A sunny sunday on Great Barrier Island

Wonderful weather today. The Barrier really is much warmer than Auckland, despite not being that far away – just as Kapiti Coast I suppose is warmer than Wellington.

This is a photo of my current office, taken yesterday. To get mobile reception you have to go outside, so I set up the laptop on the balcony. As offices go I could get used to this one!

For a while it looked like I might have to get used to being outside, as yesterday when we returned from the race, the house was locked, with the key inside the door on the other side. After some investigating I found a window that would open, but it was a bit too high up for easy access, so I ended up having to offer my back as a human foot stool. I think it still has imprints of footprints on it!

This is one of the balconies, and view from it. I wish I was here for longer.

I’ve mentioned before there is no mains power on GBI. Pretty much every house has solar power, but a few also have wind power. That little turbine helps power the house – it complements the solar power as it can build up power overnight.

And this is a solar powered water heating cylinder on the roof.

And the main solar panels. If I move from my apartment into a house, I’m definitely going to look at solar power panels. I love the idea of generating your own power for free. Of course you do have significant one off costs, and I’m not quite ready to throw away mains power totally, buf if every house was partially solar powered, we’d have a far smaller national energy bill.

You get very little sounds from cars or machinery here, so really notice the bird life. Certainly don’t get these in the back yard at Wellington.