Golden Bay

Here's where we are now. Takaka is fantastic. So was Motueka. More to come.


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Greytown

Doesn’t sound that interesting, but it is. It’s a beautiful little town just over an hour’s drive from Wellington or around an hour by train. Greytown is considered New Zealand’s first country town, and is very well to do these days with plenty of picturesque estates.


The countryside surrounding Greytown is also splendid.


and, yes – they have sheep here also…


Go ahead and count them. Good night.

Waste Water

English caravans are so light because they have no on-board water tanks. Most caravans have tanks that you fill and empty for drinking water and grey water. With an English caravan like ours, you just use a container that you put next to the caravan. This has its advantages and disadvantages. It works pretty well, especially if you’re close to a tap. We have a 40-liter drinking water container that we drop a submersible pump into, and a grey water bucket that we empty when it’s full. We have a hose that connects to a tap on one end and a valve in the water container that automatically fills up when we use water. It’s like a toilet tank valve. If we’re not close to a tap, we can roll the cylindrical water tank, which has a handle that makes it easy to pull.

There are disadvantages to this external water system, especially if you have a naughty one-year-old. Beck finds things that he can put in the water tank while we’re not looking. I found several pieces of wood in the container today. They were sandy pieces of driftwood. Fortunately the hole isn’t big enough to fit something like our shoes in, and he’s too small to pee in it.

Here’s Beck at work…


The grey water bucket, which is also outside the caravan, is a perfect place to put something like shoes in though. Beck is fascinated with this greasy, soapy, dirty water. He loves to put my shoes in it. I caught him drinking it the other day. He seemed to think it was really tasty. I think Amy was sending dishwater down the drain then.

Valentines Day in Wanganui

Wanganui is a very cool town of about 50 000 people. There are plenty of interesting little shops and cafés on Victoria Street, which crosses the Whanganui River, where there’s a tunnel that leads to an elevator.


The elevator goes up to the top of the cliff that overlooks the town.


There are many old buildings with beautiful architecture and magnificent gardens around the town. There’s an old restored steamboat that takes tourists down the river, and a group of retirees are restoring a streetcar back into service. Living here, I would have to join the well-established rowing club.



We bought a new cast iron frying pan that needed seasoning in an oven for an hour before we could use it. We were anxious to head into town to see if the immigration agent had returned our email. I decided to leave the pan in the campground kitchen oven on medium while we went cruising the neighborhoods for open wireless internet where we could check our email. The trip to town took longer than we expected. We pulled up to the gate two and a half hours later and were accosted by the campground owner who asked us if we left a pan in the oven. I sheepishly looked around to make sure the campground still existed before I answered. Apparently he got his knickers in a knot when he saw smoke billowing from the kitchen and still hadn’t managed to untie them yet. He spent about ten minutes letting me know. This is what he looked like while he was letting me have it…


I felt like a naughty schoolboy when I guiltily retrieved our frying pan from the kitchen.
The pan was nicely seasoned though, and the Valentines Day morning pancakes were delicious.



I had a hot Valentines Day phone date at 10:00 pm with the New Zealand Immigration agent handling our file. She’s in an office in London, so we caught her at 9:00 in the morning her time. They pay people in London to process the paperwork because they don’t have enough people here to do the work. I don’t think I screwed up too badly, so the paperwork should get processed within the next month we hope.
The drought seems to be coming to an end finally. We’ve had a fair bit of rain during the last few days. We’ve had some beautiful thunderstorms. This is the sunset view across the lake from where we’re staying…


Here’s where we’re perched at the moment…


There’s plenty of room for the kids to run around…






And beautiful light for me to capture them in…

New Plymouth

We left our beachside campground at 9:15. A few minutes down the road, we saw a sign for an organic brewery. They opened at 10:00, but we though we’d make a cup of tea in the parking lot until they opened. It’s not very often that you find organic beer. The owner didn’t mind that we were early and welcomed us in. The ex-Rhodesian told me all about the ancient process he used to brew the beer and let me try the Mike’s Soft Ale, and the Mike’s Lager. Both were incredible.

He was also selling some berry wine, which is made down the road. He suggested we stop by the winery on the way into town. Since we’d already had beer before 10:00, why not indulge in some berry wine? The boysenberry red was our favorite, but I liked the green ginger also. Amy thought it was a little too sweet. The owner of the winery recommended a holiday park in the middle of town; a good way to checkout downtown New Plymouth.

The holiday park was right on the water near downtown, but we’ve been finding the holiday parks rather depressing lately. They’re convenient, but expensive. This place was NZ$47 a night (about US$45). It’s easy to pull into a holiday park with everything you need right there, but much more fulfilling to seek out something more interesting. At the organic store down the road, Amy read a notice that invited anyone to checkout an eco-community just outside town.
The next morning we drove outside New Plymouth up the hill into the bush to the dwellings of Katikara Eco Community. Getting the caravan up the driveway was a challenge.


Through the cloud of dust and vaporized clutch, we saw a Maori face laughing at our boisterous entrance. We were told to look for Des, who greeted us with a big smile. He was quite happy to have the interference.

After we setup the van, hung our laundry, and ate some lunch, Des enthusiastically showed us around.


This is the community house…


The place was overgrown with blackberry bushes. Quinne picked blackberries until her heart was content.


Beck learned how to pick blackberries also and needed his nappy changed several times soon thereafter.


Des explained that they were trying to get the place back in shape after it had been neglected for a while.
It was interesting to hear from a Maori about their point of view and customs etc.. He introduced us to Soraya, who also taught us some Maori words and customs. Soraya and Ross, her partner, joined us for dinner. Amy cooked a wonderful meal topped with the most delicious blackberry crumble from the delicious blackberries Quinne picked. The berry wine was the perfect compliment.




NZ is in the midst of a serious 30-year drought. The normally lush green fields are now dry and brown. The farmers are complaining bitterly. The poor sheep and cows hang their head down to the dry grass trying to extract whatever nutrients are left in the crispy grass. They’re not setup to irrigate in most areas of NZ, so that’s not an option. The dry and hot weather came to an end here yesterday with some cloud relief and rain last night. It rained hard through the night and is drizzling today. We had our hearts set on visiting the farmers market in New Plymouth despite the rain. We really enjoyed being at a farmers market with delicious fruit, veggies, and grains.

We stopped in across the street at the magnificent library where they had a Maori dance workshop. Oliver and Beck learned the haka, while Amy and Quinne learned a poi dance. At the end, we showed off what we learned for each other.

Wai Iti

Unable to make it all the way from Raglan to New Plymouth, we stopped just shy of New Plymouth at a small beachside accommodation / golf course / restaurant called Wai Iti. From there we caught our first glimpse of Mt. Taranaki.


We had the local beach to ourselves, after Quinne chased all the seagulls away that is.


Beck was a little cross that he had to view things from the Beck pack.


There’s always so much to discover in the tide pools.




The accommodations ranged from campsites to fancy beachside villas. If you’re on a budget, perhaps you don’t mind staying in a container? New Zealand imports more than it exports, so shipping containers are plentiful. They’re weatherproof and easily transported.


They made use of cinema seats in the entrance hall…


These seem luxurious after being cooped up in our caravan for two months now. The lack of space is getting to us a little. Living in a caravan is like wiping your bum in a phone booth. You can do it, but you miss the space after a while – especially if you’re not the only one in the phone booth. We’ll appreciate a house when we finally settle down.

Raglan

Beck’s been working on that crazy long left hand break over at Whale Bay.


Quinne went up the road to Manu Beach to strut her stuff on some of the bigger waves.

Raglan

Here's where we are now...

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Scourge

Normally you feel bad if you hit an animal while you’re driving down the road. Well, most people do. Here, you don’t have to feel bad – if it’s an opossum or similar. They’re eating all the kiwi birds, so you’re encouraged to kill them however you can. Traps, poison, clubs, bullets, assegais, whatever.

We were driving back to the farm at dusk when I had my chance. There in our lane toward the middle of the road was a cute little kiwi-killing rodent staring back at us. This was my opportunity to pull my weight as a kiwi wannabe to save the kiwis.
Surely Amy realizes that this is my civic duty. I’d better check. I had just enough time to say to Amy, “I’m supposed to hit it – right?” Amy squirmed down in her seat and started crying as if I was about to shoot her favorite pony in the head.
I didn’t change my course – I had to do this for the kiwi race. Thump. I tried to explain that to Amy who was now in a heap of tears at the bottom of the passenger seat. She looked at me and sobbed, “Not while he was looking right at us”. There wasn’t much conversation for the rest of the ride home.

Taumarunui

This small heartland town would be easily passed over as not much to see, but I’m sure this will be a hip little town in ten years. There’s great mountain biking, bush walks, the best trout fishing in the world, skiing 40 minutes away, a great climate. And, it’s still small and inexpensive. Unfortunately we couldn’t settle there because we can’t pronounce the name consistently.

A Rainy Walk

We had a very wet walk from the town of Whakapapa toward Ruapehu. It was foggy when we started out, but full-on rain before we decided to turn around. The spectacular views of the volcano and surrounding landscape were well hidden. Sorry, no pictures of the landscape, but here are Amy and Quinne walking out of the forest.


It was so nice to be able to change clothes in the caravan and have a hot cup of tea. Amy even made cinnamon toast right there in the trailhead parking lot.

The Best Thing About This Trip...

Plenty of family time

Taupo to Taumarunui

We drove from Taupo to Taumarunui via the National Park.


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The magnificent views of New Zealand's largest volcano were completely hidden from us by the clouds. Apparently it's a spectacular view just behind this ski chateau:


Please notice the name if this village. Remember that "wh" is pronounced "f".

A caravan park on the outskirts of Havelock North

Farm Views

Here are some pictures that I just processed from the farm on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Napier

Destroyed by an earthquake in February of 1931, the town of Napier rebuilt itself in the art deco style of the day. It seemed natural to build everything in the new style. It’s really strange to see so many buildings with the date of 1932 or 19933 on them. Here are some examples:






Here's another picture showing the architecture


To keep the trend alive, everyone still drives cars like this:


Ok, not really, but they will in a few weeks during the Art Deco Days Festival. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll still be in town.
Most towns in New Zealand lack the character of European villages, especially when it comes to architecture. The charm of New Zealand is in its countryside. The town of Napier is one of a few exceptions.
This region is dry, especially during this time of year. The scenery is different from the typical lush green landscape covering most of New Zealand. The landscape here reminds us of the Colorado Front Range. Here’s a golden field of grass across the street from where we’re staying.