Conviction By Frank Chalmers
Review, Mike Beckett
The Australian Outback seems to be a favourite setting for crime novels with authors such as Jane Harper, Gary Disher and Chris Hammer providing a feast of excellent who dunnits, you have to wonder if is there room for yet another such author? … Continue Reading
Joe Howells.
By David Woodhams
Members attending our October meeting heard a fascinating address from Joe Howells, one of the principals of Green Jersey Cycle Tours based in Martinborough. While Green Jersey, with 700 cycle seats available for hire, is larger than any other Cycle Hire company in New Zealand, the bulk of their hire market is Martinborough Wine Tourism; when it comes to real touring in Aotearoa NZ, there are Cycle Tour operators that are substantially larger than Green Jersey. Pre-Covid, Green Jersey had organised tours to the south of France with on-the-ground support from Velorizons, a cycling organisation in France with a similar philosophy to their own. In return, Green Jersey had supported French tours to NZ but there has been no business either way since the outbreak of Covid in early 2020.
Their French business was initially a small-scale endeavour to generate some business over the quiet NZ winter months. It became something they really enjoyed doing. In the NZ winter of 2019, Joe spent almost four months touring in France and UK. Green Jersey are now taking bookings for their cycle tours in France for 2023 and are looking forward to the prospect of reciprocal business from Velorizons.
The main Green Jersey French tour is 16 days riding from Bordeaux City to Sète, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean, a distance of 750 km, taken at 50 to 75 km per day. All meals and accommodation are booked ahead, luggage transfer and bicycle hire are included in the cost. Often the route follows canal paths, particularly the Canal de la Garonne, opened in 1856, from Bordeaux to Toulouse and the Canal du Midi, opened 1681, from Toulouse to Agde. Together they link the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, avoiding the hazardous 3000 km sea journey for freight through the Straits of Gibraltar. … Continue Reading
By Councillor Adrienne Staples
The local government elections are done and dusted and most councils have settled into the work at hand for the new triennium. It would be great to predict smooth sailing for the next three years but sadly it feels like stormy seas ahead if what is on the Regional Council work programme is anything to go by.
Like it or not, New Zealand feels like it is in a state of low-key unrest and this certainly manifested itself in the local government elections. In the Greater Wellington Region, we have five new mayors out of eight, with two retirements and three defeats indicating that many people were not happy with the status quo.
The trouble is that much of what makes them unhappy is not actually local government’s own doing but a reaction to central government’s direction of travel on local government matters.
Which ever way you look at it, our current government is hell bent on local government reform. They are doing this by stripping councils of the functions they carry out rather than examining what our modern society needs from the local government system then designing the structure around those needs. … Continue Reading
Wednesday 14th December glass
Wednesday 21st December wheelie bin
Thursday 29th December glass
Thursday 5th January wheelie bin
Wednesday 11th January glass
Wednesday 18th January wheelie bin
Thursday 26th January glass
Wednesday 1st Febuary wheelie bin
Martinborough golfers say it’s hard to believe that just over 12 months ago they were still in the old clubhouse _ “and now we have a spectacular new building.” “To get where we are today has meant a huge fundraising effort and amazing support from members: we couldn’t have done …
We start at the end of the month, when the annual Baabraa Trophy between Martinborough and Eketahuna was fought out on a glorious Sunday in Martinborough. A field of 70 played a stableford round and the average stableford points for the two clubs were calculated. Eketahuna scored an average …
September has been an up and down month weatherwise for golfers, some beautiful early spring days followed by cold and rain. Thankfully for the important days the weather has mostly come to the party. Early in the month the Cotter Rosebowl was successfully defended at Carterton by Martinborough’s team of …
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