Sunday, 24 January 2010
Our Holiday to Napier....
Monday, 18 January 2010
Its all going to the dogs......
Whilst I was back at work the girls all headed off to Raglan for more fun in the surf and came back raving about the waves and how powerful they were.
Saturday was my excuse to head off into the hills. This time to a much closer mountain bike trail at Te Miro about 10 miles away. I managed to do 8km and was home in time for a bacon buttie as the girls were just getting up at 11:30. Joined a very social group of cyclists on Monday – whilst demonstrating how to do a perfect jump to his kids Ian managed to do a pirouette on his front wheel before elegantly breaking his collar bone – the arrival of the ambulance to recover a damaged cyclist reminded me of those thoroughly enjoyable Wednesday evenings in Warwickshire.
If you think that this looks a bit like Hobbiton (Lord of the Rings I think) then there is a good reason for this as it was filmed very close by - apparently the Waikato region is as close to the Shire as you are going to get......
The trusty ride-on mower has its last pre-service outing and I managed to get my lap record down to 17 mins 23 seconds a massive 121 seconds off my previous best.
On Sunday we drove down to the SPCA dog home in Te Awamutu to go puppy choosing – they would have come back with all of them given the chance. I just need to work out how to secure our 360m of fencing to stop aforementioned hound becoming a tasty piece of Kiwi road-kill. Options include chicken wire – which will look ugly and take me ages to install, a secure and small compound in the garden or an upmarket ASBO canine collar that gives the dog a friendly reminder (electric shock) whenever it strays too close to the wire I fix around the perimeter of the garden. The gizmo makes a doggie audible beep before it zaps the hound and apparently the dog soon learns that if he does not retrace his paw prints pretty rapidly a zap will shortly follow. It all sounds very Pavlovian!
Please don’t confuse Pavlov with Pavlova – Pavlova is a kiwi invention (1926 in honour of a visiting Russian ballet dancer) involving meringue and cream whilst Pavlov is the guy who rang bells before feeding dogs (possibly with Pavlova). Who says this blog isn’t educational.
Currently re-packing the car for a 5 night trip to Napier – discovered that this useless MPV is a lot smaller than our old Ford Galaxy and what would easily fit into the trusty Ford will not fit into this vehicle. Not only is it small but it is the only vehicle in NZ without a tow hitch so I can’t partake in the traditional Sunday morning kiwi activity of driving around town towing an empty trailer behind me….
Napier has a few gems, it is the world’s most complete Art Deco city – mainly due to the fact that all the previous buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 – very conveniently at the start of the Art Deco movement. The earthquake also lifted up a huge piece of seabed that is now the airport. Nearby are beaches and vineyards – so I think there will be some haggling about where we spend our days! Watch this space.
Richard
Saturday was my excuse to head off into the hills. This time to a much closer mountain bike trail at Te Miro about 10 miles away. I managed to do 8km and was home in time for a bacon buttie as the girls were just getting up at 11:30. Joined a very social group of cyclists on Monday – whilst demonstrating how to do a perfect jump to his kids Ian managed to do a pirouette on his front wheel before elegantly breaking his collar bone – the arrival of the ambulance to recover a damaged cyclist reminded me of those thoroughly enjoyable Wednesday evenings in Warwickshire.
If you think that this looks a bit like Hobbiton (Lord of the Rings I think) then there is a good reason for this as it was filmed very close by - apparently the Waikato region is as close to the Shire as you are going to get......
The trusty ride-on mower has its last pre-service outing and I managed to get my lap record down to 17 mins 23 seconds a massive 121 seconds off my previous best.
On Sunday we drove down to the SPCA dog home in Te Awamutu to go puppy choosing – they would have come back with all of them given the chance. I just need to work out how to secure our 360m of fencing to stop aforementioned hound becoming a tasty piece of Kiwi road-kill. Options include chicken wire – which will look ugly and take me ages to install, a secure and small compound in the garden or an upmarket ASBO canine collar that gives the dog a friendly reminder (electric shock) whenever it strays too close to the wire I fix around the perimeter of the garden. The gizmo makes a doggie audible beep before it zaps the hound and apparently the dog soon learns that if he does not retrace his paw prints pretty rapidly a zap will shortly follow. It all sounds very Pavlovian!
Please don’t confuse Pavlov with Pavlova – Pavlova is a kiwi invention (1926 in honour of a visiting Russian ballet dancer) involving meringue and cream whilst Pavlov is the guy who rang bells before feeding dogs (possibly with Pavlova). Who says this blog isn’t educational.
Currently re-packing the car for a 5 night trip to Napier – discovered that this useless MPV is a lot smaller than our old Ford Galaxy and what would easily fit into the trusty Ford will not fit into this vehicle. Not only is it small but it is the only vehicle in NZ without a tow hitch so I can’t partake in the traditional Sunday morning kiwi activity of driving around town towing an empty trailer behind me….
Napier has a few gems, it is the world’s most complete Art Deco city – mainly due to the fact that all the previous buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 – very conveniently at the start of the Art Deco movement. The earthquake also lifted up a huge piece of seabed that is now the airport. Nearby are beaches and vineyards – so I think there will be some haggling about where we spend our days! Watch this space.
Richard
Sunday, 10 January 2010
'I want to go on the Luge.......' Rotorua - Dad's Birthday Outing
Never one to turn down the opportunity to get on his bike, Richard and a friend of his got up early on Saturday morning and headed down to Rotorua to cycle through some woods. It was in fact Richard’s birthday, but none of us girls were going to get up at the crack of dawn just to give him his presents.
At a much more civilised time – around lunchtime, we got ourselves together (prized Lana off Facebook) and headed south too. Rotorua is only just over an hour away, but you can smell it from about 40 mins away – it’s the sulphur from the geothermal activity. We had a stunning walk around the rainbow pools and saw Lady Knox geyser erupt at exactly 10.15am – helped by the addition of some soap as a catalyst. Impressive all the same.
After a quick dip in the Polynesian Spa (one pool closed coz a baby had done a poo in it!) we headed for the cable cars. Rotorua is known for its smell but also its adrenaline opportunities. We decided against the bungee, the schweeb, the swoop and the zorb, but quite made up for it on the luge. OK, not quite the winter Olympics, and certainly no snow, but you can pick up quite a speed in a little cart on a concrete track down the side of a mountain. So much fun that we went back the following day too.
At a much more civilised time – around lunchtime, we got ourselves together (prized Lana off Facebook) and headed south too. Rotorua is only just over an hour away, but you can smell it from about 40 mins away – it’s the sulphur from the geothermal activity. We had a stunning walk around the rainbow pools and saw Lady Knox geyser erupt at exactly 10.15am – helped by the addition of some soap as a catalyst. Impressive all the same.
After a quick dip in the Polynesian Spa (one pool closed coz a baby had done a poo in it!) we headed for the cable cars. Rotorua is known for its smell but also its adrenaline opportunities. We decided against the bungee, the schweeb, the swoop and the zorb, but quite made up for it on the luge. OK, not quite the winter Olympics, and certainly no snow, but you can pick up quite a speed in a little cart on a concrete track down the side of a mountain. So much fun that we went back the following day too.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Christmas round up...
We made the effort of decorating the garden for Christmas Eve and sat out under the stars with friends before going to Midnight Service at St Andrew's (very) Anglican church in Cambridge. Didn't see the 'Natal star' but did see four of Jupiter's moons through the telescope - kids were amazed.
We braved the elements and decided to have Christmas Dinner outside this year....
And the girls even made a festive ginger bread tree...
So it's now 2010 and we are looking forward to our first full year down here. Highlights of the year so farincluded our trip to the beach at Mount Maunganui on New Year's Day to collect Lana, who spent New Year's Eve there with some school friends. Kirsty braved the 'chilly' Pacific without a wet suit (Chris and I bravely wore ours) and stayed in for almost 2 hours, catching some surerb waves on her boogie board. Kiwis love their cars and the road behind the beach was full of proud drivers parading their suped-up, reved-up, pimped-up motors.
We had an offer to go camping yesterday which Lana accepted, leaving me behind to re-oil the decking (3 pots used and still not finished yet) and unpack still more boxes. We bought some bedroom furniture in the Boxing day sales, to replace the cardboard box 'bedside cabinets' we have used since we moved in. This meant that we've finally been able to move clothes from piles on the floor and tidy up our bedroom - bliss.
In a post-Christmas shopping blitz we also bought a three piece suite - Kirsty loves it as it reclines - a bit like a dentists chair. The arrival of the furniture prompted us to clear out the lounge we we've been using as a box store since November. We also got a large TV cabinet to replace the one I got at a Garage Sale here for $10 in November. The downside was that the tiny TV we bought from home looked ridiculously small on it .... Much to Chris' opposition I went TV shopping this week and found a much more appropriate screen in the sales. One store advertised a very few 50" TVs on sale on Jan 2nd so I dutifully joined the throngs milling outside the store at 8:30 - OK there were 8 of us; three were there because they thought the shop opened at 8:00; one man coming to buy a fridge for his camper van and four of us hoping to secure a mammoth TV. The doors open and we rush in and by 8:33 all four TVs and the fridge are snapped up....... It is now respendent on its stand in the lounge and we can sit in our reclining sofa and enjoy the best of Kiwi TV. (It's so Bl***y big we could watch it from the garden - ed.) In fact the TV here is OK, as long as you record everything and watch it without having to endure the all too frequent adverts.
It looks like we will have our first UK visitor this week with the arrival of Tom who is travelling around New Zealand in a camper van. Tom was the brother of Chris' little bridesmaid all those years ago and is now a surf instuctor so we're hoping for a couple of private lessons at Raglan this week... watch this space.
It was great to hear from so many people over the Christmas period - the girls are very jealous that the UK has had a white Christmas (in some parts), we'll just have to put up with the sunshine for the next three months now.......
Just in case you hadn't seen it earlier our permanent address is .......
308A Hautapu Road
RD1
Cambridge
3493
New Zealand
All the best
Richard & the family.
We had an offer to go camping yesterday which Lana accepted, leaving me behind to re-oil the decking (3 pots used and still not finished yet) and unpack still more boxes. We bought some bedroom furniture in the Boxing day sales, to replace the cardboard box 'bedside cabinets' we have used since we moved in. This meant that we've finally been able to move clothes from piles on the floor and tidy up our bedroom - bliss.
In a post-Christmas shopping blitz we also bought a three piece suite - Kirsty loves it as it reclines - a bit like a dentists chair. The arrival of the furniture prompted us to clear out the lounge we we've been using as a box store since November. We also got a large TV cabinet to replace the one I got at a Garage Sale here for $10 in November. The downside was that the tiny TV we bought from home looked ridiculously small on it .... Much to Chris' opposition I went TV shopping this week and found a much more appropriate screen in the sales. One store advertised a very few 50" TVs on sale on Jan 2nd so I dutifully joined the throngs milling outside the store at 8:30 - OK there were 8 of us; three were there because they thought the shop opened at 8:00; one man coming to buy a fridge for his camper van and four of us hoping to secure a mammoth TV. The doors open and we rush in and by 8:33 all four TVs and the fridge are snapped up....... It is now respendent on its stand in the lounge and we can sit in our reclining sofa and enjoy the best of Kiwi TV. (It's so Bl***y big we could watch it from the garden - ed.) In fact the TV here is OK, as long as you record everything and watch it without having to endure the all too frequent adverts.
It looks like we will have our first UK visitor this week with the arrival of Tom who is travelling around New Zealand in a camper van. Tom was the brother of Chris' little bridesmaid all those years ago and is now a surf instuctor so we're hoping for a couple of private lessons at Raglan this week... watch this space.
It was great to hear from so many people over the Christmas period - the girls are very jealous that the UK has had a white Christmas (in some parts), we'll just have to put up with the sunshine for the next three months now.......
Just in case you hadn't seen it earlier our permanent address is .......
308A Hautapu Road
RD1
Cambridge
3493
New Zealand
All the best
Richard & the family.
Friday, 1 January 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
