The Daily Signal reports:

In response to the growth in food stamp dependence, Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, recently established work requirements on recipients who are without dependents and able-bodied. In Maine, all able-bodied adults without dependents in the food stamp program are now required to take a job, participate in training, or perform community service.

Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine, and for those ABAWD recipients who cannot find immediate employment, Maine offers both training and community service slots. But despite vigorous outreach efforts by the government to encourage participation, most childless adult recipients in Maine refused to participate in training or even to perform community service for six hours per week. When ABAWD recipients refused to participate, their food stamp benefits ceased.

In the first three months after Maine’s work policy went into effect, its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents plummeted by 80 percent, falling from 13,332 recipients in Dec. 2014 to 2,678 in March 2015.

An 80% reduction in just 90 days!!

Why?

A work requirement substantially reduces welfare fraud because insisting a recipient be in the welfare office periodically interferes with holding a hidden job. Recipients cannot be in two places at once. Faced with a work requirement, many recipients with hidden jobs simply leave the rolls. No doubt, a significant part of the rapid caseload decline in Maine involves flushing fraudulent double-dippers out of the welfare system.

If someone is working for cash, it is very hard to detect.

Stuff reports:

One thing the bridal party all agreed on is hell would freeze over before we would consider using a sunbed. That’s partly because I’m in the know.

And most people sensibly decide not to use them. But if some people value their appearance over the health risks, they can decide that.

We’ve just published our latest results – and nothing’s changed. We visited 68 sunbed operators. We sent underage (under-18) shoppers and fair-skinned people to 36 sunbed establishments. The standard recommends people with fair skin that burns easily or never tans shouldn’t use a sunbed. 

Only eight of 16 operators turned away our fair-skinned visitors. And despite displaying warning notices under-18s shouldn’t use a sunbed, three operators happily accepted our 15- or 16-year-olds. One allowed it even after the teen had filled out the form with her correct age, another asked her to fill out the form after the session.

Which is a good case for having regulations and prosecuting those who breach them.

The Health (Protection) Amendment Bill would make it illegal for operators to allow under-18s to have a sunbed. When the Bill was considered by a parliamentary select committee, Consumer said it didn’t go far enough. We called for a total sunbed ban.

I respect Consumer but they are wrong on this, and trying to remove choice from consumers.

Geoff Simmons at the Gareth Morgan Foundation has a triumphant post declaring:

Last year the Taxpayers Union launched a research report claiming that a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages wouldn’t have any impact. Apparently they had some numbers to back up that claim, although they didn’t make the data behind them public. That was not a good move.

Amidst a blaze of publicity they quizzed those that advocated for a soft drink tax whether they would reverse their stance in the face of this evidence.

It was a bold initiative.  Especially given that it turns out they were wrong; either their analysis, data or both were incorrect. Not only has peer-reviewed research been published showing that the Mexican tax is working …

In light of this consensus of support for the corrective tax will the Taxpayers Union now retract their findings or will they cling to their unsubstantiated findings in the face of the evidence? At the very least they need to release their own evidence so it can be critiqued. They do after all promote themselves as a research house rather than an advocacy group. As we all know advocacy groups have a predilection of not letting the evidence get in the way of the ideology.

I think Mr Simmons may be describing his own foundation.

The aim of a sugar tax is to reduce obesity. There is absolutely no evidence at all that any sugar tax anywhere has reduced obesity. This is because people substitute and there are numerous sources of calories.

It is possible that if you tax a specific product, that sales of that product will reduce. The higher the tax, the more impact there will be. But that is only about sales of that product – an output, rather than the desired outcome – a reduction in obesity.

But has the Mexico sugar tax actually reduced sales? Or has it failed to even do that? I wonder whether Mr Simmons has read the entire research report.

You see Katherine Rich points out in this article that the Popkin paper relies on reported data from respondents, not actual sales data. So this entire paper is based on people saying they think they are now drinking less. It is far from robust, despite peer review.

So what has the actual sales data told us in Mexico?

Well the tax collected is an excellent proxy for the sales data. And in 2014 the tax brought in 18.3 billion pesos. And in 11 months of 2015 it has brought in 19.5 billions pesos – so sales appear to be increasing not decreasing.

But even if there was a modest decrease, this may not be causative. Rich makes the point that carbonated drinks sales in NZ fell 4.4% in the last year – and with no sugar tax. Just changing consumer demand.

So overall the argument by the Morgan Foundation is seriously lacking.

UPDATE: The paper cited relied on both reported data from respondents and audits of their receipts and household refuse. However this in no way impacts my conclusion that this is a less robust measurement than the amount of tax collected by the Government which shows sales increasing.

Charles Finny facebooked:

Most interesting was an attempt by Labour MP and Trade Spokesperson David Clark to make the case that it was the Government’s fault that bi-partisanship on trade policy had broken down. His argument was that it was convention that Government would be familiar with Opposition policy and ensure that it would stay within the bounds of this policy when determining negotiating positions for FTA negotiations. He stated that Labour had a long standing policy of wanting the right to ban property speculators from abroad and that Labour had campaigned on this policy at the last election. He suggested that MFAT and Ministers must have known about the policy and were remiss not negotiating an outcome that accommodated it.

Now let me explain a little about how TPP was negotiated on services and investment. Essentially TPP has frozen the status quo, and in some cases some liberalisation of the status quo was negotiated. Some countries had policy that allows “bans” on foreign investment in urban real estate. New Zealand has not had such policy. Those TPP members did not actively advocate for this policy. The policy was already there and became “bound” as part of the outcome. “Binding” means that policy cannot become more restrictive than in the past. Policy can change but it can only do so in the liberalisation direction. (In days of old this was also known as “standstill and rollback”.)

Now while existing NZ policy was “bound” what is unusual is that New Zealand – quite late in the negotiation (post Andrew Little’s announcement of his conditions I believe) – negotiated the right to adopt discriminatory taxation policies. This was done to allow a future Government to “restrict” sales to foreigners through a stamp duty or other tax measure (I believe that a very high tax of this type can have the same impact as a “ban” for most investors but accept that it might not deter a super rich person – the exception but not the rule).

Now lets get back to Labour Party policy and what Labour campaigned on at the last election. The policy states “Labour will not support provisions in trade agreements that limit the government’s right to provide, fund, or regulate public services, such as health or education. Trade agreements should not prohibit the government from RESTRICTING sale of land and infrastructure or regulating the sale of state assets.”

TPP is fully consistent with this policy. TPP allows a future Government to “restrict” land sales to foreigners and also fits with the other elements of this policy.

And if you search for transcripts for what Andrew little said in the middle of the year about his pre-conditions for Labour support for TPP, he also uses the term “restrict”.

This concept of ban is more recent, and I don’t think you should expect negotiators to know the policy was really about allowing a “ban” when all official comment was referring to “restrict”.

So the TPP has fully complied with Labour’s five bottom lines. They’ve just tried to find an excuse to oppose it to appease their union overlords.

The Herald reports:

At least 2 per cent of Housing New Zealand tenants are not eligible to live in a state house and will be moved into the private market.

The Ministry of Social Development said it had reviewed 3695 tenancies since mid-2014, and 87 people had not met the criteria for a state house.

Another 372 households had chosen to move into private accommodation after they were told their tenancy would be reviewed, and 47 tenants chose to purchase their own home.

That’s excellent – 47 former tenants are now home owners, and 372 state houses are now occupied by low income families that will benefit from the income related rent.

Tenants can be found ineligible if they are paying market rent or earning high incomes. They are assessed on whether they can afford to move into private accommodation, whether they will be able to stay there in the long-term, and how difficult it is for them to find houses in the open market.

Sounds sensible.

Stats reports:

Despite the rise in monthly food prices, prices are still 0.6 percent lower than a year ago. The fall was led by lower grocery food prices (down 2.1 percent), due to lower prices for fresh milk (down 9.0 percent), cakes and biscuits (down 6.2 percent), and yoghurt (down 11 percent). The fall was partly offset by price rises for chocolate and cheese.

Fruit and vegetable prices decreased 1.2 percent over the year.

Food prices increased 37.1% under Labour. In the seven years since 2008 food prices have only increased 10.5%.

The Herald reports:

Residents of well-heeled Auckland suburbs are bristling at plans for new Special Housing Areas in their backyards.

Fourteen new SHAs providing more than 4500 new homes across Auckland were announced yesterday. This latest tranche will bring the total number of SHAs in Auckland to 120, with a combined potential yield of more than 52,000 new homes.

Herne Bay resident Kate Stanton has lived opposite the site of one of the new areas – the Gables pub in Kelmarna Ave – for 35 years. The 0.23ha site has been earmarked for a block of 70 apartments.

Ms Stanton said she feared existing infrastructure, such as sewer and storm-water drains, would not cope with that many extra households.

Really? Is there any reason to think they can’t handle 70 more people? Is this concern based on any actual evidence? Or just an excuse to argue against any development in their neighbourhood?

In case you saw the story breathlessly reported by the media about how a teacher had kept a McDonald’s burger for six years and it hadn’t rotted, so this is proof they are covered in chemicals or preservatives.

Well a scientist has found out that actually pretty much any burger won’t rot, so this is all just a big anti-McDonalds scare campaign.

The findings:

Turns out that not only did the regular McDonald’s burgers not rot, but the home-ground burgers did not rot either. Samples one through five had shrunk a bit (especially the beef patties), but they showed no signs of decomposition. What does this mean?

It means that there’s nothing that strange about a McDonald’s burger not rotting.Any burger of the same shape will act the same way. The real question is, why?

Well, here’s another piece of evidence: Burger number 6, made with no salt, did not rot either, indicating that the salt level has nothing to do with it. 

The key issue is the size of the burger. A bigger burger will grow mold as it will hold moisture for longer.

A further test was done:

So we’ve pretty much cleared up all of the confusion, but a keen scientist will notice that one question remains to be answered. We’ve proven that neither a McDonald’s burger nor a regular home-made burger will rot given certain specific conditions, but are there conditions we can create that will cause it to rot, and more importantly, will the McDonald’s burger rot as fast as the homemade burger?

The final two burgers I tested were a McDonald’s burger and a regular homemade burger of the same dimensions placed in plastic zipper-lock bags side by side. Hopefully the bag would trap in enough moisture. The question: Would they rot?

Indeed they do. Within a week, both burgers were nearly covered in little white spots of mold, eventually turning into the green and black spotted beast you see above.

So the global media story on this is basically bullshit.

My SA reports:

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said.

Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa.

According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.

I heard Scalia speak in Wellington a few years ago. A razor sharp mind and someone whose impact on legal thinking has been profound.

As sad as the death is for his family and friends personally, the focus will of course be on the politics of a replacement. An Obama nominee would give the liberal wing a 5-4 majority on the court.

For this reason I suspect the Republican majority in the Senate will either not put his nominee to the vote (if they are qualified) or vote them down.

This means that the vacancy will be filled by the next President. If it is Clinton she will get the first liberal majority court in a generation. This makes the election ever higher stakes than normal.

Stuff reports:

Police Minister Judith Collins maintains police should pursue fleeing vehicles despite a baby being in hospital with serious injuries after a police chase in Auckland.

A man, woman and 5-month-old child were injured following a serious crash on State Highway 16, north of Auckland on Thursday afternoon.

Police were pursuing the vehicle at the time it crashed after the driver failed to stop when police attempted to pull him over for speeding.

On Wednesday the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) called for police to alter their rules on pursuing drivers, saying they don’t reduce the risk to the public and rarely end successfully.

Collins has reiterated her support for police pursuits and on Thursday said she “absolutely” stood by her comments.

“Obviously people have been hospitalised, which is very sad, but that’s what happens when you’ve got speeding drivers who unfortunately put children and other people at risk,” she said.

“What we’ve got is someone who was speeding already, that’s why police tried to stop him.”

If someone driving knows they will get away by refusing to stop, then it just increases the incentive for them to speed and flee.

The certainty of getting caught and getting a criminal record is the best incentive to stop them.

The Standard Watch blogs:

A blight on public education is the very last sort of blight we need.  Anthony R0bins was so concerned about the possibility that he wrote a post on the subject yesterday.  It quotes at length from the secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute, Pat Goulter.  It wails at the “sheer incompetence” of our negotiators who failed to get a carve out for public education.

The Tertiary Education Union is similarly critical.  Their Sandra Grey warns us:

“The TPPA will limit current and future governments’ abilities to make decisions that are the best for our kids’ education”

So, r0b and the New Zealand Educational Institute and the Tertiary Education Union are all very concerned.

But not so concerned, it seems, that they were moved to read the relevant provisions in the TPPA.  Luckily, Et Tu Brute did.  He was able to direct r0b, at least, to the provision in the agreement giving a lie to all of the wailing (or at least on this issue, they will have others).

“New Zealand reserves the right to adopt or maintain any measure with respect to…public education.”

What was that about “sheer incompetence”?

The left just lie constantly about the TPP. If you follow the link you will see the annex which explicitly carves out measures around public education from the TPP.

Only a two hour tramp to the end today so we left at 9.30 am – a much more sociable time. Will must the hut – such a good idea to use an old homestead for it.

One of the local weka having a drink.

The track starts at the back of the hut.

A nice green path at first.

Today is the biggest climb, but still only 200 metres. You can see the hut we left behind.

More traditional tramping path higher up.

And a weka crossing the path.

Then we get our first glimpse of Wainui Bay from the top.

The final 45 minutes is heading down the cliffside track.

The Wainui Inlet.

And finally the track out to the Wainui car park where we got picked up by Trek Express and back to the airport.

Previously my favourite Great Walk has been the Heaphy. But it is now the Abel Tasman. The sheer beauty of the bays, beaches and bush is stunning. Can’t wait to return there.

The Herald reports:

A central authority should be set up to deal with extradition requests and tailor-made rules should be followed to avoid the kind of uncertainty and delay that has characterised the Kim Dotcom case, the Law Commission says.

The growing problem of cross-border crime means the law should be changed to ensure New Zealand does its part, a review by the commission has concluded.

The report, released today, contains three key recommendations:

•Requests from the vast majority of countries should be processed in the same way. Currently, the formal extradition steps vary considerably depending on which country is making the request, and treaties in place that are mostly over 100 years old.

The commission recommends that only Australia and probably the United Kingdom should be entitled to have requests dealt with through a “simplified” process, meaning the District Court would not examine the strength of the prosecution case against the person sought.

•Tailor-made rules should guide extradition proceedings. There should be a single appeal route, rather than the current regime that enables multiple and separate appeals and judicial reviews.

The commission said the litigation surrounding the Kim Dotcom extradition case — Dotcom and his three co-accused were arrested in January 2012 — highlighted that procedural uncertainty can cause considerable delay.

•A new central authority should be created to manage all extradition requests. It would consider whether to commence an extradition proceeding, a call that would involve assessing the likelihood of success.

These proposals sound excellent. It is farcical that the DotCom case will end up taking the best part of five years and several dozen court hearings.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand and Pacific Island governments have agreed to work to ensure a new submarine cable is laid across the Pacific, after meeting in Auckland.

The intervention makes it more likely that one of the two existing plans to lay a new cable to and from New Zealand will succeed, according to a Cook Islands minister.

Internet access in the Pacific is expensive and limited. For example, the Cook Islands relies entirely on expensive satellite communications to carry phone calls and internet traffic, Cook Islands finance minister Mark Brown said.

A “standard” broadband plan in the Cook Islands costing $49 a month comes with a meagre 6 gigabyte data cap – and with 100 millisecond lag, business is stifled and video-gaming has yet to take off.

Representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) met with delegations from the Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau and French Polynesia on Thursday to discuss improving internet connectivity in the region.

The ministry has since issued a communique saying officials would present leaders with “solutions for a submarine cable and satellite infrastructure” to improve communications for the islands by August.

New Zealand would “facilitate the planning and development phases of the project”, it said.

Auckland-based Hawaiki hopes to build a $500 million cable linking Australia and New Zealand to the United States via several Pacific Islands, but has had a series of disappointments securing the last remaining $150m it requires.

Another firm, Spain’s Bluesky, aims to build a cable from New Zealand as far as Hawaii, also connecting other islands en route – including American Samoa where it has a subsidiary business.

Brown said representatives from private companies Hawaiki Cable and Bluesky attended the Auckland meeting and it seemed they had the most viable options to improve internet access in the region.

This is good for such a cable will not just link up some Pacific countries, but provide a second cable between NZ and the US.

An interesting profile in Stuff of Auditor-General Lyn Provost. An interesting extract:

Police Association president Greg O’Connor initially supported Provost’s appointment, until she was given operational command of three police districts. That, he said, was “like an army contingent in East Timor being run by a bureaucrat”. On reflection, though, he thinks she did “a remarkable job”.

Having a civilian in charge of three districts was controversial at the time, but for O’Connor to say she did a remarkable job is high praise.

The Herald Sun reports:

WESTERN suburbs welfare cheats have been busted for rorting more than $4.5 million from Centrelink.

The Federal Government confirmed that investigators from the Department of Human Services had uncovered widespread fraud in the suburb of Werribee.

Of 3072 cases audited from last October to last month, 1888 were found to involve overpayments or fraud.

Seven people have since been charged; five were later arrested for failing to face court.

Werribee is the second local government area to be investigated after Rockdale, Sydney.

The Federal Government confirmed that DHS investigators were monitoring social media sites to catch people incriminating themselves over false spousal or financial arrangements with Centrelink

What a good idea. I hope WINZ do this in NZ. It seems they do to at least some degree which is good.

Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina are out. That leaves Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Bush and Carson.

Kasich will drop out at some stage. He has little support so that will have little impact.

When Bush drops out, I suspect most of his support will go to Rubio.

The interesting one will be Carson. Who will his support go to? Trump or Cruz or possibly Rubio?

The exit polls for New Hampshire are interesting. By age on the Democratic side the margins are:

• Under 30s: Sanders +67%
• 30 – 39: Sanders +45%
• 40 – 49: Sanders +22%
• 50 – 64: Sanders +3%
• 65+: Clinton +9%

The WP also has their winners and losers:

Winners

• Donald Trump
• Bernie Sanders
• John Kasich
• Michael Bloomberg

Losers

• Hillary Clinton
• Chris Christie
• Marco Rubio
• Ben Carson
• Carly Fiorina

Stuff reports:

Tara Nettleton, the widow of Australian Islamic State terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, has died in Syria from complications associated with appendicitis.

The former Sydney woman is believed to have died some time ago after she was unable to access life-saving health services.

It is believed that the mother of five was living in Raqqa with four of her children and one grandchild after the death of her husband as recently as last year.

Tara’s husband Khaled Sharrouf slipped out of Australia in December 2013 using his brother’s passport and joined Islamic State, meeting up with his friend and fellow terrorist, Mohamed Elomar.

Tara and their children followed via Turkey soon afterwards.

So she willingly chose to go t Syria from Australia. She was not forced or coerced.

Sad that she is dead, but bad decisons often have consequences. She chose to leave a country with excellent health care to go live in the Islamic State.

Mr Van Alst told Fairfax Media that Karen said the second worst day of her life was knowing her grandchildren and great grandchild didn’t have her there to look after them.

He and Karen are now most concerned about Tara’s children, who are just “innocent Australian kids”, he said.

They were once.Are they today?

Sharrouf achieved global notoriety when he tweeted a picture of his son holding the severed head of a Syrian solider captioned “that’s my boy”.

The photo, posted by a Twitter account then believed to belong to Elomar, spruiks him as the “young cub of the Islamic State”.

In June last year, Karen Nettleton told Fairfax Media how she was watching television at home when she received a text message from Tara’s eldest daughter Zaynab. The teenager had just become the widow of her husband Elomar.

“Hello Nana, how are you? My husband got hit by a drone yesterday and got killed. When I found out I was happy for him to get what he wanted and go to paradise but at the same time I was devastated because I loved him so much and I knew I was never gonna see him again in this life.”

There may be hope for the kids, but they may now be fully radicalised.

Nettleton said last June her daughter and grandchildren were in need of help more than ever.

“[They] more than ever need the love and care of their family to help them recover from the trauma, abuse and terrors of war they have experienced,” she said.

Their family haven’t done a great job to date.

Stuff reports:

Increasing tobacco taxes by as much as 50 per cent a year could form the “backbone” of efforts to make New Zealand smoke-free, politicians have been told.

Tobacco taxes increased by 10 per cent at the start of the year, and academics and anti-smoking groups have encouraged Parliament’s finance and expenditure select committee to support a bigger price hike.

Otago University public health professor Nick Wilson, who has studied the best-value methods for reducing the impact of smoking, said politicians were “on extremely strong scientific ground” when raising taxes on tobacco.

“It’s one of the most powerful things that can be done to improve the health of the population … tax can be the backbone of the strategy.”

My personal view is that increasing the excise tax is a sensible measure to reduce smoking. However this should not be done to increase the overall level of taxation, so any increase in excise taxes should be compensated by reducing income tax rates or increasing thresholds.

There is a point at which increasing the price will lead to significant growth in the black market, as has been seen in many countries. I’m not sure at what point this becomes a bigger issue, but policy makers need to be aware of this.

Wilson said the issue of e-cigarettes, which are not currently approved for smoking cessation in New Zealand, was “a very complex area” due to the amount of new studies coming out every week.

It would be best to control their use through pharmacies until their benefits and dangers were fully known, he said.

So you can buy tobacco from the dairy but e-cigarettes only from a pharmacy? Not sensible.

National Maori Tobacco Control Leadership Service kaiwhakahaere Zoe Hawke said tax increases were a “foundation policy” that anti-tobacco organisations could use to improve quitting rates. …

“We need to remove nicotine from the products out there and do some transitional moves to help people move away from it, and e-cigarettes could potentially be something that will help with that too.”

Good to see an open mind there.

T&T Consulting director Sue Taylor said the smoking health programmes already in place were not doing enough to help people quit, and a significant price increase would make a big difference.

Taylor said tobacco taxes should be increased by 50 per cent this year, followed by 25 per cent each year until 2020.

I suspect that level of increase would see more move to the black market. The 10% increase per year has worked well to date.

She did not support e-cigarettes as they “normalised” smoking, and was also concerned that the majority of e-cigarettes were produced by tobacco manufacturers.

“They’re still trying to double-dip everywhere, they’re still trying to introduce other ways of continuing to have the population addicted to nicotine, so we seriously need to think about how we’re going to tax those as well.”

This statement is a tell-tale sign that the motivation of the person is to damage companies they don’t like, rather than just focus on harm reduction. It’s like the anti alcohol crusaders who attack “Big Alcohol” but say craft beers are fine.

Health New Zealand smoking policy researcher Murray Laugesen supported a tax increase, and said the Government should look at legalising the use of e-cigarettes.

“They’ve killed nobody so far, against 4000 deaths [a year] from ordinary cigarettes.”

A startling statistic.

The Telegraph reports:

So we managed to get up at 4 am to start the inlet crossing at 4.30 am. We had to be across by 5.15 am or wait until 2.15 pm.

A small crescent moon in the sky.

Just after 6 am light on the horizon.

And then through the trees.  We spent around 90 minutes tramping in darkness with head lamps, and it was very cool to see the stars so clearly. Also saw a possum on the track which was a bit startling as suddenly there are red eyes gleaming at you.

Then a hill climb.

Then Totaranui Beach ahead of us.

Now around 6.30 am.

A nice trail down to the beach.

And a walk through the camping grounds there. As there is vehicle access, this is the largest campsite – up to 1,000 people camping there.

We stopped here for breakfast and cooked ourselves some porridge.

Then headed off on the high tide track.

A historic house now used as an education centre.

And up another hill of course.

Lots of trees like this.

Anapai Bay.

A wood pigeon in a tree.

This little beach was stuck between two rock formations – very isolated and private.

Looking down to Mutton Cove.

We had a stop at Mutton Cove. If I was tenting I’d camp here. A very small but beautiful area with trees, grass and beach access.

A great view of Whariwharangi Bay.

A grass track heading down and then to the hut which unlike the others is not on the beach but 500 metres inland.

Finally the hut in sight. We got there before midday but as we started at 4.30 am it took us seven hours or so, with breakfast and rest stops. The longest day of the tramp.

The hut is a restored homestead and absolutely lovely. We got an upstairs room. Only sleeps 20. Lots of grass around it, so spent afternoon reading books on the lawn and swimming down at the beach.

Tramp almost done now. Just a two hour walk out on Monday to Wainui Bay.