Absolutely, Positively Wellensteins

Rach had been doing her 2 - 3 days a week in Wellington as part of a secondment, and I said that the kids and I should go down and visit. Thanks to a local airline's bargain flight site, I was able to actually make good on this, rather than it becoming another one of those "always meant to" things.

$59 each way for Ella and I, and Betty still flies free (although she doesn't get a seat)! We got to Wellington about 2pm, it was cold and windy and starting to rain.

Had to phone the rental car guys for them to show up with our Corolla:



Despite this very slightly bad start, they were great. I especially like the mismatched wheelcovers, also unlike every other rental company, kid seats were completely free.

The Corolla was somewhat smaller than we're used to, but we managed to cram the pram in the boot, as well as all of us into the car.

I didn't get lost at all on the way into the city, getting us to Our Place no problem. Rach met us there, with some lunch as Ella had not been able to steal enough lollies from the plane to keep us going.

We had a brief (i.e. a couple of hours) look at a relatively small amount of the free stuff. The big hit for Betty was the big map of New Zealand that you stand (or in her case, jump) on. Ella showed a surprising amount of interest in plate tectonics and volcanism.

Te Papa really is an incredible place - if you haven't been, you really should make an effort to get there somehow.

Once we'd (actually, probably just me - I am the most prone to museum boredom in our family) had enough, it was off up the motorway to Cheryl's place in Porirua Ranui Heights. 'Auntie' Chezza was kind/mad enough to put us up for the next two nights, which was probably quite good, as the Corolla may not have made the best campervan in the world.

I had not been to her place before, despite her having owned it for a hell of a long time. It's a great place: massive garden, and like pretty much everywhere in Wellers, a great view. Here's a few pics (click for slideshow):



Because I am an idiot, I went for a run the next morning. Being from Hanimalton, where everything is flat, running on hills was a bit of a novelty. It was actually not too bad a way to get a look at the area too, as long as I ignored the massive leg and lung pain.

We decided to use that day to visit the Karori Sanctuary, a place I'd never heard of before, but highly recommended. It's not too hard to find, being pretty much right in the middle of a suburb that's very close to the CBD.

Once you've paid the entry price, had your bag frisked for mice (!), and walked in a couple of hundred metres, it's hard to believe that there could possibly be a city anywhere nearby.

Everything here is amazing, but some of the highlights were:

Green Geckos:


Tuatara:


Shag nest (hurrr):


I am not really that interested in birds, but as we were walking through I found myself getting excited every time I saw a Saddleback or a Tui.

Another place that's well worth the visit - we ended up wandering around for nearly four hours!

Hunger brought us out in the end - eating the native wildlife is frowned upon, I can't imagine why. There was a little bit of drama actually finding something to eat, but an awesome playground down on the waterfront took at least some people's minds off their hunger.

After lunch, we did a bit of a drive-around of some suburbs that I don't know the name of, then tested out another playground (where some maniacs were swimming in the sea):


Back to Cheryl's after that, where I cobbled together dinner using some of her tomatoes.

The next day we went back to Te Papa. We'd intended to go to the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition. However, the 3km-long queue plus 8 billion schoolkids made us reconsider.

Instead, we spent the morning seeing another 3% of the museum. This place is truly huge, it would probably take a week to see everything properly.

Betty went polynesian:



and Ella forged some money:



We then wandered through the city in search of lunch, stopping only for photos of landmarks:



We ate at a French place with actual French people working in it, with accents and everything. We ate outside - not because it was nice and warm, but so as not to destroy the place:



At last it was time to go on the cable car. It wouldn't be a family holiday without some kind of train (well, pretty much):



Betty is only looking apprehensive because she wasn't allowed to drive. Actually, I think she only wanted to drive due to the awesome book you could read while doing so:



Cable-car museum next BECAUSE IT'S FREE but also quite interesting. Cue sideways pictures of kids on old cablecars (I wasn't the only one taking a picture like this, believe me):



The Wellington Botanic Gardens are picturesquely arranged on what appear to be a series of sheer cliffs. Don't worry though, for those of us pushing little Ms. Hefty in her pushchair, there were some merely near-vertical paths.

We descended about 900 vertical metres from the cable-car stop to a playground, which was very good, probably even worth the titanic struggle back to the top. Ella (maybe with some encouragement from someone who isn't not me) rolled down some of the gentler hills.

She enjoyed this so much that she tried it again where it was too steep. Standing up out of a barrel roll, as both her parents yelled out in panic, she slipped over onto her arse, then bounced over a bank taller than her to land, on her feet, on the path. This was much to the horror, shock, and finally amazement of some people sitting on a bench who would have been well hit had it gone wrong.

Here's some people playing in a playground:


(I told you Bethan was heavy)



Note how no sky is visible in either photo. This is due to it being blocked out by the aforementioned hill, which Wellingtonians probably consider more of a gentle slope.

Back to, and then down the cable-car, then off to my first cousin once removed Toby and family (some of who are my second cousins (not removed)). Sorry, this cousin thing's all a bit of a novelty to me.

Having met us only once before, and quite briefly at that (and before El Destructo arrived), Toby, Hilary, Emily, Leandra and Tom had invited us to stay for the night.

The girls got to sleep in an amazing bedroom under the stairs:



while Rach and I luxuriated in the rest of the basement (about two-thirds the size of our house):



It was really good to catch up - my extended family make up for their relatively (hurr) low numbers by being, well, just good people. The Fiennes house was a whirlwind, mostly of various sporting endeavours (possibly a glimpse of the future for us?), but they made time (and dinner) for us AND THEY HAD LOTS OF PLAYMOBIL which I've just realised we completely forgot to tidy away.

We'd love to return the favour if they're ever up this way - I'm sure we'll find somewhere to fit them all.

Here we all are:



From the left: Emily, Toby, Tom, Hilary, Leandra, Idiot Boy, El Destructo, an unknown beautiful lady no wait it's Rach, Invisible Girl, and o god I've forgotten the dog's name. Nice dog, I'm just terrible with names. Hopefully someone will remind me.

Due to the cheapness of the tickets, we had quite an early flight the next day, back to seemingly subtropical Hamilton.

AAAA+++++ would visit Wellington again as they say on TradeMe.

If you are insane you will click here for a massive slideshow. You have been warned, although I guess you could just leave it running in the background for a couple of hours.

Bunnies and it's not even Easter

We went to Mt Ruapehu at the weekend. Ella and Bethan have never even seen snow before, and skiing's one of my favourite things so I'd like to get them into it. Rach was also keen to have another go at skiing.

We left as early as we could on Saturday morning (about 9 o'clock in the end, which isn't bad for us) and drove down with a couple of stops on the way. We got to the mountain about 1 o'clock, and decided that since the last lessons of the day start at 2, we'd just hire a sled for $20 and go up to Mead's Wall and slide about.

Betty and Ella were both quite excited to see the snow (well, Ella was), and then it actually started snowing! None of the girls had ever seen this happen before, so it got very VERY exciting.

Here's Betty in the snow:


She got a bit unhappy about it all later on, as she got a bit wet and cold, and wasn't really into sledding that much.

Ella, after some initial trepidation, loved the sled. She trudged up to the top of the slope with one or the other of her parents dozens of times.

Here's me pushing Ella around:


Here's Ella and Rach in the sled in the distance:


Here's Betty trying to get us to hurry up:


Sledding was pretty good fun, even in the falling snow, but eventually we listened to Betty and took off down the mountain, pausing only for Ella to scam some mini-Moro bars off some snowboarding guys.

We drove to Turangi (about half an hour) to the place we were staying: Creel Lodge. I'm not sure why I picked this place, but man was it a good pick!

Here's our two-bedroom cabin (more like a house):


The kids are good at relaxing after a hard afternoon dealing with snow and sleeping in the car:



Here's Ella to show us the inside:


This place was nothing short of amazing. The grounds are incredible, full of massive trees and carved ponga logs. The back of the place has a gate onto the riverbank path (of the Tongariro River), where we went for a walk and watched dudes in their waders fly-fishing.

We got fish and chips for dinner, which are some of the best I've had for a long, long time.

We had originally meant to go back to Hams on Sunday, but Rach decided we might as well go back up the mountain if the weather was good. It was, so we did.

This time, we got the Discover Ski package for Ella (ski gear plus a lesson):



We'd also brought my (long-term borrowed from Emma) skis with us, so Rach could have a go:


She cleverly saved money AND got extra exercise by not buying any lift tickets and just walking up to the top of Happy Valley and skiing back down. I did this once, which was more than enough for me.

You can see how sunny it was - this meant that Betty enjoyed herself a lot more than she did the day before:



So that was our snow weekend. Could've gone a lot worse I reckon.

All you can meet

Here's a few photos of the kids, because let's face it, who doesn't love pictures of kids?

Psychopaths, that's who.

Here's Bethan wearing gloves (as opposed to violently shaking her head and refusing to put gloves on at all):



Bethan always comes home from school (daycare) with stuff all over her face. Sometimes it is arranged in interesting patterns.

She is also quite obsessed with her bag - this absolutely MUST be taken with her whenever we go out the door. No one but her is allowed to carry it either.



Betty and Ella are snuggled up to watch - what?



Why, it's High School Musical, of course!

This is not a tent:



It is a library:



Here we see Bethan, Aimee and Ella waiting for their dinner. There is probably some significance in the fact that they're all wearing one-piece pyjamas:



Bethan had a brief fascination with Ella's fire helmet:



On an unrelated note, this series on Fridays on Prime about the Royal Family is fascinating.

Half a loaf is better than no bread

Here's a slightly random collection of photos for ya.

First off, here is some very successful baking from a few weekends ago. The bread is the standard Edmonds book recipe, but with one-and-a-half-times the yeast:



The chelsea buns are also from the Edmonds book, only the newer version. The old book says to use scone dough, which seems insane to me:



That was the first go at chelsea buns, and the delicious fantastic result spurred me on to give them another go the following week.

They were nowhere near as good; neither was the bread I made at the same time. Yeast. It is a mystery.

Here is a photo taken on my phone, on the walk to work. I don't even remember taking it, but I like the way the phone hasn't been able to cope with the hugely bright reflection:



This is me trying to capture the threateningly ominous clouds looming over a wet, twilit Hamilton. The phone (being a phone first and a camera second) had other ideas, but I still kinda like the look of it:



Lastly, here's the little-known "Lover" special edition Mercedes SLK:



Click for big and note the badge on the right-hand side of the boot.

Wreck chord l'eau

I don't know about you, but I love the cold. This time of year is one of my favourites, and not just because of skiing. I love frost almost as much as I love fog, and I love walking to work in the cold, with me gloves, hat and walkman on.

I took the camera with me this morning and took some pictures. Please remember that this is the camera which now has neither an optical viewfinder nor a visible LCD screen. If the framing is a bit off in some of the pictures, well, I was just lucky to even be facing the right way.

This is some spiky frost on the top of the Volvo:


(click for big)

Close-up:



If you don't find those little crystals incredible, well . . . you bloody should!

This is the top of our letterbox, which is normally a flat, smooth metal sheet. It is not hairy, as it appears here:


(click for big)

This is the empty section at the end of the street. Nothing like a frosty sunrise to make even the normally dull look cool:


(click for big)

Looking through the Claudelands fence towards the city, the sun reflecting off some building or other:


(click for big)

More Claudelands:


(click for big)

I'm pretty happy with this one (O'Neill Street), wish I'd managed to get the tree at the right completely in frame though:


(click for big)

How's this for a (blind) macro shot?


(click for big)

. . . . aaaaand a close-up:



Last one (honest) - here's the Waikato, steaming away:


(click for big)

C-O-M-M-E-N-T
Find out what it means to me . . .