Doing New Zealand

Christchurch – Day 3 Breakfast at Lytton Harbour

doingnz — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:55:24 +0000

Christchurch’s harbour is in a suburb / satellite town called Lytton. You drive through a tunnel in the mountains. Lytton is purchased on the sea side of the mountain with narrow streets that in places are quite steep.

We enjoyed an interesting breakfast… quite a vibey restaurant … notice the type writers on the wall! The food was good too..

Linda found a very interesting and reasonably priced gift store. Also a great magazine store that had 1000’s of titles from all over the world, including Women and Home from South Africa. We found the people on the South Island far more friendly in general and very helpful. Can see why Aucklanders are considered in general unfriendly. Shows you how good society can be if we put aside our self interests!

Christchurch – Day 2 Afternoon

doingnz — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The city hospital is over the river from the Botanical Gardens. This Friday afternoon was a fun day for the staff and patients in the children’s wards. The staff were in canoes on the Avon river dressed up in various crazy costumes. It did not take long before water balloons appeared and general chaos ensued; to the delight and merriment of the many children, some children in wheel chairs with drips etc attached, but out in the sun enjoying some fun.

We then took in the sights of the arts centre on route to the main art gallery … sorry no photos .. to busy chasing after kids to avoid them touching expensive displays!!! Linda found a very nice ceramic tile with a stylised Pohutukawa flower on it. We paid an astronomical amount for it too … will try get a picture on the blog at some point. The kids got fudge! Buy this time they were shopped out and getting impossible .. not the disapproving disposition of Lisa!

But the magic of a chocolate brownie and some juice and we were all ready to investigate the art gallery….

For all the good behaviour doing what were way more adult oriented activities, the kids were rewarded with ice-creams and a run around at New Brighton Beach, the local beach at Christchurch. There we walked to the end of the pier and found some people fishing. Brian and Lisa soon had one of the fishermen on the hop with their many questions. He was very kind and showed them how to gut and clean a fish and let them hold it.

Then was time to go back to the hotel and get some dinner … it was after all 7.30 pm and as you can see the sun was still shining.

Christchurch – Day 2 Morning

doingnz — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:00:00 +0000

On the second day in the Garden City, we visited the botanic gardens (Also see here.). They are part of Hagley Park which is a massive inner city park. (3rd largest in the world!) Initially we walked around on our own and stopped at the tea house for lunch. Then we got on board the Caterpillar, an electric powered over sized golf cart that drives around every 30 minutes. The lady driver was very knowledgeable about all the different plants, flowers, trees etc, including the dates when many of them were planted in the gardens. Very impressive knowledge and opens up a lot of things that would otherwise be overlooked.We should all be very thankful to the people in 1863 that started the garden and set aside the land.

Lots of places to walk, some open and some through more dense native bush.

Huge rose garden with lots and lots of blooms in early December.

Although the forefathers had the insight to create the botanic gardens, some one along the way picked a very strange fountain design. Would be more at place at an Indian temple??

Christchurch – Day 1

doingnz — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:00:00 +0000

We took advantage of a JetStar airline special to fly to Christchurch for the weekend. What a beautiful city!! Linda’s first comment was why did I not look here for work! (Strict instructions previously about avoiding the frigid south island.)

Here are a few photos from the first day. It was a little over cast, but still a nice temperature. This is of the cathedral in the main city square.

To get an overview of the city we went on a tram ride around the city. The driver of the tram gives you a running commentary of all the sights along the way. Our driver on the first tram was exceptionally good and had something funny to say about all the shops along the way … one of the first sights he pointed out was that just down the road from the cathedral is the ideal kiwi shopping experience … a pub next to a rugby shop next too a TAB … or the Man Crèche (Irish Pub). Said it was highly recommended for the wives to drop of their husbands there and then collect them later after shopping up a storm in all the great shops of Christchurch. He assured the wives they would be well looked after…

Later in the afternoon we went punting on the Avon river that winds through the city. The Avon starts as a series of artesian wells and flows throughout the year. We started our Punt from the Antigua Boat sheds. Been here on the Avon since Christchurch was first founded.

Brian’s Birthday Party 27th November

doingnz — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 23:15:00 +0000

Brian went to ice skating lessons during the winter school holidays and was keen to have his birthday party at the local ice rink. Brian met the young lady to his left at the ice skating lessons .

In the picture above, you can see the cupcakes Linda made as an alternative to a cake. Way easier as there was no cutting up of a birthday cake. There theme was pirates… you can see a treasure chest and some of the (edible) gold coins that decorated the table. The kids ordered a meal that was give to them in an individual box.

It was refreshing to get out of the 30C heat outside to go into the cool inside the ice rink. They are well organised at the rink and there are frames for the new or nervous skaters. Lisa was pleased to get the penguin to lean on.

“Daddy, they’ll need their togs to get to the boat!”–Lisa

doingnz — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 21:00:00 +0000

On Sunday morning there was quite a bit of excitement on Bucklands Beach. Late Saturday night some people managed to crash their expensive (NZD 700K+) boat into a moored yacht. The Yacht apparently fine, the motor launch however had a large hole and started to sink. They managed to sail it into shallow water before it sank directly opposite a local beach restaurant People all ok, but their pride and pocket a bit dented. Here you can see that as the tide came in, only the roof of the uppermost deck and one side of the boat was above water.

A few hours later and the crane lifted the boat to the point that they could confirm the hole was plugged and could start pumping out the water…

At about 5 pm the boat was ready to be towed away. You can see the spot they needed to plug.

Orcas at our front door

doingnz — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 08:26:00 +0000

There was much excitement along our road on Wednesday (2010-11-03) as the sun was setting due to a family of Orcas swimming up the estuary / inlet in front of our house. Think about five with two juveniles. Lots of cars stopped to watch and take photos. Proved a bit tricky to get a good as they did not surface where I was expecting them to. A few boaties returning from their sun-downer cruises turned their boats around to herded the Orcas back out to sea. Here are a few of the photos…

Brian starts Cricket

doingnz — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 08:05:00 +0000

Brian has started cricket and if he keeps up his initial enthusiasm, he might one day be playing for the Black Caps! (they could do with all the help they can get at the moment!) He is playing for a Year 4 team called Tuffy in the Pakuranga Cricket club.

The team has a coach and two assistant coaches / umpires / scorers. Brian is very enthusiastic, much more so than for Rugby and was dressed in his cricket kit at 6am on the first day. We have an early start and need to be on the field at 8am so that the boys can get some coaching before the game starts at 9 am. Here is a great photo of Brian hitting the ball. Great follow through!

Here is another shot of him when he was not facing, ready to run.

and another one of him bowling.

On this first day the team one by 25 runs. Brian scored the 3rd highest runs (9 runs) in his team and clean bowled one of the opposition. Each kid gets to face 2 overs and bowl 2 overs. Being run-out or caught costs your team 2 runs. I am really looking forward to the rest of the cricket season and watching Brian develop as a player.

Mt Maunganui

doingnz — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:15:00 +0000

Mount Maunganui is the name of a town and its associated extinct volcano near Tauranga city. (see Google Map). There is a beautiful beach and the town has a general feel of a relaxed beach holiday town with pavement cafes and small shops. On the one side of the town is the beach with beautiful white sand and close inshore rocky “islands” and on the other side is the estuary formed behind Matakana Island. The water in the estuary near Mt Maunganui is deep enough for ocean going cruise ships to dock in the estuary. It’s strange to drive through the town with the beach and ocean on your right and see the top of a very large cruise ship above the builds on your left where you expect there to be only land.

From the beach, there are two paths up The Mount. About a 45 minute walk up a nice path that in places has steps. I only tried the steeper path of the two options. Apparently the less steep path is a bit scary as there is a sheer drop down to the ocean and no hand rail. I am glad I went on the other path as I had Lisa sitting on my shoulders. She complained that the walk was a bit tiring when she heard me a little short of breath … Cheeky Chops is her new nick name … its not as if she had to do much bit sit there and look pretty!

The view from the top is great.

For the more adventurous, there is the option of hang gliding or paragliding from the top. We watched amazed how one of the paragliders was tired of just floating around in the sky and decided to use the wind to run along the edge of the cliffs! Moments after this following photo the guy in the yellow paraglider zipped 1/2 a meter over my head with a huge grin all over his face and proceed to run up the path behind me and then jump off the cliff again!

Christian Church Camp at Papamoa Beach

doingnz — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:00:00 +0000

We have made some great friends in New Zealand that come from a varied number of countries around the world including Kiwi’s, Malaysian, Korean’s, Hong Kong, Brit’s, Japanese and a few Ex South African’s. Some of these friends are involved in starting a new church nearby and meet on Sunday evenings. Great teaching and worship for anyone looking for a good church to join. For Labour Day long weekend (23rd – 25th October), they organised a church camp in Papamoa Beach (click here for Google Map) near the city of Tauronga. The accommodation was a conference centre with a number of bedrooms with double and/or bunk beds, a large kitchen and dining area and a lounge.

Every one chipped in with the chores including reading the kids bed time stories..

The Cooking was interesting as each family was assigned an evening and they then cooked enough food for everyone… When it was our turn we had to cook Spaghetti Bolognese for 25 people, of which 4 adults required Gluten Free meals. In the end our meal was a great hit and many came back for seconds, although we did cook far to much food and had some left over for the next day. Sorry, no photo’s of the huge pots of food.