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Day 7 saw us begin the day overlooking Napier from the Bluff Hill Lookout above Napier Port before heading south for Wellington. We opted for SH 2 through Waipukurau and Dannevirke before cutting across towards Palmerston North and down the west coast to Wellington on SH 57 and SH 1.

Day 6 was spent in Napier and surrounds - from Cape Kidnappers to Hastings.

A very pleasant drive through the centre of the north island from Rotorua to Napier. A good cup of coffee from a roadside caravan in Taupo, and then a stop at Waipunga Falls:

And a stopover at the falls. The only hint was a roadsign saying “Scenic Lookout”. Somewhat understated:

Day 4 was spent in and around Rotorua. We visited two paid tourist sites of the half-a-dozen on offer. The first was the Wai-O-Tapu “Thermal Wonderland". The first site was the mud pool, followed by the Lady Knox Geyser, finishing with a walk around the site viewing such things as the Devils Inkpots, Champagne Pool and other geothermal phenomena. It was an amazing place – the colours, the features, the smells!!!

Day three saw us collect our hire car in Auckland and make our way down to Rotorua. The first photo is the view from our apartment – of a fairly grey cityscape, Auckland Harbour and bridge.

Morning tea was in a very pleasant cafe called the Town Mouse in Pukekohe – although we did earn the mild ire of one of the waitresses because we ordered from the counter before sitting down.

Here are a few photos from my phone – resized – from our wanderings around Auckland on the second day of our holiday:

Day 1 saw us flying from Sydney to Auckland. The flight, although delayed, was uneventful.

No photos to speak of for day 1. The only photos taken were of our opened luggage at the hotel in case there were subsequent disputes about ownership!

There are about five gazillion ways to study the Bible, and three gazillion ways of reading it. I know. I’ve tried them all.

“Hyperbole” – the use of obvious and intentional exaggeration.

For as long as I’ve been a Christian I’ve looked at different ways of reading the Bible, and different ways of studying it – from reading plans to meditation; from chronological to inductive; from prepared study guides to randomly opening the Bible and reading. The issue? They are all useful, but they serve different ends, are more helpful towards different purposes and they are all methods. And what do I do when I see a method? I try to understand it, to formularise it, to improve it, to determine if it is the best method such that all others can be instantly and permanently dismissed from my conscience.

I’ve been spending a little time recently looking at different Windows Managers (WM) for my linux-based notebook running the Manjaro distribution.

My usual approach had been to run some form of standard Desktop Environment (DE) such at Cinnamon, Gnome 2 or 3, XFCE or LXDE. But for some reason I was drawn to check out some different windows managers. To my non-geek mind, a desktop environment provides the whole package in terms of screen functionality and access whereas a window manager looks after the administration and placement of windows or apps on a screen. Windows managers are generally quicker and less cluttered but more difficult to configure than a desktop environment.

[Below is the text of a sermon I preached at our church on 12th August 2018.]

1 Samuel 30 and John 4

Sin versus Failure

What is the difference between sin and failure?

Is it possible to fail without that being construed as sin?

Can sin ever be regarded as anything but some form of failure?

How do you see the distinction between sin and failure?

I think that all sin is a failure, but failure is not necessarily sinful. And so sin is a subset of failure, a part of it.