Today I applied for an overseas driver's license conversion and could not believe how easy it was! I walked away in under 30 min with my temporary full license in hand and it only cost $50! They did a quick eyesight test, took my photo and signature and said I should receive the card in 3 weeks, pretty simple! They just needed to see my Massachusetts license, my passport and a proof of address here. I mostly got it to have an accepted for of ID to carry with me, to get into bars for example, so that I don't have to carry around my passport everywhere with me!
It was also a nice, sunny hot day today and I went for a swim in the bay for my training because high tide was right at midday and the water was so warm! Julia and the girls did some kayaking in front of the house as well.
Tomorrow night I am doing an ocean swim (they take place every Thursday as part of a summer swim series). You can choose your distance, 500m, 1k, 1.5k, or 2k. I'm just doing the 1k to test out the swimming wetsuit, which I have tried out briefly in the bay, to make sure it's comfortable enough to make it over 4k if I decided to sign up to swim to Rangitoto in April! After that Sophie and I are off to Waiwera hot pools for the night to use up my GrabOne voucher before it expires! Then it's the long weekend and we're going to Fiesta Del Sol on a vineyard on Waiheke island all day Saturday for An's birthday so we're hoping the rain in the forecast holds off!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Back in Full Swing!
So at least I got to have one last fun-filled weekend and some nice relaxing beach days with some of the girls I hadn't seen in weeks (this is the 14-16 Jan) before heading back to a FULL week of work with the kids! It's still school holidays, and they start back again on the 2nd of Feb. Last week was a bit of a crazy one! Well, for starters, Libby and Reuben had a week of intensive swim lessons, Libby at 9am and Reuben at 9:30, which meant poor Tessa had to sit through an hour, when all she wanted was to hop right in that pool! So mornings were hectic to say the least. Then without fail, every single day, mainly for Tessa, they did an hour of wet jumping (bouncing on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath it). Julia's birthday was Wednesday so we spent a lot of time on Monday and Tuesday wrapping presents and making cards. Then on Wednesday was baking day. Of course Libby and Reuben couldn't decide on a cake flavor, according to Reuben, Libby only wanted banana cake because it was her favorite and Libby said it couldn't be chocolate, what Reuben wanted, because she didn't like it. Reuben then decided it should have strawberry icing, which Libby liked the sound of. So we ended up with banana cake with strawberry icing made from fresh strawberries! It was actually pretty yummy and enjoyed by everyone! Then on Thursday, Julia was off up to Bay of Islands to help her Dad sail the boat home. We drove her to the airport, which ended with a lot of complaints of carsickness from Reuben and Libby who were riding facing the wrong way in the boot. I'm sure the heat didn't help too much either. On the way home one was in the front and one was in the back and I had them intrigued by the gps as well, so it was a lot smoother ride home! Then Reuben had a friend show up for a play date. After he was here for about an hour it was time to pick up Tessa from kindercare, so that made 4 kids for the rest of the afternoon, and she wasn't too happy that mom wasn't there to pick her up, and didn't quite understand that she would be coming home for a couple of days!
On Friday, after their last swim lessons of the week, both Reuben and Libby went to play dates, which allowed Tessa to have a nice afternoon sleep I'm sure she was very much in need of! The rest of the day went pretty smoothly after that. Although the rainy weather had come in to stay for the entire weekend! I still cycled to the pool in Takapuna, in the rain, and then swam and cycled home. I met Sophie and Rachel in Takapuna, but it cleared out SUPER early...so pretty uneventful that night. Saturday I did some more biking and running (following a little triathlon training schedule for the mini ContactTri Women's one Jenny and I signed up for March 5, currently 6 weeks away! That night we had a nice meal at Rachel's with lots of yummy food and then went out into town. However the mood was ruined a bit because of all the rain...and then Astrid's car battery died which turned out to be a bonus for Rachel, Sophie and I. Freidi drove us into town in Astrid's car and then they were headed home almost 2 hours before us, so we just decided we'd take a cab later...then we get a call from Astrid saying when they stopped for McDonald's the engine was shut off for all of a minute and the lights left on, but that was enough to make the battery go flat...so they had been trying to flag someone down at 3am to get it jumped...in the rain...apparently most cab drivers were really rude and the police even said they couldn't help, but eventually they got help from one cab driver and we found them just in time to hop in and get a ride home. So their night was a little bit longer than they'd planned!
Sunday morning the weather was even crazier!! Heavy heavy rain and super strong wind! There were all kinds of puddles all over the roads and the motorway was even closed across the bay heading into the city at high tide because the water had come up over the road! Julia came home yesterday with her mom, unable to sail anywhere because of the crazy weather, so her dad will wait and come back with one of his crew members. Yesterday, we made some bright yellow playdough (my fingernails still show evidence from the mixing process) and we made a bike trip to the park. Well Tessa got to ride in her pram. Then it was a race home because mom had arrived back with Nan after 5 days away! Libby went home with Nan to spend the night and tonight will be Reuben's turn so tomorrow I'll just have Libby and Tessa. Julia is still home from work today because she'd planned on still being on her way sailing home. So she and Reuben have just gone fishing and I'll be here to look after Tessa when she wakes from her nap.
On Friday, after their last swim lessons of the week, both Reuben and Libby went to play dates, which allowed Tessa to have a nice afternoon sleep I'm sure she was very much in need of! The rest of the day went pretty smoothly after that. Although the rainy weather had come in to stay for the entire weekend! I still cycled to the pool in Takapuna, in the rain, and then swam and cycled home. I met Sophie and Rachel in Takapuna, but it cleared out SUPER early...so pretty uneventful that night. Saturday I did some more biking and running (following a little triathlon training schedule for the mini ContactTri Women's one Jenny and I signed up for March 5, currently 6 weeks away! That night we had a nice meal at Rachel's with lots of yummy food and then went out into town. However the mood was ruined a bit because of all the rain...and then Astrid's car battery died which turned out to be a bonus for Rachel, Sophie and I. Freidi drove us into town in Astrid's car and then they were headed home almost 2 hours before us, so we just decided we'd take a cab later...then we get a call from Astrid saying when they stopped for McDonald's the engine was shut off for all of a minute and the lights left on, but that was enough to make the battery go flat...so they had been trying to flag someone down at 3am to get it jumped...in the rain...apparently most cab drivers were really rude and the police even said they couldn't help, but eventually they got help from one cab driver and we found them just in time to hop in and get a ride home. So their night was a little bit longer than they'd planned!
Sunday morning the weather was even crazier!! Heavy heavy rain and super strong wind! There were all kinds of puddles all over the roads and the motorway was even closed across the bay heading into the city at high tide because the water had come up over the road! Julia came home yesterday with her mom, unable to sail anywhere because of the crazy weather, so her dad will wait and come back with one of his crew members. Yesterday, we made some bright yellow playdough (my fingernails still show evidence from the mixing process) and we made a bike trip to the park. Well Tessa got to ride in her pram. Then it was a race home because mom had arrived back with Nan after 5 days away! Libby went home with Nan to spend the night and tonight will be Reuben's turn so tomorrow I'll just have Libby and Tessa. Julia is still home from work today because she'd planned on still being on her way sailing home. So she and Reuben have just gone fishing and I'll be here to look after Tessa when she wakes from her nap.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Northern Beach Hopping
Getting the gorgeous weather we were hoping for, we started in Maitai/Karikari Bay at a beautiful, HUGE beach with blue blue water and really nice sand and lots of pretty shells. It was basically deserted!! We were the 2nd group to occupy it that morning and later on when there were about 12 people on the beach, we talked to some people who said they lived up the road and said this was the most people they’ve ever seen on the beach! It is pretty far out at the end of a fairly empty peninsula but definitely worth the drive as far as we were concerned. Next we decided to check out Rangiputa beach as it was a recommendation, but it wasn’t quite as empty and much less impressive because we were expecting even nicer and more secluded than the first one we went to. We decided (since we were driving all the way back to Auckland tonight) to carry on our beach tour and drove up to 90 mile beach, the northern most west coast of the country where the beach goes all the way up to Cape Reinga. You can even drive up there along the beach via one of it’s many access points! And we found it hilarious that the road going onto the beach the speed limit was 50 k/h and once you were on the beach it was 100 k/h, same as the highway!! It was a lot of fun though and the surf was awesome, lots of nice waves to play in! We kept driving down the west coast, or just inland from the coast, took the carry ferry which across the Hokianga harbor and stopped at a really nice scenic lookout place at its entrance. Then we drove through the Kauri Forest where we visited Tane Mahuta, the huge, ancient Kauri tree. He was massive!!Here is where the last photos of the trip were taking, bringing the grand total to about 3,600! I managed to get it down to about 1,800 on my computer. Overall, it was a great holiday and we saw more of the country than most Kiwis have! We covered 4000k in the campervan and 1000 in the rental car, so 5000k in three weeks, not bad.
 |
| Beach #1 |
 |
| 90 Mile Beach, goes on for probably 80 miles behind me! |
 |
| yep, that's the speed limit sign for the beach |
 |
| car ferry |
 |
| very, very large tree! |
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cruising the Bay and Waitangi
Today we boarded our dolphin discovery vessel at about 8:45 and departed to pick up some more passengers in Russell before taking a guided tour of the Bay of Islands (not quite all 144 of them luckily). On the way out we saw a couple of bottle-nose dolphins and then later a larger group of common dolphins. We went about 20 miles out to sea to see the hole in the rock, an actual hole through an island. There were quite a few passengers starting to feel seasick and apparently someone was sick on one of the sets of stairs so the driver decided to head to our stopping place on Urupukapuka, the largest of the islands. We had one hour to spend there so we took the scenic walk up the hill to get the 360 degree view of the bay. We went down to the beach to feel the water before hopping back on the boat and cruising back to Russell and Paihia. We got a quick bite for lunch and then went to Waitangi, where the treaty was signed between the British settlers and the native Maori people. We watched a cultural performance to learn a little bit about Maori culture. The male members of the audience got to learn some haka basics (a welcome greeting or battle intimidation) and the female audience members got to learn how to use the poi (a ball on a string). Mom got a little carried away with her swinging and smacked her poi into mine and knocked it right out of my hand! We then had a guided tour of the treaty grounds, seeing the giant waka (war canoe) and the treaty house and meeting house decorated with all different types of Maori cavings from all across New Zealand. Now that I’ve learned a little about New Zealand’s history, I can better understand Waitangi Day, coming up on the 6th of February, a bit like our 4th of July! After Waitangi we went to find Haruru falls in the daylight...only to find it wasn’t that impressive and we were RIGHT at it the night before. And then we continued our drive farther north to Doubtless Bay were we at fish and chips for dinner at the famous Mangonui fish shop and stayed at a motel-like Bed and Breakfast with yet more excellent hosts!
 |
| A few common dolphins off the side of our boat |
 |
| Hole in the Rock |
 |
| The only island in the bay that you can camp on |
 |
| View from Urupukapuka |
 |
| our cruising vessel |
 |
| Mom learning the skill a bit too well... |
 |
| Learning the Haka |
 |
| Kauri tree stump, about 2000 yrs old when cut down |
 |
| Waka, powered by 80 paddler men, and can carry up to 120 |
 |
| Haruru Falls |
 |
| Our jug of milk |
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Tutukaka, Matapouri, Paihi and Russell
People really weren’t kidding when you could almost see the whole north in a day! (Although you wouldn’t want to, the beaches are definitely worth spending time at!) We asked our motel host in the morning for his suggestions on places to see as well, and continued our drive up the Twin Coast Discovery highway (up the east and down the west). The first stop off was at Tutukaka marina for a few pictures, then on to Matapouri Beach, very beautiful! It was such a nice day so we spent a little bit of time there. Mom and Dad hiked to the mermaid pools, though there were no signs and trail markers like the book described. Apparently a rock collapsed blocking the trail, but we met someone who had found another way there so they decided to take on the challenge and hike up and over the rocks down to them. I decided just to lay on the beach while they did that. It was really rough terrain and not so nice on the feet, seeing as no one had proper shoes and ended up barefoot! What was supposed to be a 10 min walk turned out to be about an hour, including spending some time at the pools and Dad went skinny dipping! I started out laying in the sand mostly in the shade, but as the time went by the sun moved and ended up with quite the shorts tan! We next stopped in Kawakawa to see the most photographed toilets in NZ designed by some fancy architect, basically the town's only attraction! From there we drove up to Paihia, found a place to have some lunch and booked our cruise of the Bay of Islands for the next day. Then we decided to go check out Russell and took the little ferry over in the evening. Much to Mom’s dismay all the cute little shops were closed already, but we still walked around the town and up the waterfront. We decided to sit outside at a restaurant and have a glass of wine and some appetizers to watch the sunset. When we ferried back we attempted to go and find Haruru Falls, because according to the book they are nice to see at night. We had no such luck and the next day found out that they weren't too impressive after all, and RIGHT next to the road where we were the night before, just was too dark to find them! That night we stayed at a motel just down the road from the wharf (and got our little jug of milk!) so that we could easily be there at 8:45am for our cruise and had a nice convenient place to leave the car.
 |
| Tutukaka Marina |
 |
| Matapouri |
 |
| Mermaid pools |
 |
| playing little mermaid |
 |
| Kawakawa, most photographed toilets in NZ! |
 |
| ferry to Russell |
 |
| Russell |
 |
| very large tree in Russell |
 |
| on our search for Haruru falls at least we found this for Mom |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)