After visiting NZ in February 2007, we to moved from the UK to Wellington.
Last weekend we took the 3 hour ferry ride to Picton and spent a long weekend on the South Island. We stayed in a great bach in Belvue Bay and our friend Graham travelled up from Christchurch and spent the weekend with us.
We were in a great spot, just off Queen Charlotte Drive and within easy reach of Havelock, the Marlborough wine region and Anakiwa. It’s also pretty scenic round there…
Today Soph and I hosted coffee group. It was loads of fun! We decided to have a halloween party - any excuse to dress up really 
We had all sorts of costumes: a ballerina, a worm, a magician, a vampire, a butterfly, a bunny, a Minnie Mouse a hula girl and of course a lot of yummy mummies!
The children all seem to enjoy themselves and so did we.
Click on the picture below to see all the photos. I made the pumpkins and photo frames you see on the table. Not bad for a stay at home Mummy hey!
Love and kisses to everyone I miss you all like mad.
Mrs BrownXXXXXXXXXX
Since we had a return flight to the UK that needed to be used within 12 months, it was a case of ‘use it or lose it’ and we decided to come back to visit friends and family for a couple of weeks early next year. Here are the dates for your diaries:
Arriving in UK - Fri 25 Jan
Leaving UK for NZ - Sun 10 Feb
We don’t have a proper itinerary yet, but hope to see as many of you as possible. (Hint: expect us to be busy at weekends, so arrange to see us midweek if you can!)
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
The weather here has been hit and miss, we’ve had a few days of good weather followed by a week or so of awful weather - high winds and nasty rain. The weekend was pretty good and sunny, even if we did have high winds yesterday. I guess we’re not quite out of winter yet, maybe in a few more weeks… (hopefully!) We must love bad weather though, we seem to be always following it around the globe.
Just recently, it seemed like summer was right around the corner, the clocks went forward so the evenings were lighter and we had temperatures of 18 degrees - it was great to see a bit of sunshine. I even came home from work a few times to find Candi and Sophie standing outside by our new gas BBQ, dinner prepped and ready to go. But then, just as we were getting into the swing of summery things, bang, we seem to have found ourselves right back in the middle of winter. Our overnight temperature has dropped as low as 3 this past week and we’ve had really strong winds, which has meant us having to turn those oil heaters back on and postponing all BBQ cooking for a while.
On Wednesday morning I was in work quite early and managed to keep my cool when we felt the effects of a 5.6 earthquake passing through from its origin near Hamner Springs (South Island). There are more details on the Geonet and NZ news websites:
New Zealand Earthquake Report (Geonet)
Quake felt in Wellington, Christchurch (NZ Herald)
South Island shaken by 5.6 quake (Stuff)
It was only the second quake I have actually felt since we arrived, but this one seemed to go on for quite a long time (I was on the third floor at the time so that may have had something to do with it). It felt like a kind of slow, rolling motion rather than violent shaking. Certainly an experience, I’m just glad it was minor and there were no serious effects.
The clocks go forward next weekend and it feels like the weather is getting better by the day, so this weekend we did loads of outdoors DIY in preparation for summer. I pressure-washed the bottom decking area and replaced a couple of outdoor lights, while Candi took down the tired basketball hoop (which was in a stupid place anyway) and tidied up a couple of the rusty metal fixings round the front of the house. She also weeded an area round the side of the house and now has a snazzy vegetable and herb garden, complete with asparagus, onions, rocket, lettuce, broccoli, fennel, dill, rosemary, spearmint, thyme, oregano, cabbage, tomatoes, celery, spring onions and bay leaves.
We’re really tired now, but at least it feels like we have accomplished something.
Here are some more photo sets of Sophie for you to enjoy. Click on each picture to open the Flickr photoset in a new window.
…apparently they don’t want it!
Can I donate blood if I have lived in the UK?
If you lived in the UK, France or the Republic of Ireland for a total of six months or more between 1980 and 1996 then unfortunately you will be permanently deferred from donating blood in New Zealand.
Permanently banned! What, are we all mad cows or something?
Following on from the previous post…
We went for an interesting walk around the Craters of the Moon Park, there were steaming craters, boiling mud and plenty of other reminders that the planet we live on can be pretty strange.
The next day we all drove up to Rotorua in the camper van, pretty easy going and we were there in under an hour. When we arrived, Candi, Sophie and I checked into a fantastic apartment-style hotel, Tuscany Villas. The room was really comfortable and the huge spa tub in the bathroom was fantastic. Rotorua has a very distinctive sulphur smell, kind of eggy and you can smell it with varying intensity all round the place.
Norman and Shirley checked into the campsite, then came back to collect us. We all went to Te Puia to experience a bit of Maori culture and see some more geothermal activity.
We got to experience a traditional Maori greeting, then we all went inside their hut (taking our shoes off first - most important) to see a performance of traditional singing and dancing. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week we decided to take Norman and Shirley on a trip up the North Island to Lake Taupo and Rotorua. We hired a campervan and picked it up on Thursday, from a caravan site at Lower Hutt. Here it is outside our house:
Sophie’s car seat was fixed to the seat in the back and she was ready to go:
We headed North up State Highway 1 and took turns driving, 100kms each. The van was a diesel automatic so it was easy to drive, even Shirley had a go.
We stopped at Taihape for a break and got great coffees from Soul Food Cafe.
For some reason we couldn’t quite fathom, there is a huge gumboot made out of corrugated iron on the outskirts of town. At least it was a photo opportunity!
The scenery is stunning, especially on the Desert Road. The mountains looked beautiful covered with snow and it was strange to see them on the horizon while all around was dry, brown scrubland.
We had a quick stop on the shore of Lake Taupo and headed into town. We found a nice campsite and booked in. Norman and Shirley stayed in the van overnight and we stayed in a well-equipped unit.
The next day, we had breakfast in Taupo before heading off to the Huka Falls.
Candi and I had a ride on the jet boat, which goes really fast and the guy driving gets really close to all sorts of obstacles and does lots of high-speed spins. It was excellent 
We headed next door to the geothermic water-heated prawn farm where several large specimens were consumed:
It may have been three weeks since Sophie’s actual Birthday, but her party wasn’t until today. It was at a local church hall and she had a joint party with Grace Tia (Grace’s Mum, Cathy has become great friends with Candi and the girls were born around the same time).
The party was a great success, although we had a mini drama soon after arriving - the balloons started bursting all on their own, which resulted in a few tears. After the second balloon burst, we decided to take them all down and move them outside the hall, as it was probably better for everyone. Sophie loves balloons and she got a real fright when the first one burst, but I don’t think it has put her off them too much!
|
