Itching for 'Lake' on TV

Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her recommendations for a good read and life, as she sees it.

Ooh - cold weather and heavy rain - how delicious to hear it thumping down, washing all those poor dusty trees sparkly clean. And it's so nice lighting a fire in the evening again.

The end of summer arrived unexpectedly making my Virginia creeper blush a deep, embarrassed scarlet, which looks wonderful. It's lovely to see you again, autumn.

Time to start chopping firewood and putting the garden to bed. Get your ski pass. A night in front of the telly starts to have more appeal and especially for locals who are gagging to see Jane Campion's new series Top of the Lake.

Keep an eye out for the nurse who is talking to the pregnant teenager. She's a familiar face around town and spent a very long time practising her lines. Oops, line ... I'm sure this is the start of a huge movie career for her, and we'll all be able to show off that we knew her before she got famous.

I was in Taupo at the weekend supporting the Queenstown team who had Greg Turner as their pro in a men's health charity tournament.

I wasn't really watching the golf, although I accidentally walked past some of them occasionally.

They were playing at Wairakei, which has so much more than golf to look at. The owners have spent millions of dollars building a massive predator fence around the course - some 5km long - and the native bird population has increased fivefold already.

One of the kiwi conservation groups uses the course as a place for teenage kiwis to learn some life skills in a safe place before they get taken out to the wild (imagine how bad you'd feel if you hit a kiwi with a golf ball).

From the look of the deep scratches on the lady who was talking, the grumpy teenage kiwi had already picked up some useful self-defence tactics. I had never seen a live one before, apart from behind glass, and it was weirdly thrilling.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't go to Taupo to support my darling's team. I just saw it as a perfect opportunity to do the Tongariro Crossing. It's too far to go to Taupo just for a one-day hike, so tagging along on their boys' weekend made a lot of sense.

We had thick cloud for most of the way to the top, and just as we were sitting down a bit depressed about no view, the clouds vanished almost before I could get my camera out.

All that unearthly farting and vomiting from this geologically busy bit of the world has created a fascinating landscape, and even though it is way more crowded than any of the South Island walks (apparently the record is 2500 people doing the crossing in one day ), people are still only a tiny blip in the vastness.

The downside of being out in the wilderness like that is the lack of loos. Lunar landscapes don't offer much in the way of privacy and with just two long drops at the start of the Devil's Staircase, it's a good five hours away from one. We were nearly knocked flat by a frantic Japanese guy racing towards them. On to lovelier thoughts - Sarah Kate Lynch's new novel, The Wedding Bees is out. She's coming to talk with our own Leeanne Malcolm at Dorothy Browns on April 15th.

To buy a ticket right now, ask a Dorothy member to book it for you, or wait till April 1 when the ticket sales are open to all. I love Sarah-Kate's books and the way she makes me laugh out loud while getting across her constant message that there is no perfect life, so enjoy every good thing while you're living it.

And a very clever, funny book about an unfunny assassination is HHhH (which in German stands for ''Himmler's brain is called Heydrich'') Heydrich being the Butcher of Prague, and one of the rare Nazi leaders who embodied the Aryan ideal - tall, blonde, blue-eyed and handsome.

As happened in Anna Funder's brilliant Stasiland, author Laurent Binet includes himself in the story, with problems of research and his very clear opinions about Hitler and his hideous plans. The Czech assassins chosen to do in Heydrich, and their mates in the Czech resistance are true heroes, and the painful last pages make you want to cheer out loud for them.

I've mentioned before that many of the great books I read are recommended by Wakatipu homeowners who spend much of the year away in other parts of the world, and this historical novel was yet another of John Watson's excellent suggestions. Thanks John.

-miranda@queenstown.co.nz