Homeward bound

Six months have passed every quickly, and suddently it is time to leave. There have been a lot of goodbyes to say, and we will be sad to leave NZ, although it will be great to see friends and family in the UK again.

So what about the highlights? Well our road trip around the S Island takes some beating, for the sheer scale of the scenery. Auckland itself has some lovely spots, usually volcanoes, and we have enjoyed some great beaches. There's also the sense of being on the other side of the world, which is obvious I know, but still remarkable. Digging a bit deeper into the complexities of NZ culture - especially the Pacific Island influence - has also been interesting. When the weather is good (like today), there is also a peculiar quality to the light, which possibly results from the maritime air combined with the latitude. The colours seem richer somehow, and it makes many of the views a sight to behold.

And the lowlights. Two things for me, the poor insulation in our house (and most others), and the crazy, crazy Kiwi driving. But these pale into insignificance in comparison with the highlights.

So we are off tomorrow; we leave at 12.40 bound for Singapore, and then we fly on to the UK on Wednesday.

Best wishes,

Richard

Bay of Islands and Waitangi

We managed to get up north to the Bay of Islands for the weekend.

We visited the memorable HundertWasser Toilets - not to be missed and stopped in a cafe to watch the train coming down the middle of the street. Peter, Felicity and Adam got to drive the ferry across to Russell. We really wanted to visit Waitangi - the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand's founding document. It was both beautiful and quiet.

Here's some photos ...


If you have trouble, here's the link.

Best wishes,

Catherine

Cable Bay, Waiheke

A few photos of Cable Bay on Waiheke on a showery autumn day showing where David and Amanda are getting married.


Try here for the link to the photos.

Catherine

Taupo

We had a great time in Taupo. Peter, Felicity, Adam and I stayed at the south of Lake Taupo near Tongariro for a few days before moving up to Taupo where Richard joined us. We walked up to Huka Falls where Lake Taupo drains into the Waikato river. We tried out the geothermal heated AC Baths and walked through the Craters of the Moon - a thermal valley near Huka Falls. The highlight for P, F and A was our visit to MacDonalds (sigh) where you can eat in a real aeroplane which looks as if it's about to crash into the restaurant.


If you have problems viewing the pictures, try here.

Catherine

Tongariro

We had lots of fun at Tongariro although the snow was unseasonal for autumn.

Graeme and BJ looked after Peter, Felicity and Adam for us so we could go and play!

If you can't see the pictures, try here.


Catherine

Meola Reef

What with illness, a party, a march, bad weather and dentistry we've spent quite a few weekends in Auckland over the last two months. We took a short walk along Meola reef at the weekend. It's a long lava flow from Three Kings Volcano. Good views of kite surfing in Auckland Harbour.


Felicity and Peter enjoyed an Art Course after Easter - here are a few of their pictures.


If you have trouble seeing the photos click here and here.

Catherine

MOTAT

MOTAT is a musuem of technology - full of old fire engines, police cars, steam engines, buses, rockets and aircraft. We've had a lot of fun checking out their exhibits and testing their assault course. It's only about 10 minutes away from us, so we've been there quite frequently.


If you have trouble seeing the photos click here.

Catherine

Photos from a trip to Waimangu Thermal Valley near Rotorua

Try this if you get stuck.

Catherine

Home Thoughts from Abroad

In April, or by now in May I'm starting to think, with anticipation, of returning home. The view from the bedroom window, a non-concave bed, even a bath (our present accommodation has only a shower), catching up with friends and central heating.

The chaffinch might be singing in the orchard in England, but the trees I am going to miss are the feijoas. These bear small, dark green and perfumed tropical fruit. Adam and I are addicted to their rather sharp white flesh. As they grow on a tree in the verge outside our neighbour's house, every time we fancy a snack we can nip out, shake the tree, pick up the five or six which fall and scoff them.

Catherine.

Keas and Pippins

Felicity really likes Pippins - a friend she's made is coming to play this week which is a first for Felicity in NZ. She loves her uniform and dressing up in it on Thursdays. This week she's going to get her first Pippins badge to sew on her sash - very exciting.

She marched with the Pippins in a local ANZAC Day parade last Saturday.

Peter loves Keas. They shout and run about lots more at their meetings than the Pippins do. He really likes the uniform and they get lots of cool badges to sew on. A few weeks ago the Keas + Felicity went to Auckland Zoo as part of their conservation badge. Their leader Kimberley is a wonderfully patient lady!

Catherine

Pippins at an ANZAC Day Parade

Felicity joined the Pippins an ANZAC Day Parade...



Try here if you have trouble.

Catherine.

Some photos of the Keas at Auckland Zoo April 09

Click on this link if you have trouble.

Best wishes,

Catherine

South Island Trip Photos (71 photos)

Here are some images from our trip to New Zealand's South Island. If you can't see them, try this link.


Catherine

Food - Pies, Lemon and Paeroa, Hokey Pokey Icecream

Well, what is it with New Zealand cuisine?

This is my first blog which might sound slightly critical of NZ. But well, really.

Here we are at the end of summer, in a country justly famed for it's agriculture. Just down the round there's Fruit World. Every time we drive past it, the children chant a paean to the wonders of it's wares. Great bins of fruit, four different kinds of nectarines, three kinds of peaches and melons, four varieties of apples, plums, kiwi berries, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, all grown in New Zealand. There are heaps of vegetables too, locally grown. But what do you get if you go out to a cafe? Deep fried fish (or meat) and chips. Not even a sprig of parsley. Nothing green, nothing fresh. You can't even order it as a side salad. The only vegetable option is baked beans.

Kiwis seem to be addicted to pies. At every dairy (cornershop) and cafe, pub and bar, hoardings proclaim "Pies". Great, greasy things with limp, tough pastry and minute portions of filling. In the Lifestyle section of this week's Saturday paper, there was a colour food feature on up to the minute canapes - "when you want to impress your friends, you can't go past a pie" - mini cottage pies with a pastry crust and wavy potato topping, sorry crust.

However New Zealand posses some hidden weapons for world (food) domination... L&P - too good to restrict to one small corner of the Pacific. Lemon and Paeroa is the fizzy drink of choice in our house. Coke is passe for Peter, and Felicity wants to import it to the UK in a container shipment. Hokey Pokey icecream - those crunchy toffee bits are just fab. Lisa's Kumara and Pumpkin hummus, crunchy breakfast cereals...yum yum yum.

Wish you were here?

Catherine

Back Home

We've been back in Auckland for a week now, and although we had a lovely time in our campervan, it is great to be back in a house with space. It was fantastic to explore the South Island, there are so many places we would like to go back to one day, and there are quite a few mountains to climb too.

Peter, Felicity and Adam are settling back into life at home - learning as well as playing. This is a struggle as there seem better games to play than sums and writing. Reading is now very popular with Peter as his reading book is a new Captain Underpants story. Felicity is reading anything we can borrow from the library with big print - she's a superstar! Adam prevents us getting too stuck into anything as he is still learning to use the potty. I am unutterably thrilled with his poo progress this week. Dealing with three poo accidents a day in the campervan was no joke.

They all love to use the computer. As soon as he sees it, Adam cries, "I want to go on my blog" - he loves the CBeebies Squiglet site. Felicity and Peter are only too happy to manage the mouse for him. He never wants to come off and lies across the table pushing the screen round for a better view whenever it's someone else's turn. Peter or Felicity love Google but I have learn the hard way always to be in the room when they are online. Peter found a Spiderman clip that gave Felicity and Adam nightmares and Felicity found a Barbie animation on YouTube that went right over her head.... I'm restricting them to Ask Kids or KidsClick in future.

We have got to know a few people - including a lovely local family who home school. We all enjoyed going there to play this week and I have plans to meet up with another home school family next week. Felicity is going to Pippins, the most junior branch of the Girl Guides and Peter to Keas, part of the Scout movement. They have really appreciated being with other children their age. But it is hard for me to get to know people - Mums at Keas and Pippins don't seem very friendly however I have started Aqua Aerobics which is the most fun I have ever had at an exercise class.

We're planning our next trip - to Rotorua.

Best wishes,

Catherine

Heading East

Today we have arrived in Akaroa on the east coast, which is about 80 km from Christchurch. The last few days have involved long drives through the high country in the central part of the South Island. Once more the scenery has been magnificent in scale, although we have been driving on huge alluvial plains, there has always been a mountain range either up close or visible on the horizon.

We have been reading the local papers with great interest. There are adverts for agricultural products (dietary supplements for cattle), updates on the price of sheep, and news of the latest low-key (by UK standards) misdemeanours. One letter to the editor celebrated the reaction of a couple of British tourists who, when stuck in a queue of traffic at some roadworks, were astonished that one of the workmen took time to walk along the queue offering sweets to each driver and explaining how long the wait would be. We had a similar experience without the sweets ("It'll be about ten minutes mate"). Although NZ is not without its problems, this sort of courteous behaviour does seem to be normal here, and that is worth celebrating.

Best wishes,

Richard

Milford Sound

We stayed overnight in lovely Te Anau and woke up to another beautiful hot blue sky day. We have not been waking up until 8 am as the children have such trouble going to sleep although when they do, they look so cute. It's just not the same when they wake up. We struggled to leave the campsite on time.

Our late start meant that we missed the stream of coaches and cars heading out along the Milford Road. We stopped to take a few photos on the way, but otherwise headed straight for the Sound (actually a fjord but I'm sure you knew that anyway) It was amazing to be surrounded by so many beautiful mountains, some snow capped, many unclimbed.

Richard finds the vistas endlessly absorbing, but I find that one beautiful mountain starts to look like another after a while. I need to interact with nature - walking or climbing to be in touch with the landscape.

At Milford we took a boat down the Sound. It was amazing to see Mitre Rock against a vivid blue sky - the classic view. We sailed out towards the Tasman Sea. No pengiuns or dolphins on our trip, but we did see fur seals sunning themselves on a large rock. The strong wind whipped out the spray from the falls soaking us as the boat drew near and creating curiously geometric patterns of bubbles on the water, radiating outward from the falls.

The beauty and majesty of the sound was spoilt for me by the feeling that I was on a tourism conveyor belt. Two other cruise boats preceeeded us up the sound, all on the same route. Five or six boats overate from Milford, with four sailings each per day.

We stopped on the Milford Road at Cascade Creek, a quiet campground with just a few fireplaces to use. The strong winds kept the sandflies away so we enjoyed a lovely evening surrounded by unfamiliar mountains with a beautiful sunset.

The wild west

Today we have arrived at Wanaka, after a few days exploring the wild west coast of the South Island. The most memorable aspect of this part of our journey was the lush rainforest, which lived up to its name at times. On the way we have visited hot springs, crossed the watershed of the Southern Alps, camped on the fault between the Australasian and Pacific tectonic plates (well, we were about 5 m to one side of it), walked up to two glaciers (see pic), found some lovely free places to park our van overnight, and we have all been bitten numerous times by sandflies - like midges but bigger and nastier!

The campervan is small and quite confined, but we are gradually getting used to living in such a small space and the children are using an indoor voice some of the time. Poor Adam has found the darkness at night a bit scary -- it really is too dark to see your hand in front of your face so we are very sympathetic -- but Peter and Felicity are sleeping with him in the space over the driving compartment and are looking after him too.

We're planning to stay in Wanaka for a couple of days to enjoy the lake (see pic) and surrounding hills before heading back across west to see some fjords and, no doubt, to be bitten by sandflies again!

Richard.

So today is the first day of our three week expedition to explore the South Island - and it is pouring with rain! Yesterday (Thursday) we left Auckland, returned our rental car, and flew down to Christchurch. The last day or so have been very humid in Auckland, and it was good to arrive to find slightly fresher conditions. Adam weed all over me on the plane, but fortunately all the poo had arrived earlier in the day.

We picked up our camper van, which is quite a large vehicle and so is interesting to drive. We made it to our first stopping point in Christchurch without incident, and we are gradually finding somewhere for all our stuff to go. The children slept (kind of) in the large space over the cab, which was very exciting and rather noisy. Hopefully they will be tireder tonight.

Today we are off to see the Antarctic centre in Christchurch, where there are penguins. Then we are off to find a campground away from the city, hopefully with some better weather.

Over and out.

Richard

On the beach

This weekend was another holiday weekend, and we had been invited by Graeme and Barbara to join them at their bach (beach house) at Langs beach on the east coast, which is about 1.5 hours drive north from Auckland. The weather was perfect and Graeme and Barbara made us feel so welcome.

After we arrived on Friday we headed straight out to the beach (see pic), where we found some impressive surf and Catherine discovered body boarding.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at the beach, swimming, and enjoying various sand-based activities. We made a sand Adam, a Felicity trap, a working (with seawater) volcano with magma chamber, as well as lots of castles, and only incurred minor sunburn in places where there were gaps in the sunscreen.

Richard also discovered body boarding on Sunday afternoon, and can confirm that it is quite exciting hurtling towards the shore, and from time to time if it all goes pear shaped in the wave then at least your sinuses will get a good clean.

Unfortunately the surf was a bit too big for Peter and Felicity to have a go, but all three children spent some time in the water, gradually growing in confidence jumping the smaller waves and running away squealing when a larger one came along.

So, a lovely weekend -- and grateful thanks are due to Graeme and Barbara for their kind and generous hospitality. Back to Auckland late on Sunday night, and to make all you UK folk feel a little better on Monday it was a rather cloudy rainy day, though still warm.

Richard

Settling in

At long last we are getting some decent nights' sleep, and are settling into the Auckland rhythm. We've been out exploring the local rainforest (see pic), which is very different from anything we've seen in Europe. We are off up north (i.e. to the warmer bit) this weekend. It is another holiday weekend as Friday is Waitangi day, which commemorates the signing of the Waitangi treaty between the British crown and the Maori - still the subject of some dispute.

One of the things that is slightly disorientating about living here is the angle of the sun, which makes figuring out directions very difficult. The bright part of the sky is to the north, opposite to the northern hemisphere, which means I am constantly muddled about north, south, east and west - I'm sure it will be equally confusing when we come back.

The weather continues to be settled and warm, much in contrast to the UK at the moment. We've booked a flight to Christchurch on the South Island in a couple of weeks time, and hope that we can make the most of what remains of the austral summer to enjoy exploring it.

In the meantime I am having a luxurious time at work, ignoring all the emails from Sheffield and concentrating on my research. Its great, and I'm feeling more relaxed than I have for ages.

Thanks for all the comments, its nice to know that you are keeping in touch.

Richard

Normal Life/One Tree Hill/Waitakeri

It's been a lovely week - cloudless skies and gentle breezes while we've been getting to know our surroundings.

A lovely lady called Anna took me shopping for such essentials as pencil sharpeners and a potty. The driving takes some getting used to - as does the automatic car with a foot operated hand brake. I'm having trouble working out how to do hill starts as I can't treat it like a clutch!

Barbara and Graeme popped in this evening to see if we were settling in. They were able to give us the Kiwi view across divers topics including camper-van fly-drive, health care, toddler groups and the perils of Chinese bakeries. It was lovely to meet them.

We had only just got back from a 'tramp in the bush' aka a short stroll in the Waitakeri Ranges just outside Auckland. It's a huge area of regenerating Kauri forest - it was comprehensively logged in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Adam and I paid a visit to the Sheffield Botanic Gardens a few days before we flew, to look at the cluster of tree ferns in the glass house. It was marvellous to see the thousands upon thousands of these ferns across the hills. There were other plants that I had only seen as house plants growing all around.

This week we've been to (N)One Tree Hill, Western Springs Park and the Auckland Museum to look at the Maori war canoe and the volcano exhibition, Richard has started work, Felicity has bounced off the trampoline and Peter has fallen 7 ft/2.5 m out of a tree. I have been trying to find a reading group to join while I'm in Auckland but without success so far.

I'll post some photos when I've found somewhere to buy new batteries for the camera.

Best wishes,

Catherine

A day in the park

We had a lovely day exploring One Tree Hill Domain and Cornwall Park in Auckland. One Tree Hill is an extinct volcano which rises above the largely flat Auckland isthmus. According to my guide book there are about 50 volcanic cones in and around Auckland. From the top of the hill we could see many of them as wooded lumps rising above the surrounding suburbs.

It was a beautiful day, clear, hot with a cooling breeze. Sliding down the hill into Cornwall Park Felicity entertained us with snippets of the lyrics she had learnt from Mamma Mia on the aeroplane. We could not persuade, bribe, threaten or distract her from those Abba masterpieces. We finished off with fantastic icecreams and a walk in the park, admiring the huge trees.

We've arrived

After another long flight we arrived late last night in Auckland. We are all feeling a bit strange, but the children have coped with their sleep deprivation very well.


We are now the proud temporary owners of a red hire car, and our rented house has a lovely back garden (see pics).

We have also made the happy discovery that it is a bank holiday weekend, so no work for Richard on Monday. The weather is warm and sunny, and set to get warmer over the next few days, so we might be taking a trip out tomorrow.

...gone

I'm posting this on Wednesday afternoon from Singapore, where it is very hot! We arrived safely late last night after a somewhat trying 15 hour flight. The first three hours were spent on the tarmac at Heathrow while an electrical fault with the plan was fixed by men in fluorescent jackets with a stepladder -- at one point they decided to re-boot the plane by shutting the whole machine down, resulting in about 15 minutes of total darkness on board.

So today we got up very late (Singapore time), had some milkshakes for breakfast, and went for a short walk in the heat followed by some Chinese food. Everyone here is getting geared up for Chinese New Year next week, and there are lanterns everywhere. We are now lying down for a rest before going for a swim and an early night -- our taxi is booked for 5.40 am tomorrow for the next leg of our journey.

Going, going ...

Many thanks to all of you who have sent us cards, and wished us well on our journey. We've finally finished packing, and we *think* our bags are under the weight limit. Only a few hours until we find out! Everyone is very excited, and can't wait to get on the plane. I expect it won't be too long before one or two of our party can't wait to get *off* the plane. Hopefully we will be able to post something from Singapore when we arrive on Tuesday morning (UK time).

Packing

Summer clothes, winter clothes, sun cream, medicines, toys - we're taking it. But how many books can we fit in?