Down the O.B.

We went back to Oamaru Bay for our holiday this (last) year. We've been there before, as you can tell by the fact that the Volvo and the Hyundai are visible in the Google Maps aerial photo taken two years ago:


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OH YEAH NICE ONE GOOGLE. It's not like I bloody zoomed in before I copied the link or anything. Zoom in on the balloon to see the cars.

Many "How's the serenity?" quotes - with such a horrible, cliched view from the deck, you can see why:



Aimee, Krystal, and Braydyn came with us, but had the hideous stomach thing that was going around at the time and had to go home after a couple of days.

Alex, Millie, Rua, and Jill stayed down the road at Shelly Beach, and Barns joined them after a couple of days, coming over on the ferry from Auckland. Kendyl took the same route on New Year's Eve, and Russell and Clare also stayed at Shelly Beach on the 31st.

Lots of swimming,



we went on the Driving Creek Railway again,



we went to Driving Creek Cafe again and again:



I boke up Driving Creek Road (this leads eventually to Kennedy Bay on the other side of the peninsula), once in the pissing rain, and again in the dry. Coming down was fun but quite dangerous as I'm faster than cars on a windy metal road.

From the top you can see Kennedy Bay itself:



No proof I didn't just drive up and take this photo, but I didn't.

On the way home we went to the Waiau Kauri Grove, which includes the Siamese Kauri. Kauri are truly magnificent and awe-inspiring:



Here's a slideshow of photos (click the picture ehoa):



Thanks go out to Waikato Air Conditioning for making a Volvo cool again.

Dunedin Rua

As usual, I've left it a bit long between posts, and now my memory is failing me. I have photos, but there may be some chronological errors.

According to all my records (i.e. Flickr), I didn't take any photos on Friday 7th November. Pretty sure that's the day Rua and I picked up SoNic Smith, Jess, and their daughter Bella (god I hope I have that right)[Edit - NO, I have it wrong, her name is of course Stella].

We bought and made our spacesuits (paper overalls from the safety place with homemade stickers on them) and just generally hung out (hanged out?). Oh, and I also made Le Mon Chicken.

BAM! I guess this was the day I went and did my out-of-electorate vote too!

Saturday dawned especially bright and early (6:30 according to the picture data) because IT WAS MILLIE'S BIRTHDAY:



. . . which meant PENGUIN WAFFLES at the NEW TABLE*:



We went off to go ice-skating at the Dunedin rink, but IT WAS CLOSED. Some tears from Millie before we went through some suburbs and hills to the tenpin bowling rink/arena/building. It was only just opening, so we had the place to ourselves for a while, which was kind of strange but cool all the same. Here are some people doing bowling things:









It was all a load of fun.

We went to Robbie's in South D. I still want to call it The Robbie, but I know this is wrong. I had whitebait, which was surprisingly cheap, and completely delicious.

Rua and I were then delivered to the Radio One studio for that week's instalment of Energy Flash. This normally two-hour show was reduced to a single hour because of the Radio One Election Special.

SoNic Smith joined us towards the end of the show, and we walked up to the North Valley to someone's flat (another amazing Dunedin student flat). En route we picked up some hideous drinks.

We were crammed into a car and ferried nice and early to Sammy's for the Willy Wonky and the Southern Lit Spaceship party, at which Rua and Nic were both playing. I got no pictures of this, but there are many on the Haszari Facebook if you are able to see them.

It was a great night of spacesuits, dancing, Green Man Beer, and election coverage on a TV in the foyer.

As a side note, all the people I met that night (most of who were younger than me) were very politically aware, and almost without exception horrified that National won the election.

Rua and I got home about 5, after stumbling through the freezing Dunedin gale. Luckily our spacesuits kept us warm (also booze).

Sunday morning dawned bright and early again NO IT DIDN'T RUA AND I WERE MAX HUNGOVER. Lay on the couch for quite a while, snoozing, watching The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and eating pizza if I remember correctly.

That afternoon (or possibly more like evening, I dunno), we went out to Tunnel Beach. The gate was fully shut, we weren't going to miss out after travelling so far (at LEAST 10 km), so vaulted it anyway, dodging various types of animal faeces.

The track down to the beach was pretty steep, although these photos don't really show it that well:





. . . but they do illustrate the quite low temperature.

The beach is only reachable through a tunnel, dug in the early years of last century. It is a beautiful beach, with towering cliffs, squeaky blonde sand, and a rock formation similar to that at Cathedral Cove (you know, the hole in the rock deal).

Here's the tunnel, with a trepidatious Jillian:



Here is the beach, with some silly poses:


(Alex is in this photo, but is completely obscured by his showboating mother).

Here are Millie and Ella having a rest on the way back up:



We had some good sarnies there, can't remember if that was dinner or not . . .

We belatedly let off some fireworks that night:



Here are the kids - either they are running to school, or they are evilly flaunting their youth and fitness outside the old folks' home:



On the Monday, Ella and I went to the South D. shops, then the museum, then ate too much at Governors's's'. The only photo I have from this day is Ella frolicking about in the 70s dress in the non-sequitur sun and heat:



We had a great trip, A+++ WOULD TRADE AGAIN.

Our plane was an hour late leaving Dunners, because, without a word of a lie, they had to reboot it. Seriously, they shut off all power to the plane, waited three minutes, then powered up again, all to fix some unspecified piece of navigational equipment. It worked, as you can tell by how happy Ella is:



* In this post I am experimenting with SHOUTING IN CAPITALS. People think it works selling cars on TardMe/Ebay/Craigslist, so why not here?

Dunedin Tahi

Ella and I went to Dunedin a week ago, for a week. My brother Rua, my sister-in-law Jill, my niece Millie, and my nephew Alex live down there (there are other people living in Dunedin too, of course, but I don't think I'm related to any of them). Millie was turning seven on the Saturday we were there, so it seemed like a good time to go.

We flew down on Wednesday the 5th. We went from Hamilton to Christchurch on an ATR 72 (I love these planes), and then on to Dunners on 737-300 (I don't love these planes quite as much).

Anyway, it was 8°C in Dunedin when we got there - I'm sure you're all familiar enough with the climate of the Central North Island of New Zealand to know that it's usually a bit warmer than that in November. Snow on the hills in Dunners, though. Many different people told me that while this isn't usual, it's not unheard of.

I like the cold anyway, so I thought it was great.

Jill and Millie came to pick us up from the airport - Millie was off "sick" from school!

We settled in a bit, and the next day Jill, Alex, Millie, Ella and I went to the Cadbury factory, pretty much right in the middle of town. Nearly $50 for a family pass for a tour, but I think it was well worth it.

Here we are just after tasting plain cocoa beans:

They are not very nice. I am in fact stifling a chunder.

There's a small kind of display section to wander around in before you go on the actual factory tour. I wasn't too fascinated by it (aside from the old Moro wrappers), but Ella was pretty transfixed:


We had to put all our stuff in a locker (including cameras, which is a bit of a bummer) before heading into the factory. We also had to cram our hair into hairnet things:

Well, have you ever had a hair in your chocolate?

The tour was awesome - lots of interesting machinery and stuff. I have to say that pretty much all the jobs in there are horribly dull, but I guess factory work's pretty much the same no matter how nice the product is.

We were told that this factory produces all the Curly-Wurlys for Australasia. Were there any in the shop though? Were there buggery! DISAPPOINTING, but not enough to overshadow what was a cool tour - it even has a chocolate waterfall at the end, which fully kicks the Willy Wonka one to the kerb.

The kids posed as little Cadbury workers before we left:



You also get various chocolate bars as part of the tour (a small bag - not armloads like in my fantasies, but enough). To help the kids use up some of the sugar, we went to Baldwin Street, the Steepest Street . . . In The World (imagine Jeremy Clarkson saying it).

I've viewed it from the bottom before, from a car, but there were too many people in that car for the owner to be game enough to try driving up.

Ella uncharacteristically beat everyone to the top, me and Alex bringing up the rear. It is pretty steep alright. The most amazing thing is that some houses don't appear to have driveways. The occupants must either walk all their groceries in, or perhaps they have huge blocks of wood to chock their car in place on the street outside?

Here's everyone (bar me) resting on the thoughtfully-placed bench at the top:


Here are the kids courting disaster (thank god Betty wasn't there) by dancing at the top of The World' Steepest Residential Gradient:


. . . and here's everyone (bar me) heading back down. Close-up at the full extent of zoom on our new camera:


. . . and no zoom to give you another idea of how steep it is:

Yep, there's a dude bikin' up.

We rescued Rua from work and went and had lunch at Starfish in St. Clair, which was great, just as it has been in the past.

That night Alex and Millie's school had a disco. Despite Ella and I not being pupils OR parents of pupils, we knew the DJ:

so were able to blag our way in anyway.

Ella wore a dress handed down from her mum, so it may have seen school disco action before:


Millie wore a velvet jackardigan:


Alex wore his Speed Racer costume (of course):


There was a blacklight, which worked pretty well on a '70s dress, as you might expect it to:


Alex also showed me his classroom while we were there:


His principal took the photo, and for no charge gave the camera its first destruction test. It survived, and to be honest, Betty will probably give it a lot more of a hiding.

1 billion flashing rubber LED toys and 1200 K Bars later, it was pretty much the end of Day One in Dunners. More later.

Film Of The Year

About time I uploaded some stuff off the video camera. Here're some youtubes for ya:

Here's Bethan blatting around after the bath:



She is wearing a butterfly towel, in case you were wondering.

Here's Bethan riding her bike:





She insists on wearing the helmet; as useless parents, we don't force her to at all.

Here's Ella having a bit of a dance:



We haven't sent her to any dance lessons. I think we ought to, if only so she has enough space to pirouette around without smashing into the fireplace.

Bethan dances to one artist ONLY:



The King.

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I was going to post up a few more, but I just keep running out of time. These will have to do.
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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.