Mavericks First day in Phuket 27 June - Maverick scribed by Sam

Maverick the kakapo here, and today I'm in Phuket it is hot here like it is everywhere else. We got up and we relaxed for a few minutes umm maybe an hour but that doesn't matter because we got breakfast at 9.30. I and everyone else walked there unfortunately nobody knew the name. But the food was good I got a worm salad with lots of yummy bugs. Sam got an American breakfast same with James and Lucy. Toni and John got toast with fruit and coffee (James stole Toni's toast)


After walking home James me and Lucy went swimming while Sam did hip hop. A while later sam came back and said that James had to do Maths while Sam and Lucy swam with me carefully watching them. Then James came and said that she had to do ballet just so you know it's pronounced bal-ey not bal-et. Anyway since  James was slow at doing Maths he had to do it while Lucy did ballet (remember it's pronounced bal-ey). Because nobody believed I was a skilled life guard Sam had to go back inside with me. After James and Lucy where done we went to the beach.


The beach waves were amazing big and awesome. We walked for a while and found a place with decks chairs. Toni and John sat and watched us play in the waves they were massive and Toni came down and played in the waves with us and we would dive with the wave just before the wave fell. After that John came down and Toni went up and james got a bodyboard and we had goes with it and John went back up and they watched us for a while then we left and relaxed pretty much the whole time.

 What Sam failed to mention when he was writing for me was that we had a fantastic evening with David and Andi Pettigrew.  Toni worked for David and Andi in the UK for 7 years and was really happy to catch up with them.  A BBQ feast was had a long with a great catch up.  Hopefully we will see David and Andi in New Zealand before too long.

Phuket A day of wandering - 28 June - Maverick scribed by Lucy

Squaaaaaark! Well, well, well, this day was interesting, to start off with, all the restaurants were closed. So we decided to go to the 7-11 shop just down the sandy, bumpy, road. Believe it or not, 7-11 had rather a lot of frozen breakfast meals, such as sausage croissant and cheese toasties.   While the person at the counter was heating up the frozen meals, Lucy and Toni decided to start heading back to the hotel/apartment. Unfortunately, while walking back, they saw a dress shop. I'm no expert on fashion, but, I know enough to know a dress shop pretty much spells trouble.

After arriving back at the hotel, (I'll just call it a hotel) my family opened up the not so frozen meals and chopped up fruit and served yoghurt, Lucy, James and Sam thought the meal was not bad for under 10 dollars in 7-11. At 9:30 on the dot, a taxi arrived to take my family and I to my new apartment. It wasn't actually to far from our hotel we were staying at before and was not to far from the beach.

After sorting out beds, relaxing, swimming and more relaxing we planned to go for a walk and maybe a swim along the beach. Then it started raining. So we ate chocolate and relaxed. Then it stopped raining. We then started to walk along the beach and went to see if it was calm enough to swim in. Sadly, there were red flags all along the bay as far as my nocturnal eye could see. ( red flag means you shouldn't swim here.) Sam was desperate for a swim but none of us were strong enough swimmers. So we just walked, and walked, and walked. Then we found some elephants.

Of course, they were in a paddock/field. There was a mother and her baby and another big elephant. They looked so sad. Other kakapos have told stories of being trapped in a big glass cage with no friends and humans who just stare at you all the time. We then came to a big sign that said the name of some fancy hotel. We were going to go home but we were lost.

Toni saved the day! She called Andy and Andy said she would pick us up as well as give back sam's hat (another story). After picking us all up, Andy suggested a place to have afternoon tea. It was called "Pasta Bake". We ordered some dessert things and drinks. For dessert before dinner, we had mango jelly stuff with sponge fingers, different coloured macaroons and a yummy chocolate mousse. The adults complained that the kids and I didn't share any dessert, but they were too busy chatting to bother ask if they could have some food.

After the worlds most expensive dessert before dinner, we decided to have dinner at a restaurant really close to where we are now staying. We had been there once before and it was nice and not too expensive. Everyone except Lucy had pizzas. She wasn't that hungry so she had a chicken sandwich. She saved half for the morning. (Yet again another story.) After dinner we wandered home and promptly went to sleep.

Well another night of peace to myself, so I'll end my blog here, Squaaark!  

Leaving World Heritage Penang for Phuket Thailand 26 June - Maverick scribed by Toni

Squwark - What was that noise. It's 4:30 am surely not time to wake up.  It is not even light yet!  The sound is a muezzin calling the moslems to prayer.  Apparently it is Ramadan.  A special time in the Islamic calendar where the prophet Mohammed fasted for 40 days.  A time of introspection and special time where no food is taken in daylight.

The morning is spent packing and organising our checkout.  Organisation is not the same as Singapore and everything takes time, there is confusion with the locals about who does what and where things should be paid.  This experience has been wonderful and un-contrived though how many people truly seek authenticity when it goes with a great deal of noise, sandflys etc.?  I wouldn't have missed this for the world, though part of me yearns for the efficiency of Singapore, the beautiful gardens and the ease of walking and being on the ground - after all Kakapos do not fly so cool temperatures and freedom to walk without tripping is a treat.  Penang is truly sensational with the senses being constantly bombarded by smells and sights, street art and curios.  You need to be on red alert for holes in the road, lack of footpaths, cars and bikes and motor bikes everywhere.  Around every corner there is something to make you think. Like Singapore, Penangs history as trading route and prior colonisation has left a hotch potch of buildings, a mix or religions and an ethnic mix comprising of Indian, Chinese and Expat British.  Unlike Singapore they have many natural resources  and were world leaders in tin, rubber and palm oil as well as having significant iron ore.  Malaysia was a rich country that eventually gained independence from British Colonial rule on 31 August 1963.  Singapore obtained independence from Malaysia in 1965 giving Lee Kuan Yew a free hand to build the Singapore of today.

He spent 6 weeks in isolation considering his new nation and the possible problems it faced.  He knew he would need strong policies to build the Singapore of today.  The policies included population policies where nothing was forced, though societal growth policies were encouraged such as an initial 'Stop at 2' policy.  When population started declining and there were unmarried graduate wives Lee then started encouraging Singapore men to marry graduate wives and have more children. Looking at what was best for the society as a whole.

Treating the society as a whole Lee Kuan Yew made English the first language though through schooling made a second language an imperative to ensure the mother-tongues of this multi-cultural society were kept alive.

Anti-corruption policies were put in place with political ministers paid the rates of those at the top of the private sector to ensure ministers were the best talent and to ensure a corruption free government.

With no natural resources economically Lee Kuan Yew focused on manufacturing, banking and the ports.  He focused on creating First world infrastructure to attract foreign investment and cleared the way for the new Singapore.

Singapore relied on Malaysia for water and this left it open to Malaysia using water as political leverage with fluctuating prices and control of supply.  Singapore is the first nation to use desalinated water as it's prime drinking water supply with two desalination plants as well as some natural resources and recycling of grey water.

Singapore showed me what a firm leader that looks at society as their family, administering 'tough love', can do for a nation.  Today Singapore is a united, safe, crime-free and prospering society where cultural diversity is celebrated by all.  We have the most to learn from Singapore.

Enough of the politics - we are on the road:-

With the driver arriving early and no time to visit the Clan Jetties we headed for the airport at 11:30 a.m. and spent the last of our ringitts on lunch for the kids before boarding our 2 pm flight for Phuket. Today we were board a small ATR plane with an airline called Firefly.  There was a kerfuffle at the gate with the announcer calling - could Mr John Glover come to the gate.  It turned out there was a strange noise coming from the checked in luggage.  Damn - I thought I didn't have to travel with that damned chicken any more.  The chicken had to travel in hand luggage so everyone knew what it was making the strange racket.  Ridiculous noisy bird!

Arriving in Phuket there seemed to be no-one here.  No-one at the airport (5 minutes through), no-one on the road - where's all the traffic and no-one on the beach - though that is another story.  We arrived at our apartment with a fantastic pool and for me - lots of trees in the garden.  Where are all the people?  That is another story to do with the military government, the drop of the ruble and a singular tourism policy.  Ahhh for a good nights sleep after a delicious meal.  Toni finally found lots of veges to pop into the children's mouths and I found some exciting new bugs to eat.  Good night from Phuket.  Tomorrow to explore and for the kids time fo

The last and one of the best days in Singapore 23 June - Maverick scribed by Lucy

The last and one of the best days in Singapore
Squark! It's me again the amazing, flying, Maverick the kakapo! Today we started off with the worlds biggest breakfast! Sorry, buffet. Though, it was a very big buffet so there was lots and lots of yummy food, though, I had to stick to fruit. There were many variations of food including: pastries, toasts, cereals, juices, cooked breakfast, fruits, nuts, Japanese breakfast and probably a whole lot more! But enough about fruits and buffets and Japanese breakfasts, Lucy had a plan to eat a little bit of everything, she tried fruits, cereals and pastries.  Everyone else had a similar feast. After they  ate themselves silly they had a short break, then, as planned, they caught a train to the Singapore gardens.

The Singapore gardens! They were beautiful! (In my opinion anyway, SOME people *cough * sam*cough*cough didn't enjoy them to their full extent and were more worried about who got to hold me) it wasn't only one garden but a whole bunch of them! (We only had time to go to the cloud forest and we spent something crazy like two whole hours there!) Even walking around on the pathways was beautiful, there were lots of sculptures there and to name a few, there was an ants on a log sculpture, a red ants on a log sculpture and lots and lots of woodcarvings of lions!

After wandering around aimlessly, (aka trying to find the cloud forest) we finally found the cloud forest. If  everything else was beautiful, this was spectacular! It looked just like a real cloud forest. Wait, you don't know what a cloud forest is? A cloud forest is a big forest high up in the mountains at just the right temperature and altitude for incredibly rare species of plants and animals to grow and thrive. As much as my dear friend the kea would love it here, unfortunately, there are no cloud forests in New Zealand as my home country is too flat. They are mainly found in between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. Sadly, these cloud forests are getting cleared out for farmland and rice fields. So, being in a realistic artificial cloud forest was as close as we can get with out going to America or Australia.

We explored the cloud forest and found many carnivorous plants, one type of plant they didn't have, though they did have awesome lego sculptures representing the actual plant. Onewas a rafflesia, (search it up). We saw Venus fly traps, honey dew plants, and many, many plants. After  two interesting hours of looking and learning about plants, we decided to wander on back to the train station. While walking back we saw one of the gardens main attractions: The giant flowers. These flowers were made of long beams of metal and looked like they were at least 500 metres tall! After wondering at how tall the flowers were, my family and I wandered back to the train station.

In the train, which was pretty much empty, apart from the occasional person. We took the train to the airport and had to skedaddle at 12 o'clock for an early afternoon flight. Unfortunately for the convenience of air travel, we found a massive chocolate shop. Yup, Daim bars, Kit Kats, Tobletone, and M'n'Ms. The Kit Kat bars were instantly opened.

Wow, time goes by when you shop for chocolate, or anything. It was time to board the plane. It was only a short hop to Penang, not like that silly six flight we had. I spent the time, eating, drinking and wondering how they still conjuncture up these weird untastful meals. When we got to Penang we relaxed for the rest of the day then went exploring.

Around dinner time, we were looking at maps at the area. Lucy spotted a cat cafe not far from their house. Squaark! I'll stay here thank you! At home Poodle wasn't interested in me, a good yet sometimes annoying cat at heart. But I hate other cats. They will try to rip off my wings and eat all my young. Having eight cats in one room pretty much spells disaster. In the end I went to have food with the family at Mish Mash, a restaurant.  Because, the cat cafe only had desert they had dinner elsewhere. Squaark, Squaark and double Squaak! That place was like the heaven on all cat lovers, and a nightmare for me. The cats were contained in a room and you can bet I stayed outside that room. After that torture, the family walked home and went to bed

I guess that these hours are my peace hours and that's all for my blog, so Squaark or goodbye.

Universal Studios Singapore 22 June - Maverick scribed by Sam

Maverick the kakapo gets up in the morning to walk to the train station. On the train with James, Lucy,Sam,John and Toni on the long train ride Marina Bay. Finally we get there but we still have to go on the monorail. We are not bored because we are going to the amazing "UNIVERSAL STUDIOS SINGAPORE". We are all exited to go on all the rides there are. As we enter the gate we  start of in the Hollywood section. We move past the strait Hollywood section into the New York section there was a "Fast And Furious 7" car. But we moved strait past that to the transformer ride.

The transformer ride was cool as we put on our battle glasses (3D glasses)  I sat next to Sam as
we left I was terrified as I charged into battle a weird dog thing jumped up to me as much as I hate
normal dogs this was a terrifying robot dog. As we back up into a hallway Megatron suddenly drops
in front of you you back up and suddenly get sucked int a vortex and almost killed it was scary and
realistic. After escaping again you get sucked up in another vortex but you don't escape you go in

one end and come out the other end. You drive around for a bit then you get hooked on by a cable
and thrown about onto a building and you chase Megatron and kill him. And you fall and the ride is

 So I head on through sci-fi city. I go to the battle star galactic with sam Lucy and John while James
goes on a tea cup ride. It was scary waiting and I could tell sam was scared but Lucy was encouraging him. And finally we are at the devastating start of the ride as you put on the harness it is already scary and you take off thank the gods it was a short ride it was so fast I don't blame sam.

 We find James and Toni waiting for us. Lucy and Toni went to the terrifying torture again while me
Sam and James go on the tea cup ride unfortunately it wasn't very fast and the wait time for it
wasn't worth it. While I was waiting for Toni and Lucy James went on the "Revenge Of The Mummy"finally after what felt like forever Toni and Lucy come back from their torture but it was
I head on with the rest of the Glovers at least the chicken isn't here but I can predict the future and
it will strike again. Anyway we head on to "The Revenge Of The Mummy" (whoooo) in the Egypt
section. There was a very very very very very very very very long line but it wasn't filled with people
thankfully. We were meant to find the book of life but there was a scary mummy thing trying to take
our souls. All he said was "Your souls are mine" and ate you. He is weird he tried to eat you twice.

A Day in Penang 24 June - Maverick scribed by John

Skwark! Here we are in our world heritage accommodation. I think the last time I stayed in a world heritage area was on the Milford Track which is way colder than here and pretty close to where us Kakapos came from. Humans scrub clothes in the shower and sink, explain to the kids that they dry better if you wring them out, and hang them over whatever they can find in the indoor / outdoor courtyard typical of a shop house. Thankfully I get to keep my perch in this large airy home with steep woodenstairs, creaky floorboards and antique furniture.

Breakfast at an arts centre cafe that has the most amazing set of cakes I've ever seen on offer and which will doubtless require a return visit by the family.  We set off to wander around the town. Head to the waterfront where the fort doesn't inspire a visit but the swings in the park naturally attract the kids then off to a camera museum for the boys. Made John feel pretty old as he can remember using a fair amount of the stuff on display! Lunch and then highlight of the day for me, a tour round the famous blue mansion - the wonderfully well restored residence of the last Chinese Mandarin. Our guide was very animated and a great storyteller.

Back to our shop house for respite from the heat, beer (for the grown ups) and blogging before heading out to a very bustling Chinese restaurant for dinner that turned tables quicker than McDonalds, had a queue stretching into the street and had portable round table tops to make the tables bigger for larger groups. Great idea!

Checking in to World Heritage in Penang 25 June Maverick scribed by James

Hi it's Maverick reporting from Penang at a world heritage sight Staying in Straits Collection number 95.   The shrilling chicken strikes again!  that thing is making me feel like a bomb ready to explodee and he's wrecking my holiday. My poor kakapo ears can't cope with such an uneducated common bird.

We're staying in a world heritage sight and the kids are bored as they haven't had a swim in three days. They always had a swim in the pool at Singapore and
Bali but not here. We tried a hotel to see if we could splash there but they said "No". We walked around saw the rocky shores although, we did make a video about where we are staying which the shrilling chicken interrupted and completely wrecked the video. What I say is needed to be done is to send him off to a dog with sharp teeth.

We all went out to lunch and ate which was pretty good, then we made a discovery of a weird food that sounds impossible to make.  This was deep fried ice cream and it was yummy. Everyone loved the ice cream and gave it the thumbs up. .

After lunch we watched a movie onToni's computer which is called the Imitation Game. We all watched the movie for two hours.  The movie was plotted back in 1940 during world war 2.  I can't remember that time I wasn't even around. but I do know that there were more kakapos
then than there are today.

We had cake thick cake light cake tasty cake and yummy cake. James's favourite cake was the
one he chose the chocolate pavlova cake it was delicious and johns favourite was the really light
lemon and passion fruit sponge cake which was lightest cake he had ever tried.

My opinion is that in Penang if you're' a flightless bird and don't cope with the heat you'regoing to over heat and get sticky feathers. There's another problem they've got something worse than sand flies they've got Mosquitos that leave an even bigger red spot an your skin and they are everywhere and they bite multiple times it's not fun. Don't try ice kecung it will leave your feathers in a sweet and sticky mess with corns and beans.