taking over the blog for a couple of days, so it'll have a different flavour. I left Sue at the retreat, we were sad, but there was a lot of greeting of old friends among the women, so many will have been before. I then left Taupo, what a beautiful place, and headed for the nearest bit of coast - Napier. The drive was spectacular, as most of this empty country seems to be, and in two hours I was getting into wine country. I've camped right on the beach just north of Napier, but sadly the beach isn't a good surfing beach....it's a dumper beach (you surfer dudes will know what this means) so I've come in to look around Napier, and decided that tomorrow I'll head up the coast in search of the perfect beginners wave. Hopefully I might find a surf school somewhere up there,'cos I need all the help i can get.

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just a quickie as i have to go off to my womens gathering, we got up at 6am and trundled up to Lake Taupo, stopped half way at cambridge and had a scrumptious breakfast, the drive was very scenic and now we are here its a glorious day, hot sun but chill in the air, the lake is just so so beautiful, we stopped off at Huka falls, ..breathtaking... i run out of words to be descriptive, you can go in a huka jet close to the falls but we were happy just looking. we have explored taupo, wandering around in the sun, sitting in a cafe drinking fresh juice ..the cakes here are twice the size of UK, all the food is amazingly fresh and tasty, you realise how stale our supermarket stuff is in the uk

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hi all

sorry not to have blogged for awhile we've been to the top of the island and back and not found any email places on our travels so to update you

in rawene we had a great time, drinking wine with an israeli famile and 2 english traveller and eating beans on toast but the bloody mosquitos bit me several times on my legs, and as some of you know i have a bad reaction to mozzy bites so trying not to scratch em

 up nice and early to the dawn chorus, we are seeing some amazing birds here, had breakfast outside and saw a couple of bright green and red paraqeets, we then got the Hokiange ferry  across the water, picked up a couple of hitchhikers, had a very scenic drive (i drove!!!!!!!!!! getting used to it now after crunching up and down the gears a few times)  stopped at the bottom of 90 mile beach at Ahipara bay, crashing waves ..... we both had fun with the boogie boeard, and then we drove up to Care Reinga at the very top of NZ last 20ks are gravel road felt like we were on safari, worth it though...magnificent views of where the 2 oceans meet, blues, greens, emeralds, turquoise waves .... out of this worls, long drive back down the 90 mile becah road and we capmed at Whangerea (check all these places out in an atlas!1) on west coast,  it wa sthe most amazing starry night!!! this morning woke up under the fire trees (bright red flowers at the tips of the branches) and all the tui brids were collecting nectar--that was the view from my bed

we headed down the coast sharing the driving lovely views of the bay of islands., stopped to use world famous toilets at  Kawakawa designed by Friedrich Hundertwasser all mondrian/ gaudi/klimtish glass and tiles, thenfor lunch at Langs beach - Mangawhai Heads, pete frolicked in the sea again, i paddled, then we motored on down, we stopped on the way at Waiwera at wenderholme reserve to see, relaxing and peacefull, amazing birds, we followed a track way up high into the trees, we are like a couple of kids..its all so wonderful

we have come bak to Takapuna to camp cos we have driven a long way today, but will have to make very early start tomoz up to Taupo, we will be up about 6am to miss rush hour traffic

i am going to 3 day womens gathering pete is off adventuring, might not be able to blog from taupo, maybe pete will take time off from learning to surf standing up to blog, personally im happy with being flat on a boogie board. its hard to 'spring up' as jodie and jess will remember when we had a lesson at surfers paradise

thats it for now folks

we love your comments

and when i have figured out how to attcah pics from our laptop and camera i will we are taking hundreds of pics, will bore you all with a slide show when we get back

research going well, i've got some typing to do

bye

love

sue

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well we were up at 6pm this morning to watch the sun rise over the volcano, it was beautiful then we walked along the coast up to milton beach, we were reluctant to leave Takapuna it is so lovely but there are other lovely places out there.

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its 5.15pm 25th sept and i have sent birthday wished to my niece carly its her 18th birthday today but she probably hasnt woken up yet!!

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couldnt resist emailing from here, its as wonderful as jago descibed, while pete is at his 'essentially men' do, i got the ferry this moring from aukland, it only takes 35 mins to waiheke island, i managed to attach myself to a jolly party of 6 coastguards wives (their men were gathering for a conference) they were booked on a discovery bus once the ferry arrived and i managed to get myself on the bus for free, had a lovely tour of the best bits of the island then stopped off at a beautiful beach  - Onetangi, soft white sand, sun and calm sea, walked all along the sea shore and found a shady spot to read my book, then caught the regular bus back to a village Onerua, just had lovely meal and off for a wander round arty shops before i get the ferry back

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well its arrived, its sat outside, and pete is just interviewing alan from Manalive and then we are off

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hellooo..............

we are both tired cos we've had a busy 2 days with interviews---yesterday we met with 'inner city women' a feminist based organisation supporting women and children with experiences of abuse, Hazel there gave us lots of info and leaflets, then 'Mensline" a lovely man dennis told us all about the support they give men by phone and one to one, i did the writing whilst pete asked the questions and i ended up in tears listening to them, then we visited 'preventing viiolence in the home' a great organsiation that supports women and children and does programmes for men, and lastly Josie and Auckland Technical University (partner of warwick pudney) she is an expert on working with trauma and abuse, we wlaked back to our 'home' with alan and pat in forrest hill rather shell shocked, enjoying the evening sun and views over the city, satisfied we had doen a good days work and earning our leisure time, our little lap top is doing a good job as i type up the interviews and wer are downloading all our pics on there, will have to work out how to email some

today we visited 'North Harbour family violence' great organisation, rowena who works with women (her partner works with men) was really helpful and gave us lots of resources - a video of men from the group talking, and a book for women survivors, hey... we are learning that organisations who do violence prevention work with men , all male facilitators have to go through the programme themselves before they can start to facilitate!!, and there is an obvious men;s movement here that drives the work with men, as well as the women's passion and energy

last vist today also proved to emotional - Youthline, Pat has done the training here and is on the boeard, a great buch of people supporting young people, again they were very helpful and friendly and gave us lots of resources, progs for young people, we will be packing a big box of resources to send home at the end of this week and we've only been here a week

to finish off the day we have been to see 2 documentarys - windy wellington, and pink flat the door, and a mainstream movie the woodsman -- very tense!!!!

 going to manalive tomoz, that should be very interesting, then we get our camper van friday moring

i think of you all lovingly upside down

bye for now

sue

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hi all
howling wind and rain but pete and i have been really busy wemet 2 people today who have both previously travelled on a churchill fellowship - Yvonne Duncan co-ordinator of 'cool schools' peer mentoring and a whole philosophy of respectful relationships, conflict resolution, great resources - 'a volcano in my tummy' for young children  - we are going to order some, and  warwick pudney who amongst other things was a founder of man alive and is responsible for a lot of research and developing programmes for boys, men, fathering, violence etc, both of these people had a lot to say and pete did lots of scribbling, we are hoping to by a cheap tape with good mike tomorrow to make the job easier, we have about 5 appts tomorrow - all local
tonight pete cooked an old favourite - farmhouse chicken for us all
anyway thats it for now im exhausted, my body clock is still weird - we want to nod off later afternoon!!!!
love
sue

hi all
inbetween sunny bursts theres plenty of rain, but thats aukland!! last night pete and i went to a musical production at auckland town hall missa gaia - choral music!! pete slept through the first half, but i enjoyed it!
today pat drove us around the local area, lovely beaches, wild seas, then dropped us at the port and we got a ferry to devonport, its like and old wild west town (as in the buildings) some good second hand book shops, i managed to replace my guide for advanced soul that i have lent out so many times and not got back and we bought pat the artists way as she is a budding artist, lots of second hand self help books for sale, i think NZ is big into therapy - pat mentioned one i haven't heard of - psycho synthesis... mmmmhhh
walked a lot, climbed a big hill  where we nearly got blown off the top and took some lovely pics of a double rainbow
tomorrow i have an interview with yvonne duncan from cool schools, she travelled on a winston fellowship to america
im probably going to buy a cheap tape recorder and a good mike, as i have several appts this week and already know its difficult to ask questions and write
we are using the little lap top to down load pics from the camera, and for me to type up interviews, will have to work out how to  put pics on the blog
its great to read comments all you who are looking in on us
we have a camper van organised for friday .... then the adventuring will start
its been a general election here and its a hung parliament .... labour pipping the nationals, but everyone has two votes and you also vote for coalition partys or something like that.... i'll tell you what though there are plenty of women in the gioverment here!!!!!! and the maoris are making their mark
must go now its nearly tea time
love
sue
dont you all work too hard!!!!

N.Z. is very familiar to an Englishman, apart from a few exotic plants, Aukland seems like England, but cleaner. The flight from LA was hell, I felt quite ill with the time problems and lack of sleep. We took a day to simply slob around at Alan and Pat's to recover, now I feel human again I'm raring to go. I'm still pretty resentful about losing Sept. 15th, and still can't get my head round it even though a few people have explained it. My part of the blog will be to keep you up to date with my efforts to learn to surf standing up....the real purpose of this trip. I impressed Enav, my surfing teacher in San Diego, by leaping up from prone to surfing position on the dry sand. In the surf I rode a few waves laying flat just to get a feel, then tried to leap up to my feet as a wave grabbed....not as easy as on the sand. I managed to ride a few waves on my knees...not cool, but actually standing, not for more than a few seconds. But it was such fun trying. I was pretty exhausted after 1/2 hour, using odd muscles. I had another session later but got exhausted even quicker, and got up to about 4 seconds. Enav said I'd done very well, love her. Here in NZ I plan to enrol in a surf school, they use surfboards the size of beds, Malibus they call them. Surely I can't fall off of one of those.....watch this space.

hi all

we are in a tacky email place opposite albert park backpackers where i stayed with jodie and jess on our trip here, it brings back memories of a crowded room with zillions of bunk beds and crazy travellers, still recovering from jet lag but managing to change our body clocks around, back home you will all be fats asleep, its 1.45pm here

the weather keeps changing from warm spring sun to pouring rain, and the city is reasonably quiet, we are staying with pat hadlee and alan blackburn (manalive) in a lovely house with magnificent views of the city and the sea, alan very kindly picked us up at an unearthly hour (5.30am), on our first day alan spent time fixing up some appointments for us starting monday through to thursday - that include cool schools project, north harbour domestic violence, inner city women, manalive, essentially men and men's line - feels like we are well organised and raring to go - from thursday of next week i think we are going to hire a camper van and travel further north, do some exploring, alan and pat are telling us the best places to visit, then we will take a scenic route up to taupo for the womens gathering and pete will go off exploring while i am gathering with the women

i have started to type up my first interview on the cute laptop, my discussion with dan who works in a youth centre / treatment centre in san diego for very troubled teenagers, most of the kids there have experienced violence, abuse, neglect and were born showing signs of drug / alcohol withdrawal - so sad!!!

not sure what to expect from my meetings with the various agencies here, when discussing young men and violence / anger, it appears that there are many different influences on boys here - culturally specific, we'll see

going to a concert tonight, just pete and i, its a general election here today so pat and aln will be watching the results, hope all of you are not working too hard

bye for now

love

sue

Testing the blog cut and paste

Setting up blog with pete at our kitchen table, its raining and we can't wait to go!!!!!