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church this morning was good, albeit a bit smaller than normal as many people are away on their hols.  as a result we stayed around a bit longer after the service chatting with those who remained !  I also spoke to one of the music group leaders about playing my bass guitar in one of the bands – hopefully i’ll be able to attend the practice for the service in a fortnight’s time – initially as an observer (these people are good, so i don’t know if i’m up to it musically yet!)

after church we went to the mall to buy some snorkels and masks for the girls.  along the way we also bought some bedside tables, had lunch in a cafe (pies mostly) and did some food shopping.

as soon as we got home we headed over to some other friends from church (ones we haven’t mentioned yet) who live on our street and have a daughter and a swimming pool.  say no more.  by the time we left a few hours later kezia was very wrinkly.  they also had a funny fluffy dog called poo poo for something.  (just remembered, it was ‘pom pom’)

 

we’ve booked up a night in a motel in the Coromandel which is where all your Aucklanders go to for their holidays.  Our’s will be a flying visit taking in some sights on the way there and visiting a friend from work and his family at their bach on Tuesday.

but don’t panic as we’ve left you a special blog treat for tomorrow …

for those wondering about whether i’ll ever go back to work – Monday is a Bank Holiday here as you get both New Year’s day and the day after as public holidays (and since 2nd Jan was a Saturday the bank holiday rolls over to the Monday).  And i’ve got the rest of the week off as the office is shut until the 11th January.

one of the (many) cool things about living in Auckland is its proximity to the Waitakere ranges – a huge area of native ‘bush’ ie our local rain forest.

so after a morning of skyping we headed down to Piha, which is a world famous surfing beach on the west coast on the far edge of the bush

we had a picnic on the black volcanic (and magnetic) sand and watched the world go by

it’s actually quite an exciting world to watch down there which is why there’s a reality TV documentary type thing following the adventures of the Piha life guards.

we didn’t see any incidents, but the cameras are always filming in case something happens so they can include it in the show.  it must be a funny life for them, wishing on others’ misfortunes so they can make good telly !

the ‘thing’ with Piha is its strong rip (undercurrent) which drags unsuspecting swimming sideways along the sea.  they quickly get tired fighting against it so start to sink, which is when the lifeguards coming rushing in on their speed boats, jet skies, floaty things or quad bikes.  so stick between the flags kids

we expected it to be packed, but we found a parking space quite easily in an overflow carpark and had a little mooch about before heading up the road to our main activity for the day …

which was a walk up to the KiteKite falls. 

I told one of our kiwi friends at our new year’s day beach thing yesterday that we were going to “kite kite” falls and he said he’d never heard of it.  i was a bit confused as they are a famous tourist destination. 

Jane overheard our conversation and all three of us realised my silly school boy error at the same time. 

it isn’t pronounced ‘kite’ as in the flying thing, it’s actually kitty as the ‘e’ on the end of a word is sounded out.  just like waitakere is ‘why-tack-er-y ‘.  as soon as i said ‘kitty kitty’ he knew what i was talking about.  d’oh

 

the walk through the bush was really lovely, and started with us having to wash our shoes to prevent the historic trees catching the lurgy from our shoes

this was our first view of the falls as we walked along the path. i think there was a geocache near this point, but we didn’t look for it.

we forgot to take the girl’s swimming gear with us (their ‘togs’) so they just had a paddle in the freezing waters

    

we did see an eel though.

we came a slightly different way back to make it in to a round walk

 

Tomorrow is church in the morning and then who knows what in the afternoon !

we were kindly invited by a group of people from our church to go to a beach half an hour’s drive up north.  it was an absolutely lovely spot, with a  sheltered grass area just above the beach, and a lovely calm beach/sea area.

being part of a kiwi crowd, we set up camp on the grass area

we did rock pooling which revealed loads of little crab (crablets?)

here they are inspecting crabs and trying to avoid standing on oyster shells which are very spiky and can easily cause infection if not removed quickly. (nice!)

this (below) is the view from where we were sitting in the shade

the girls went off and swam in the sea throughout the day and there was always a parent of two to watch them, and the teenager children were also there to look out for them

most of the national parks have these excellent photo frames.  you can sit and watch people posing for photos for hours.  it’s always very amusing.

at one point, one of the dads and I inadvertently took the 6 of the youngest kids on a walk to a geocache.  unfortunately we went the trickiest way over rocks and boulders and didn’t actually find the cache.  loops.  they enjoyed the adventure though i think.  and it gave the rest of the parents and hour’s rest !

a little later on we took the older kids on the more direct route and did manage to find the cache.

we also had this fantastic views

this is looking back towards the bay where we were sitting

parking is free at these places so we didn’t spend any money for a full day’s fun on a not busy beach (despite the cars!).  other than a few dollars for the road toll and a couple of hot drinks in the afternoon.

we all had a ‘wow, we really live here moment’ today as we sat looking out across the flat blue sea on a cloudless warm day just hanging out a group made up of three lovely christian families who seem genuinely happy to call us friends too !   God is so good !

no idea what we’re up to tomorrow.  we’re just hoping we won’t wake up and find the whole last two and a half months haven’t been a dream !

i know some of the girl’s friends read the blog, so here’s a special entry for them of nature type things we saw on and around the beach on new year’s day in the glorious sunshine !

a dead starfush (the girls also saw some living ones in the sea when they were swimming about and saved one from being washed up on the beach

this is a dead sting ray.  it was a bit stinky, and you can see it’s sting looking like a long fingernail top left above its body.  it’s upside down and a bit gashed up.

this is a closer-upper picture of the ‘kiwi Christmas tree’ that i mentioned in an earlier post.  these trees spring in to life over the Christmas period and are amazing.

 

there were loads of little crabs to be found under rocks on the beach

esther loves crabs

so was happy to pick them up for a photo

here’s a fush head

and this my friends is a giant oyster type thing.  it was huge !

and here’s something we didn’t see, but you might be interested in anyway.

we also saw the usual collection of pretty birds flapping about !

well, today turned out differently from what we planned but was a jolly nice day all the same.  it started badly when i got our lawn mower out of its box only to find it had holes in the metal.  i then had to lug it back to the shop where we bought it which was a pain in the arms  (did you think i was going to say arms?) as it was very heavy and the chap at the shop didn’t who was helping me didn’t believe in trollies.

anway, to cut a long and tedious story short, we got a replacement, but they gave us the next model up by mistake. i only spotted it once it was home and i’d gone through all the hassle of getting it out of the car and deboxing etc.  being an honest chap i gave them a phone up and they kindly agreed to let us keep the replacement model at no extra cost.  which was very kind of them.  so, thank you Mitre 10.

once it was all oiled and gassed up (nearly three hours later than originally planned), jane got to cutting the grass which now looks fab.

most of the rest of the day was spent doing chores.  then at about 7pm we headed over to some friends house for a new year party.  kezia wore some of her new christmas clothes

 

we had a really nice evening and i even enjoyed it, which is unheard of since i usually find new year incredibly depressing.  as expected we did a count down to 10pm as our unofficial new year arrived 2 hours early so people could get home to bed before it was too late.  just right.

tomorrow we’re meeting the same gang at a beach up the coast a little for a day of fun.  we have to be on the road by 9am though to avoid the traffic (another good reason why new year should come at 10pm).

so it only remains for us to wish you all a fantastic new years (no idea why the kiwis always say it as plural). we wish you every good health and happiness in the year ahead: who knows what you can do if you set your mind to it !

i know there has been a lot of interest, so here is our new sofa in full.  there’s a mark on the three seater so it’s got to go back (or be cleaned), but everything is shut at the moment so we haven’t made much progress on that.

one of the rooms above is in our house.  the other is the show room.  notice how the girls sat on the seats in the showroom but sit on the floor in our house.  typical hey ?

we had morning tea on the other side of the river at an unpronounceable place called Paremoremo where the people who used to live in our rental house now live.  it’s an absolutely gorgeous place, only marred by its proximity to a broadmoor-like maximum security prison (although it appears not to be that secure – this chap was in prison for crimes against facial hair)

as always we had a really lovely time scoffing cakes and admiring their new view from their deck

at some point we mentioned geocaching which was something they’d hear about but not done, so we walked down to their local wharf to show them how it was done.  i suspect they might now also be addicted. 

after that we headed over to the beach with just our family so the girls could play with their boogie boards and we could all play frisby. it’s felt a lot colder today because of the Southerly winds (straight off Antarctica) which made frisby more sporting

the other big news of the day is that i managed to finish constructing our barbeque.  i did the cooker although jane actually made the burgers with esther i think.

we then road tested it with homemade burgers which tasted ok actually.

now, here’s a question for you guys.  i got this bird feeder for xmas but so far it’s been snubbed by the local bird population

how do you ‘prime’ a new bird feeding device to get them interested in our high quality (and free at the point of delivery) bird food ?  I came up with the idea of stuffing bread on to the landing places, as we all know birds love bread.

any other ideas would be greatly received !

meanwhile we’re going to have to watch out for spiders attempting to sabotage our bbq

 

tomorrow we’re hoping to head down to the local rain forest and look at the proper surfers down piha-way which is promising >2metre waves according to the swell maps. 

And then in the evening we’ve been invited round to friends for new year.  although we’ve all agreed that our unofficial new year will be 10pm so we can all get home to bed before midnight !  I like how they do things over here.

toodle pipkins

the day started with some scheduled skyping before some unscheduled sadness as we received news that one of esther’s guinea pigs had died back in the UK.

since it was raining we decided to watch a film (mr magorium’s wonder emporium) which was just the ticket.

we also opened the last of our presents, and, as you know, once that’s done there’s no longer any excuse for not writing your thank you letters.

then we spent over 2 hours in the local hardware shop buying a proper lawn mower and a proper barbeque. and loads of bulbs as about 20 needed replacing in the house.

after all that domesticity we went to finish our long overdue business at the local crazy golf course.  it was time to take on the ‘black course’ having previously mastered the easy course.  i won.  hoorah.

jane looks particularly happy in this shot, but it was actually kezia who scored two hole in ones

then it was back home and the construction of the barby began.  what a nightmare.  fairly unhelpful instructions and a dead weight of a blob of metal to shift about. 

i had to stop in the end as  screwing black screws in to black metal outside in the dark whilst surrounded by hungry mosquitoes was getting too much of a challenge.  i’ll carry on again in the morning before we head out for morning tea with the people who lived in our house before we did.

finally, here is a very funky tree that wendy and family made us for christmas.  it’s quite an amazing construction of plastic paper, bows, ribbons, tinsel and … chocolates !  we’re slowly working our way through it.  it’s the present which keeps on giving (until it’s given up)

Hi Chums. Today we went for a walk with some new friends and their children. We went to Karangahake, which is south of Auckland, and a place where they used to mine for gold in years gone by.

 

Here we are setting off.

 

 

A really fun part of the walk was through a tunnel which was about 1km long. We had brought our torches.

 

We also introduced our new friends to geocaching, which they seemed to be very enthusiastic about, even we only found 2 out of 4 caches.

After a cup of coffee or ice block (ice lolly in English)the young people had a dip in the river.

 

The drive home took us through Paeroa. This is where the famous NZ drink Lemon and Paeroa, also known as L & P is made. Lemon & Paeroa can be found only in New Zealand and in specialty New Zealand stores abroad. Its advertising slogan “World Famous in New Zealand” has become a popular New Zealand saying meaning very well known locally, but not receiving recognition overseas. It tastes quite nice.

When we got home we put Dave’s Christmas bird feeder up.

See ya

today we did two things.  this morning we went to a marine reserve about an hour’s drive from home.  i say about an hour as it took two hours thanks to the main motorway which transverses the country north to south (State Highway 1) is actually just a single track road.  And today seemed to be a popular day for heading north to go on holiday.  oh well.  we live and learn

 

anyway, this little area is a nature reserve which means people aren’t allowed to take anything home or fish there.  but they can snorkel all over the shop and look at pretty fish go by.  or, in the case below, kezia’s jandal float by.  rather reminiscent of this incident unfortunately.  the jandal was recovered and the reserve remained reserved.

we didn’t snork ourselves as we arrived quite late in the morning and the place was packed so we had to park way up the road.

 

but we’ll be back with the necessary equipment which can be hired locally if needed

however, we did get to go on a glass bottomed boat for a rather wobbly trip round goat island to look at the huge snappers and other tiddly fish going about their fishy business

here’s some snappers

   

and here are a load of birds who have painted their accommodation up nicely.

here’s a nice post box we passed.  done up fancy for christmas.

the countryside up there is lovely.  a bit reminiscent of the lake district with its rolling hills

then we headed over to Omaha beach which is renowned for its lovely huge stretch of golden sand.  it was alright.  esther had a huge icecream which was so big the foundations of the cornet gave way.  rather like a leaky house

the beach was just windy enough that there were some decent waves for the girls to board along.  they spent an hour in the water whizzing along and had a whale of a time (not literally)

Omaha is really posh, with a little village of designer beach houses behind the beach.  various famous kiwis have places at Omaha including the Prime Minister himself. 

there was a topless bronzed chap running along the sand followed by two wetsuit clad lovelies.  so i suspect he was someone important.  or considered himself to be important.  or perhaps he’d stolen their wallets.

after an hour the girls were getting wrinkly so we headed back home for, yup, fush and chups.  no snapper unfortunately, so we had hoki (koki?) instead.

tomorrow we’re off to a gorge with some more church friends.  we’re meeting early to avoid the traffic.  at least that’s the plan.

see ya !