Lake Taupo and Mt Ruapehu

 
Lake Taupo, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Mount Ruapehu, an active volcano which last erupted in 1996, lies on the further shore. And after spending the day sightseeing, head for The Bach, one of my favourite restaurants, next to the lake.

Click here for a photo into the mouth of Mount Ruapehu, taken on a flight from Taupo to Wellington

Stop Press 2009: The Bach has closed as its lease has expired

Favourite Writings

No medium has yet been devised for the translation of life into language, nor can any words recall the dazzling fluidity of days. Single yet fixed in sequence, they fall like the shaft of a cataract into time and through it. Letters give the most faithful picture, because they are fragmentary and concerned only with moments as they pass and are alive through intimacy, as are the funeral stele of the Greeks that choose the littlest and easiest things of life by which to remember their dead.

Freya Stark - Beyond Euphrates

Sunset at Varsity Lakes

Varsity Lakes, Gold Coast

UK Club's 125th Anniversary 1994

The UK Club was founded in 1869, in the same year as ships first transited the Suez Canal and Japan opened to the West. Thomas Miller became the manager in 1885, operating from Great St Helens. By 1899, the year the first Pooling Agreement was signed between the then six Clubs, the UK Club was the largest, having approximately 25% of the insured tonnage. Today, the thirteen Club's making up the International Group (ie who pool their claims together) insure 95% of the world's ocean-going fleet and handle and settle all the major casualties and accidents that occur on the high seas and in thousands of ports. To operate immediately in every port in the world, the Clubs appoint approximately 800 local firms as Correspondents. The  Clubs operating together on a pro bono basis also act as an industry knowledge base and think tank, discussing hundreds of technical and international issues.

For the UK Club's 125th Anniversary, a history was written by a professional historian, Peter Young, and copies sent to all Members and Correspondents. This important work drew together for the first time the full story of the Club's history, its development and how it operates today. The book is available online here.

The Club also held a dinner at the Guildhall, London in January 1995 for 300 Members and other guests, with Lord Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, as the principal speaker. Dinners were also held in other centres, coinciding with Directors' Meetings.