Thursday, April 24, 2014

March 2014 - Ammie's Visit

This is the giant post/photo upload which has caused me falling so far behind with blogging in recent weeks and months.

So, on March 3rd Ammie landed.


And in as chronological an order as I can manage ...

Took her to the beach to meet the neighbours.


We had an afternoon our with one of the Natural Learners groups at one of the DOC parks.


We went to the waterfront and watched some Dragon Boat racing and hired out one of the four person cycle car things.


We road tripped up to Taupo.


With a fair few stops en route, especially as Harry was with us.


Lake Taupo is one of the major holiday destinations for Kiwis, and is a very active volcanic region.  The lake (which is the size of Singapore) is an old volcano crater and there are three main volcanic peaks in close proximity.


Went to Huka Falls.


Visited the 'Craters of the Moon'.


Ate!


Watched the sun set over the lake.


Took a dip in a volcanically heated natural spa pool.


Took a drive up Mount Ruapehu, and saw what will become the ski field in a few months time.


Stopped in Bulls.  You see what they did there!?


And stopped at the same beach (Foxton) on the way home.


We took Ammie to Wellington Zoo.


Had an spur of the moment lunch on the beach.


Made Tash a cake.


Took Ammie to the snorkelling trail at Island bay.


And found her a plate of Oysters at Chocolate Fish Cafe.


And before she left we made her have the kids for a couple of hours so I could take Tash fishing.


There was also lots of food eaten, drinks drunk, beaches visited, shops shopped, viewpoints viewed, museums visited and I suspect much more.

All three hundred and something photos can be found here

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

My Birthday

The end of Feb was my birthday.  My first ever in summer time!  The day itself was fairly rubbish, rounded off by Alfie stealing all the Oreos from the top of my cake the following night, but the few days around it were suitably awesome.

About a week before I managed to get an appointment with Max Fecondo before he disappeared back to Australia and collected a cool little shark tattoo from him.


 

 A few days later and we were out to Lower Hutt to see a super cool busker circus.  The kids loved it.  It was brilliant to enjoy a circus which was zero animal but maximum entertainment.  It had such a super Kiwi feel to it too, the whole 'outdoor entertainment, pay what you can afford' seems pretty commonplace and I really like it.  Alfie loves doing his 'tricks' at the moment, and he came away from here just wanting to do more and more!




My birthday was on the Monday - I got cake!


And then the following weekend I was out on a boat to the famous 'trench' to catch fish.  Called the trench because the seismic activity has created a massive drop off which goes down to around 1000 metres!  For my liking the boat was a little overcrowded, and this meant that when I had a big fish on it was brought aboard further down the boat and was dealt with before I had any chance to see it close up or get a photo.  However, it was awesome - simply for watching dolphins play in the boats bow wave, and getting to watch a sperm whale splash about.  The biggest fish I caught was the Hapuka (Groper), and you can see from the photo of them in the crate that they were a damn good size!





Fuck Seaworld, nothing beats seeing these incredible creatures in their natural environment.


Tuesday, April 01, 2014

When The Fog Rolled In

Lots to come, but I've been meaning to post this for weeks.

Shows just how quickly weather changes here, and how truly bizarre it can be.

This was back in the middle of Feb.  Its still summer, and after a lovely day we took dinner down to the beach to enjoy.   All of a sudden the fog rolled in.  The photo I took looks virtually black and white!

The next day the fog slowly dispersed.  With the exception of the airports runway!  The second photo shows the fog hanging on, and it sat above that runway all day long!