New Zealand Part 2

 Letter No. 232

Dear all,

NEW ZEALAND’S NORTH ISLAND – Rotorua, Taupo & Wellington

We left Hamilton on Tues 5^th January and drove to Rotorua. Our first stop was Hell’s Gate, a highly active thermal area which has a fantastic thermal spa. You hop into a large pool of hot mud and smear it all over your body and then sit on the edge of the pool in the sun to let it dry on your skin. You can only stay in the mud pool for 20 minutes as it is so warm.  Next you rinse off and then gradually move through a series of other pools gradually getting cooler and clearer. The mud bath and hot springs were great and we all thought our skin felt much softer afterwards, probably because the outer layers were removed by the acidic waters! It was a fun morning, despite the constant smell of sulphur dioxide gas in the air which pervades much of the region around Rotorua. We ate lunch at the cafe before driving to our apartment.

After lunch and checking in we went on to Skyline Rotorua. This is a large cable car you can catch up the mountain behind the city. At the top there are lots of activities to do. We all went on the luge which is a little go kart track. You ride down the mountain to the bottom and then get a chairlift back to the top. There were three different tracks and we had to try them all. It was great fun and we could have done it all day. We went back to our apartment for dinner and had another shower to try to get the smell of sulphur out of our skin!

The next morning we drove around to the other side of Lake Rotorua to the Kaituna Falls where Matt, Jessie and I went White Water Rafting. Jessica was fairly concerned and not sure she wanted to go, especially when she heard we would be rafting over a 7-metre waterfall. Apparently this is the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world. We had a 30-minute safety briefing which included details of what to do if you fell out and what to do if the raft capsized and you were trapped under it. By this time Jessica was really freaked out and I thought that she might bail out, but with one last hug for Katie we were in the rafts paddling down the fast flowing river. The rapids were awesome and we were having a great time but were all a little nervous about the huge waterfall downstream. There were quite a few opportunities to get out of the raft and swim alongside which was fun as the water was quite warm. Very soon we were at the top of the waterfall and given last-minute reminders on where to hold on, how to stop crashing heads together and what to do if we capsized. Over we went – the raft was fully vertical down the falls and in an instant we were at the bottom. The raft, with all of us in it, submerged totally to a depth of around 1m before we popped back to the surface. It was a huge thrill. Meanwhile Katie was walking alongside the falls taking photos of us all the way. She said it was a lovely walk along the river and she took some great pictures. All too soon we were back in the minibus then back to the rafting centre to clean off and warm up before going back to our apartment.

In the afternoon we went out to Whakarewarewa Forest to see the Californian giant redwood trees. There was a lovely 1½ hour walk through the forest up to a lookout over Lake Rotorua and back. There are a lot of cycle trails in the area but we decided that a gentle stroll would be a relaxing change after the morning’s high-energy activity. That evening we went to the Mitai Maori Village for a Maori cultural experience. We were picked up from our apartment for a short drive to the village. It was an authentic introduction to Maori culture which left us amazed and in awe. At least that is what it said in the brochure. Actually it was pretty good. There was a short walk in the forest to a stream where Maori warriors paddled a war canoe along the stream wearing traditional dress and singing war cries. There was a full performance highlighting traditional dress, arts, weapons, customs, carvings, tattoos, songs and musical instruments. We also went to see the traditional Hangi feast being extracted from the pit in the ground before we went on to devour a huge meal of roast lamb and chicken. We were a little surprised to see such traditional Maori foods as garlic bread, stuffing, mint sauce, pavlova and chocolate log but it was certainly a feast and we all had a great night. The kids befriended a 27-year-old backpacker from Taiwan and practiced their Mandarin on her all evening, which was an added bonus.

On Thursday 7 January we got up early and drove to Matamata, about an hour away, to Hobbiton, the set for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. It is a sheep farm about 10km outside the town. Thirty-nine Hobbit holes were originally built of untreated timber, ply and polystyrene. A large oak tree was cut down and transported to the site to overlook the village. Artificial leaves were imported from Taiwan and over 200,000 leaves were individually wired to the tree by hand!! A mill and a double-arch bridge were also built out of scaffolding, ply and polystyrene. The whole thing was demolished following filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy but was then rebuilt with permanent materials, including a new artificial tree built from steel and silicon, in time for The Hobbit trilogy. This reconstruction took two years and the whole site is now a vast money-making exercise for a once simple farmer. We did a two hour tour which was really fantastic, especially as we had an incredibly enthusiastic and entertaining guide who was passionate about the movies and seemed to know every trivial fact about them. The tour took us around the lovely Hobbit holes, along the winding paths, past the maypole where the kids joined the maypole dance and ended up in the Green Dragon pub for a cider. It was really lovely. Matt and Jessie hadn’t particularly enjoyed the movies, but they loved the tour. The hobbit holes were built at different sizes proportionally so that actors being filmed next to them either looked larger (Gandalf), or smaller (Hobbits). It was very clever. The Green Dragon pub had delicious pies and the décor was really great. We would have liked to stay longer but we only had twenty minutes for photos, drinks and snack. It was really a great morning. We will have to watch the movies again now and see if we can spot the places we have seen.

We went back to Rotorua and had a late lunch at our apartment. In the afternoon we meandered around the town, stopping at the park which was riddled with thermal vents and mud pools. There was even a thermal foot pool so we stopped for a while and soaked our feet in the warm water. That evening we discovered the Eat Street night market which had every possible kind of street food. We then we strolled back to our apartment to watch one of the kids’ Christmas movies on DVD.

We packed up and left Rotorua the next morning, heading for the Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland. The Lady Knox Geyser spouts off at precisely 10:15am every day and shoots water to a height of about 20m for about an hour. The geyser receives a little help in the form of organic soap which allows it to erupt to such a regular timetable. The soap reduces the surface friction of the top layer and causes the spout. It was very powerful and much more impressive than we had expected it to be. We walked around the Wai-o-tapu thermal area, which is a steaming moonscape of collapsed craters, boiling pools of mud, poisonous pools and sulphurous fumaroles. In some places the water temperatures are up to 300 degrees centigrade. There are many different coloured pools including green, orange, purple, red, yellow, white and black. We especially liked a bright green pool called the Devil's Bath. There is a thin layer of poisonous gas over the green water and if birds fly into it they are gassed, fall into the water and are dissolved in a few days by the high acid content. Our other favourite was the Champagne Pool, a 65m diameter pool which is also 65m deep and full of crystal clear boiling water. Vast clouds of warm sulphurous steam envelope you at the viewing areas. It was pretty cool and we could imagine it as the film setting for lots of futuristic movies. There was a 4km walk around all the sites in the park and we did it all. Just as we finished it started to rain so we ate lunch in the car. On our way out of the area we passed the aptly-named Mud Pool which was basically a huge pond of boiling mud.

We drove on to Taupo and found our kitchenette apartment. It was still bucketing down rain when we arrived. Despite this we decided to go to the Spa Thermal Park which had a hot water stream flowing into the Waikato River. It was a short drive and a five minute walk to the river. The kids and I went in and it was lovely. We sat in a pool of very hot water and then jumped into the river to cool down. Katie watched and took photos under her umbrella but ended up getting nearly as wet as we did. We went back to dry off and have showers before heading into the town for dinner. My brother-in-law Andrew had told us of a great place to go for dinner called the Pub ‘n’ Grub. It was much nicer than it sounds and we had a nice dinner.

On Saturday 9^th January we had a sailing trip planned on a boat called The Barbary. I went for an early morning run on Saturday to find the harbour front and departure point. It was overcast and threatening rain but fortunately by the time we’d had breakfast and driven down to the harbour it had turned into a miraculously beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. The Barbary boat was very impressive. It was a 44ft sailing yacht built in 1905. It had once belonged to Errol Flynn who had won her in a card game. Our half day sail was taking us right out onto Lake Taupo to see the Maori Rock Carvings on a cliff overlooking the lake. It was about an hour’s sail each way and it got quite exciting once we were out of the harbour. We had to stow all the bags below deck and there was a very heavy swell. The kids and I stood right at the bowspit and as the boat went through the swell we would go up about 4m above the water to come crashing back down into water to our knees. It was great fun. The boat got up some fair speed and was right on its side with water lapping over our feet and we were lying almost vertically as she sped through the water. Very exciting.

The rock carvings were very spectacular but I was a little disappointed to find out they had been carved in 1979 by some drunken Maori Art students. There was a huge Maori face, an impressive lizard and a naked women who was supposedly one of their girlfriends! It was pretty good but I had been expecting something really ancient!

We sailed on to a quiet bay around the headland and Matt, Jessie and I went swimming. The water was a crystal clear blue colour but very cold. I was the first in and told everyone that it was quite warm, through gritted teeth, despite the fact I could hardly speak from hypothermia. I even convinced two other people to get in! It was actually quite refreshing but we didn't stay in too long. We had a nice hot chocolate and lay in the sun while we sailed back to port. There were lovely bean bags to lie on all over the deck and the wind had dropped so it was a much more gentle sail on the return leg. A highly recommended morning out in Taupo.

We had a nice picnic lunch on the harbour then a short drive down the river to the Aratiatia Dam. There is a release of water from the dam four times a day and the water level rises spectacularly in the narrow riverbed downstream, creating powerful rapids in which the river rises by about 6 metres in just 10 minutes. We just made it in time for the 2pm release. Afterwards we went on to a Volcanic Activity Centre which showed short films of recent eruptions and earthquakes in New Zealand as well as a simulator showing what the ground motions would have been like in the Christchurch earthquake. It was quite alarming.

Afterwards we viewed the spectacular Huka Falls waterfall and then drove to a nearby activity centre to watch people Bungy jumping and going on a "Big Swing" from a cliff over the river. We decided that we were not at all keen on Bungy jumping but enjoyed watching others do it. We went back to our apartment and had dinner in and a TV evening.

The next day was mainly a driving day as we drove 382km from Taupo to Wellington. It was 382km and took us 5½ hrs, including a lunch stop in Paraparamau Beach with a view of Kapiti Island. On the way we got to 1089 metres above sea level, on the slopes of Mt Ruapehu, which is the tallest mountain in New Zealand at 2797m. There was quite a lot of snow on it despite it being mid-summer and the landscape was very bleak and cold. Mt Ruapehu is the most active volcano on the North Island and we saw quite a bit of smoke coming out of the summit.

We arrived at our apartment by 2:30pm. It was a great location almost in the centre of Wellington. After we dropped the girls off, Matthew and I went to find a car park for the car and stumbled across the lovely beach Oriental Bay where we had a refreshing swim in the very cool water. In the evening we explored the town, having a drink on harbour front at Queens Wharf and then on to Cuba Street for dinner. Cuba Street is a very hip area with bars, restaurants and lots of street art. In fact there is lots of great street art everywhere in Wellington and we really liked it. The city felt much more vibrant and humming than Auckland.

Our last full day in New Zealand was Monday 11^th January.  We strolled a few blocks from our apartment down to the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand. My brother-in-law Chris had told us this was the best thing to do in Wellington and he wasn't wrong. It was a fantastic museum right on the harbour front with wonderful displays of volcanoes, earthquakes, natural history and New Zealand social history including immigration, refugees and Maori History. There was a very interesting exhibit on the Waitangi Treaty between the British and the Maori Chiefs.

We had lunch overlooking the harbour and watched some girls leaping into the sea from a jumping platform. It was about a 10m high platform called The Jump constructed above the harbour front especially for people to leap off. It was very beautifully constructed so it looked like a piece of art as well as being a functional platform. Naturally the kids immediately wanted to do it so we said we would come back later in the day. We then drove a short distance to the New Zealand Parliamentary complex. Three buildings form the complex and the most distinctive of these is the modernist executive office known as the Beehive. It does look exactly like a beehive and it is the architectural symbol of New Zealand, even though it is not great architecture! Next door to the Beehive is the old Parliament House, which was completed in 1922, and next door is a Neolithic Parliamentary Library Complex. We did a one-hour tour of all three buildings.

In the afternoon we drove up to the Mount Victoria Lookout behind our apartment. It had fantastic 360 degree views all around Wellington. The drive up was along some very narrow and winding streets which was an adventure in itself. After we had finished admiring the view we went back to our apartment, grabbed our togs and went back to The Jump. One platform was at about 5m above the water level and the other at 10m. There was a large audience of spectators cheering people on which was a bit intimidating. We had a few practice jumps from the lower platform before doing the taller jump. Jessie was really brave and leapt straight off the top level without a thought. I had to take a moment before the big leap, but I couldn't let her be braver than me! We did quite a few jumps and it was great fun in the end.

Our last day in New Zealand was Tuesday 12^th January. We packed up and checked out of our apartment before going to the Wellington Cable Car which took us high up into the hills overlooking Wellington. There were spectacular views and a tiny museum on the history of the cable car. We spent an hour walking down through the lovely Botanic Gardens and then stopped for lunch in a rather quirky floating boat restaurant overlooking Oriental Bay. We headed on to the airport for our flight back to Brisbane; the end of another terrific touring holiday. 

Cheers,

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica & Molly

On the Highway to Hell.

Arriving at Hell.

Hot and muddy!

They did tell Matthew not to put mud above your mouth!

Cleaning up in the thermal spa.

Speed demon!

Speedier demon!

The speediest Demons.

Looking worried at the white water rafting safety briefing. 

Too late now.

Going.

Going!

Going!!

Gone!

Still alive!

Can we do that again?

After going through the waterfall.

Welcome to Hobbiton.

In the Hobbit Hole.

Just like in the movie.

Hobbits are so small.

In the Green Dragon Pub.

.

Lady Knox Geyser - in the rain.

Boiling sulphur pool.

The Devil's bath.

Sailing.

Titanic moment.

An active volcano.

Jessica's leap of faith.

Flowers.

Waiting for Smaug to awaken.

New Zealand Part 1

Letter No. 231

Dear all,

On 23 December we went for our traditional pre-Christmas trip to the Dog beach at Currumbin to give Molly a little holiday before we departed on ours. She really loves going to the beach although she still doesn’t like getting out of her depth in the water. We had Christmas Drinks at our friends the Grahams on Christmas Eve followed by our traditional roast turkey family dinner at home with all the proper trimmings. We ended up staying at the drinks much longer than intended so had a much later than intended dinner, but it was nice all the same.

We spent Christmas Day at Lisa & Andrew’s and as usual it was a busy day with all of Andrew’s extended family. We opened our presents to each other at home over breakfast then went to Lisa and Andrew’s house for morning tea to open presents with them and my parents and then over to Andrew’s parent’s house for a long leisurely Christmas lunch with 14 adults and 16 children!  On Boxing Day we hit the sales for a while before going to drinks with our dear friends the Brodies. We also packed up ready for our trip to New Zealand the next day.

NEW ZEALAND’S NORTH ISLAND – Waiheke Island, Auckland, the Coromandel Peninsula and Hamilton

On Sunday 27 Dec we woke up at 3am to get to the airport by 4am. Our flight to Auckland was at 6:10am. The trip was to explore New Zealand’s North Island over a couple of weeks, starting at Auckland and departing from Wellington, with seven different stops in between. We arrived about midday New Zealand time and headed straight to Auckland harbour for a ferry to Waiheke Island. It was a 40-minute fast catamaran trip to the island and we were at our hotel by 2.30pm. We loved Waiheke; it was a very relaxing and lovely holiday island with lots of wineries and art. We stayed at the beautiful and newly renovated Kiwi House hotel only a few minutes’ walk from the beach. The little town is Oneroa, which has the best beach on Waiheke Island (nice but not a patch on Straddie) and also a great ice cream shop and lots of shoppe shops. After sampling the beach and the ice creams we strolled on to the Cable Bay winery which Katie described as one of the most beautiful wineries she had ever been to. It was both modern and traditional at the same time. We tried some wines and shared a bottle of rosé along with an enormous sharing platter of cheeses, salads and gourmet nibbles for dinner. Afterwards we went outside to sit on the grass and watch the sun slowly set over the spectacular views of Auckland in the distance.

The next day I went for a nice run along they headland overlooking the beach first thing, then we caught the bus over to Onetangi beach which is the longest beach on Waiheke Island. We went for a walk along the beach, had a swim (although the water was far too cold for Jessie and Katie) and had a quick coffee at Charlie Farley’s beach café. We caught the bus back via a brewery where we sampled cider, lager, bitter, stout and ginger ale and then a couple of wineries. It is the first wine tasting I have been on when I was not driving or had only a limited time so it was a very relaxing day. Top Knot winery had games for the kids to play while we sampled the wine and we all played Bowls there and then had lunch. Stoneyridge winery up the hill was another favourite with a great deck overlooking the olive grove and vineyards on a perfect and sunny afternoon. All very pleasant. We caught the bus back to our apartment for a little rest and then had dinner in Oneroa Bay again.

On Tuesday 29 Dec we all got up early and went for a run before breakfast. We ran over to the other side of Waiheke Island and along the bay on the other side. At the point where we are staying the island is only about 500m wide and from the balcony you can see the sea in both directions. We ran around the headland and along the next bay before turning back. On the way back we found a track that went over the top of the headland so we went that way for the view and eventually found our way back. Katie hasn't run for some time as she had sprained her knee about six weeks ago but held up fairly well. We packed up after breakfast and a shower and headed back down to the ferry terminal, a bit sad to leave after two perfect days on Waiheke.

There were splendid views of the City of Sails as we sailed into the harbour; a great way to arrive. We had a great two-bedroom apartment for our three days in Auckland. We went to the Auckland Skytower first. It is 328m tall and is the tallest building in the Southern hemisphere, according to Matt. The uppermost viewing deck is at 220m on level 60. The views are spectacular. We spent more than an hour up there and had afternoon tea in the café, watching people do the Skyjump, which looked extremely scary. There were sections of the floor on level 52 which were made of glass and were very intimidating to walk over. We walked back to our apartment by about 5:00pm, grabbed some groceries and had a night in our apartment watching a movie.

On Wednesday I went for an early morning run before the others were out of bed and did a recce to see how far it was to the Auckland Museum. It was a nice walking distance so we set off after breakfast. On the way we stopped at the Auckland Wintergarden. The Museum and Wintergarden are in an area called the Auckland Domain which is a large park very close to the city centre. The Wintergarden had two large glasshouses with many exotic flowers and plants. It was built and extended between 1905 and 1928. We went on to the museum which is housed in a beautiful old building on top of the hill overlooking the Domain. The museum has an excellent display of Pacific Island and Maori culture on the ground floor including a 25m long war canoe carved from a single tree which was very impressive. The first floor is devoted to the natural world and the top floor focuses on New Zealand at war. I was surprised to learn that in WWI, one in every five adult New Zealand males was in the armed forces, the highest ratio across the Commonwealth. In the UK it was only one in seven.

Our favourite bit of the museum was the section on volcanoes. Auckland is built on top of a volcano that last erupted 600 years ago. There was a very realistic interactive exhibit where you sat in an armchair as if you were in a house overlooking the bay and watching the TV in your own lounge room. You watch a fake news broadcast showing scenes of Auckland being evacuated due to earthquake tremors and fear of an eruption. The room moves and floor shakes occasionally. The view over the balcony ominously changes as steam appears in the harbour and announcer solemnly tells viewers that the volcano is definitely erupting. Suddenly the TV goes blank, the power fails and the room shakes terribly. Everything goes dark, a plume of ash clouds and lava appears in the middle of the harbour and the ash cloud approaches your apartment at great speed. It was very realistic. We stayed at the museum much longer than we meant to and then had lunch in the park.

That evening we wandered around the Wynyard Quarter which is full of funky bars and restaurants. We had a jug of sangria whilst watching the boats in the harbour before dinner and then a Mexican meal. We decided to book another restaurant for New Year’s Eve the following night, with views of both the Auckland SkyTower and Auckland Harbour Bridge. We were amazed to still get a table!

Thursday was New Year’s Eve. I went for a run in a different direction and ended up in a lovely park nearby. Auckland is quite hilly and the park very steep so I got a good workout going up and down the hills. We decided to have a more relaxing day today and split up and do a bit of shopping in the Christmas sales. I found a massive record store which had an enormous amount of vinyl records and even tapes for sale and had a wander around for ages. It had lots of interesting and quirky things. We were meeting again at the park near the Auckland Art Gallery for lunch. I had a quick look around the gallery but much of the modern “art” seemed to have been painted by autistic two-year-olds. Luckily the best four art pieces were in the reception so I pointed them out to the others when they arrived and told them not to bother with the rest.

We caught a bus to the other side of town to pick up our hire car. We were quite surprised to discover it was across the road from the AECOM office which I had been to a few years ago. We drove around to Devonport for the afternoon. It is an attractive suburb on the north shore of the Auckland peninsula. It was one of the earliest areas of European settlement and has a bit of a 19^th-century atmosphere with its well preserved Victorian and Edwardian buildings, afternoon tea at grand hotels and a nice pier and promenade. There were more spectacular views of Auckland CBD across the water but Katie and the kids were more interested in the little shoppe shops and then we had High Tea and cakes at the beautiful pub on the waterfront before driving back to our apartment.

We went down to the harbour front for our New Year’s Eve dinner. It was an Italian restaurant and had a very nice set menu. We stretched dinner out until 11:30pm between rounds of cards before going out onto the wharf with all the other restaurant guests. The restaurant next door had a groovy band so danced on the wharf and we had a great view of the Auckland Skytower which had fireworks at midnight. The band at the adjacent restaurant also had its own fireworks. Towards the end of the official display one firework from the band went astray and there were lots of screams and smoke and a firework exploded on the ground in the crowd. Jessica and Katie were quite close but not hurt but two girls were slightly burned and we saw them later with ice packs on their legs. After midnight it was chaos in the city and the traffic was gridlocked so we walked back to our apartment up the steep hill and didn’t get back until 1am.

We had to check out of our apartment on Friday morning by 10am. We had planned to go to Mt Eden lookout but unfortunately it had started to rain and we couldn't see the end of the car bonnet through the windscreen so we didn't bother. We drove 236km to our third destination, Hahei Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. We had been planning to go for a hike to Cathedral Cove that afternoon but it was still very rainy so we decided not to. We spent the afternoon doing a jigsaw puzzle of the world that Matt found in the lounge room of our new accommodation. We had a meal in that night which was a pleasant change after several nights out.

Saturday 2 January was very wet. We had planned on doing some walks but instead we went to Whitianga, which is the city (more of a town actually) of the Coromandel Peninsula. It was only a short drive and then a ferry ride over a little river to the town. We wandered around looking at the harbour, beach and shops. It was constantly raining and only Katie and I had proper waterproof jackets. We had managed to get the kids emergency ponchos but they were not very good. We bought a good waterproof jacket for Jess but didn’t find a good one for Matthew for another few days so he had to make do with the plastic poncho. We had lunch at a nice sushi restaurant before heading back to Hahei. We decided to do a walk to Cathedral Cove despite the continuing bursts of heavy rain. It was a lovely half hour hike through the forest down to the beach. There is a gigantic arched cavern which separates two adjacent beaches that you can walk through at low tide, hence the name Cathedral Cove. It was very spectacular. Matthew and I decided to go for a swim as there were quite a few people in the water and it wasn’t too cold. The surf was very rough and made us a bit nervous so we didn't stay in long though. Afterwards we showered off in a natural waterfall which cascaded down the limestone cliffs at the other end of the beach. The rain and wind really set in for the walk back and we discovered that all our coats, while water resistant, were not actually fully waterproof. The person who was driest was Matthew in his $3 poncho! Katie had a major sense of humour failure when we got back to the car but the kids and I thought it was fun.

After a stop back at the apartment to dry off, the kids and I went on to Hot Water Beach. Katie's humour had still not returned so she didn’t join us. Thermal waters brew just below the sand at low tide. The idea is that you find a hot spot and dig a hole which fills with hot water for your own little natural spa. We arrived just before low tide about 7:30pm. There were lots of people already there and some had made really large and shallow holes that could fit 30 people. People were constantly coming and going so we just jumped in one of these when someone left. We stayed for nearly an hour. You needed to constantly reinforce your hole against the incoming tide. When you lay down there were spots where almost boiling water was coming out and you burnt your bottom, but other spots were lukewarm. The trick was to find a happy medium. It was difficult to get totally covered and, as it was still raining heavily, you had to try and keep your top side warm as well. It was really fun.

On Sunday 3 January we had to leave the rainy beaches and head off to rainy Hamilton. It was about an hour and a half drive. We went straight to our apartment and had lunch before going out again. We went to the Hamilton Botanic Gardens. We had to view them between brief bursts of rain but the weather was definitely starting to improve. Hamilton Gardens were voted the best international gardens in 2014. They had an area with lots of different styles of garden, all individually styled and with unique features, and the path took you through one after another. There was a fabulous Italian renaissance garden, an Indian garden complete with Taj Mahal-style temple, an English country garden, a Japanese relaxation garden, a Chinese garden with bamboo walk and red painted bridges, a fantasy garden with checkerboard planting and statues from Alice in Wonderland and so on. We had afternoon tea in the café, then to the local shopping mall to see the latest Star Wars movie. Jessie was a bit reluctant but we all enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to a weird fusion Middle Eastern restaurant which had the best Indian/Turkish/Greek food I have eaten in a restaurant in a long time. Happy tummies all round.

The next morning we drove to Waitomo to visit the famous caves. The whole region is riddled with limestone caves and we were visiting two of them. The first was the Glow Worm Cave. It has been known to the Maoris for a long time and there have been tours for tourists operating through the caves since 1889. It is a big cave with the usual assortment of stalactites and stalagmites which takes about 30 minutes to walk through before you come to a large underground river. You then get into rafts and drift down the river in complete darkness until you come to a huge dome area lit entirely with millions of little blue glow worms all over the roof of the cave. It was astoundingly beautiful. After about 15 minutes in the boat, you exit the cliff and hike back up to the start. We had a quick hike up to a lookout point before a short drive on to the Aranui Cave. There is no river in this cave and hence no glow worms, but there are thousands of tiny straw stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Photography was permitted in this cave as there were no glow worms so we got lots of good photos.

On our way back to Hamilton we stopped at the Otorohanga Kiwi House. The kiwi is New Zealand’s iconic national bird and this is the largest kiwi conservation house in New Zealand but we thought it was looking a little tired. We wandered around and looked at all the birds and went into the nocturnal exhibit to try to see a kiwi bird but they were all sleeping in their burrows. It was all a bit disappointing until we went back to the nocturnal house at feeding time 30 minutes later. There was a very cute Greater Spotted Kiwi out looking for insects in the leaf mulch. The enclosure had very low light as the birds are nocturnal but we could see “Atu” really clearly. She obviously had a really strong bond with her keeper Louise. When Louise came into the enclosure Atu was actually jumping up and down with excitement and then kept coming over to her and holding onto her trousers and sitting on Louise’s lap so that she had to stay in there longer and stroke her. It was so adorable. Apparently Atu doesn’t like all of the keepers though and will deliver strong Ninja kicks to any of the keepers she doesn’t like. We were lucky to see a Kiwi bird at all as the others are much shyer and usually wait until the crowd had gone down before coming out to feed so we didn’t see the Brown kiwi or the Lesser Spotted variety. We bought a soft toy kiwi to take home for Molly to play with.

Cheers, Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

A Christmas Dog!

Above the beach at Waiheke Island.

The ferry back from Waiheke.

Auckland Skytower.

View of Auckland from Devonport,

Cathedral Cove.

A shower in a cold waterfall.

Our Kiwi friend.

In the caves.

Jessica's Kiwi friend.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 Letter No. 230

Dear all,

The day after he finished school, Matthew was off to Schoolies week at the Gold Coast, a week in which all the Y12 students let their hair down with a week-long beach party. Matt was staying in a two-bedroom apartment with his best friend Mitchell. Mitchell’s mum took them down and checked them into their unit in the Chevron. Apparently it was chaos with so many school leavers checking in all at the same time. We were really quite shocked at the number of parents we knew who had supplied alcohol for their kids. If Matthew and his friends wanted alcohol, they would just have to be inventive and get fake IDs the same way we had to when we were that age! Matt didn’t seem at all bothered about drinking though. His friends are all prefects and the School Captain and are the more academic and responsible boys in his year. They seemed to have a nice time. They spent most of the time staying up ridiculously late, playing cards, sleeping in, and lying on the beach. Matt said he saw everyone he knew and it was really fun and we had “Proof of Life” texts every day from him.

That first night we went out for a Celebration Dinner at Three Girls Skipping in Graceville with some ex-BBC parents. Jessica was singing somewhere with AGC and got a lift home while we were out. Katie had heels on so she suggested we drive to the restaurant and pick up the car in the morning. The village was so busy I couldn’t get a park however so I dropped Katie off and ended up parking further away from the restaurant than our house!

The next day, Sunday, we went to A Day on the Green with a group of 12. Katie had arranged a minibus to take us all. We picked up our friends all around Graceville but had to go back to one house as one couple had left their tickets at home! The traffic was terrible getting into the event and we had to park quite a way from the main entrance. After we had walked from the car park to the entrance, the same couple had to go back to the bus as they had left their tickets on the bus this time! We found a spot to spread picnic blankets and had a very late lunch. The girls had put together a nice spread as usual so it was very civilised and we just sat on the grass enjoying the music. The bands were the Black Sorrows, Noiseworks, Ross Wilson (from Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock), Daryl Braithwaite and John Farnham. It was a good afternoon. The bus got us home by about 9:00pm. We actually left a little early as most people were not fussed about John Farnham and there was a storm threatening.

It was the AECOM Christmas party on 27^th November. It was at Prohibition in Fortitude Valley this year. We had a nice evening with my team but didn’t stay too late. The venue opens to the general public at 10:30pm and the AECOM people seemed to all slip away so we did as well. The next morning I got up at 5:30am and drove to the Gold Coast as the boys had to be out of their Schoolies apartment fairly early. I was on the beach having a swim by 6:30am and then having a bacon roll and coffee by 7:30am. I wandered over to the Chevron, woke the boys, helped them clean their apartment and we were on our way back to Brisbane before 9:00am. The boys had stayed up until 5am the night before so were a little subdued and we had to stop en route for an emergency breakfast to keep them going. It sounded as if they had had a great time. Matt had a sleep in the afternoon and went to work at Miku that evening. We thought he might fall asleep onto one of the tables he was waiting but he made it home again OK.

I went to the Property Council of Australia lunch on Friday 4^th December. It was a lovely afternoon. The lunch went for seven hours. While I was there Katie had to borrow my car, as hers was in the garage. The fuel indicator light was on so she put $20 of fuel into the car. Unfortunately she put unleaded petrol into it, although it is a diesel engine and then drove it about 5km. She did notice it spluttering a bit but thought nothing of it. The next day I couldn’t start the car at all and the day went rapidly downhill! The car was towed to the garage on Monday and it cost $500 to get it going again! While they had it in the garage they said I needed a part which they cannot get in Australia. I had to prevail on Katie’s brother Chris to order it for me and post it out! An expensive weekend!

On 5^th and 6^th December Jessica was singing with the Australian Girls’ Choir supporting Hugh Jackman at his musical Broadway to Oz, which is on a five-city national tour. She was chosen as one of a backing choir of 75 girls. We had to drop her off at midday for rehearsals and then went back to the Entertainment Centre at 5:30pm for the show. We had dinner before the show and a few drinks. Katie had got fantastic seats right up the front and the show was terrific. The choir sang with Hugh for the last song in each half of the show. They sang One Day More from Les Miserables and I still call Australia Home as the finale. They pulled a huge Australian flag over the audience while they girls were singing so our view of Jessie was obstructed for a bit of the song. It was a fantastic evening though. On Sunday we had to drop Jessie there for two more performances. Hugh called into the girls’ dressing rooms and had a chat to them all and then had a group photoshoot with them all. I went to pick her up on Sunday night. I took the ticket from the previous night with me and managed to slip inside past the security guards by holding my thumb over the date on the ticket. I found an empty seat and watched the finale song again. It was a great weekend for Jessica.

We put up our Christmas tree that morning before Jessica went to her performance. We also went to a Christmas party that evening at our friends the Case’s home in Graceville. I had to pick up Jess later that night so couldn’t have any drinks, but the party was very nice. Katie got paid out a lot from our friends about her stuff up with my car!

It was Matt’s 17^th Birthday on 8^th December. We had a family dinner at the local Greek restaurant. My sister Lisa got him the best present – a map of the world with scratch-off sections over each country that you visit. Matthew was absolutely delighted. He was almost as excited by the new i-phone 6 we had bought him!  Matt has been working at Miku a lot since he finished school. He seems to be there more than he is at home.

Katie had a WAGS (her dog walking group) Christmas dinner at the St Lucia Golf Club on 10^th December and came home a little merry. The next day I went to Straddie with the kids. Katie had elected to stay home with Molly and get Christmas organised… crazy if you ask me. We went for four days. We arrived by lunch time on Friday and went straight to the beach. We were delighted to see dolphins swimming in the surf less than 5m away from us. They were there for ages. A little later Matthew and I were jumping off the cliffs into the deep water when everyone started shouting there was a shark. We scrambled out onto a small island rock with a group of other people. We stayed there nervously for about 20 minutes. Jessica was on the beach waving at us frantically. Apparently she had seen it about 3m away from her when she was waist-deep in the water! Eventually we all made a dash for the shore. We swam quite quickly and decided to sunbathe for a while and stay out of the water. We had a lovely trip though. It was very relaxing (apart from the shark incident) and we came back on Monday afternoon slightly sunburned. Meanwhile Katie had a lovely time being home alone. The house was beautifully decorated, presents were wrapped and under the tree and she had done some preparation for our Christmas Drinks at the weekend. She is encouraging us to go away every year now. J

On Thursday 17^th Jessica was singing with the Australian Girls’ Choir at Southbank. I went over after work and met Matthew and Katie. It was a very nice evening with Christmas Markets, Jessica’s carols and fireworks. We met our dear friends the Brodie’s to watch Jessica perform and went for dinner at a lovely Turkish restaurant.

Our office closed on Friday 18^th December for three weeks. We called it a day at 1pm and went out for lunch at a local pub. I fully intended to leave about 3:30pm to make it home to help Matthew mow the lawn. My best intentions went astray however and I finally made it home from lunch at 8:30pm. Fortunately Matt had mowed it without me and left me the whipper snippering.

Matthew got his final exam results on Saturday morning, in the form of an overall position (OP) score. Matthew received an OP2 putting him in the top 4% in the state. Results are marked on a ranking of OP1-25, so he has really done extremely well and it is a fantastic end to a great school year for him. However, students who study a language or the highest level of Mathematics receive one OP score bonus, which effectively gives him an OP1.  Hopefully this will be enough to get him into Law at the University of Queensland, which is his preference. We have to wait until early January to find out.

That night we had held our annual Christmas Drinks for 40 of our closest friends. Katie pulled out all the stops with fantastic festive canapés including turkey & cranberry, a baked ham, crab & lime quiches and the obligatory devils on horseback and everyone seems to have a brilliant time! We started at 4pm and the last people left at 10:30pm. It is always the start of the Christmas festivities for us. The next day we cleaned up and then went to see the Hunger Games Mockingjay movie.

Christmas is now just a few days away. We send our very best wishes to you all for a truly wonderful Christmas, a happy and healthy new year.

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

AECOM Christmas party.

Last Day at BBC.

Valedictory dinner.

A Day on the Green.

The same Day on the Green.

Matthew's Birthday.

Farewell to BBC

 Letter No. 229

Dear all,

25 September I was invited to see the Broncos vs Roosters in the NFL semi-final at Suncorp Stadium. The Broncos (local Brisbane team) won 31-12 to make the Grand Final. John Haughton’s company had invited me to go with a group of eight. It was a good match and we had a great evening. The next night we went to see RiverFire with Helen & Gary Brodie. Matthew was working at Miku that night so it was just the four adults plus Jessie and Candice, who is a Chinese exchange student staying with the Brodies. RiverFire was quite spectacular. It started out with SuperHornet fighter planes flying low over the city then other military planes and helicopters, followed by an amazing fireworks display all along the river and fireworks off all the bridges. We had a drink in a bar near the river to watch the flypasts and then dinner in a nice Turkish restaurant. When the fireworks started, all the diners went outside and watched from the footpath.

The next night we went over to my sister Lisa’s for dinner. Jessica was staying with her cousins for two nights. They have started keeping bees now so we had a look at the hives and the honeycombs and got some delicious honey. The honeycombs are pretty amazing!

On 1^st October, Candice came to stay with us for a week as the Brodies were away on a family trip. Candice is a lovely girl and is super helpful around the house, which made our kids really pull up their socks while she was here. Unfortunately this was a short-lived change. While Candice was with us, we went to Eat Street Markets with three other families. It is a huge collection of street stalls selling food, plus two areas with live bands and bars. The adults all sat at the bar and watched the bands while we sent the kids off to select and bring back food to us. It was a fun place but unfortunately is only temporary as the area is soon going to be redeveloped into residential apartments.

We also went to Miku with Candice one night when Matt was working there. Matthew took our orders and then joined us for dinner when he finished his shift. It was funny being waited on by him and he explained all the different dishes on the menu patiently. Apparently he has to do practically every time as most diners are not familiar with Japanese food. We gave him a good tip at the end of the night.

The kids went back to school on Tuesday 6 October for the start of Term 4 – Matt’s final term at BBC. It was shaping up to be a busy term with a dauntingly large slew of BBC social events. The first weekend was huge with the Sounds of Scotland concert on the Friday night. This is mainly a BBC Pipe Band event, but also included some other visiting bagpipe bands, as well as invited Scottish dancers, Irish dancers and choirs. It was a spectacular concert but was ridiculously long (over 4 hours) and there are only so many times that you can hear Flower of Scotland in one night. The concert started at 7pm and Jessie and I left at the interval while Katie stayed to the end to hear Matt’s Brass Band (playing with the Pipe Band in the penultimate number) and bring him home. In the end, Matt was on stage for five minutes at 10:45pm and he said it was the longest wait ever for the shortest performance ever. They didn’t get home until 11:30pm. Several audience members fell asleep and fell off their chairs and there were lots of complaints afterwards. Half a concert was the right length as far as I was concerned.

The next day Katie and I went to an art exhibition opening at the Brookfield Garden Centre in the afternoon. They had lots of lovely champagne and cheese. We were very unimpressed with the paintings which looked like they could have been painted by a three-year-old. The metal sculptures on the other hand were fantastic but expensive so we went home empty handed. On the Sunday we went for a Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner at some friend’s Shelley & Gary’s home. They put on a huge spread for 24 people. We had a fun afternoon and evening. It was just like an early Christmas. Apparently pumpkin pie is traditional but Katie took pecan pie, which is my favourite.

On 12 October it was our 19^th Wedding Anniversary. As it was a Monday night and we had been out so much, Katie did a special dinner at home for the two of us, with Moreton Bay Bugs on a black truffle risotto and handmade rose Turkish Delight. She fed the kids early and we had a nice dinner by ourselves. The next night I went to see KISS at the Entertainment Centre with John Haughton. Kiss was the first band I ever saw in 1979 at Lang Park. I hadn’t listened to any of their music since 1980 I guess. The show was very spectacular with all the costumes, makeup, lights, fire, fire breathing and blood drinking that you would expect from a Kiss concert. The music wasn’t as good as I remembered from when I was 13 but it was still a great night out!

Friday 16^th October was the BBC Music Dinner at the Mt Cootha Botanic gardens. It is always the best school dinner as they have short speeches, musical entertainment by the boys and we are good friends with many of the parents. Matt was presented with a pair of drumsticks, along with all the other departing Y12 music boys and I won a raffle prize.

The next night we went to a 50^th birthday party for Tim and Caroline Dunne. They live in the next street and Matthew washes their car and their daughter used to be at Graceville State School with Jessie. We had a really nice night despite not knowing anyone else at the party. On Monday 19 October Matthew participated in the PMSA Music Festival which is a concert by all the selected top musicians from the private school bands across Brisbane. Katie went and said it was fantastic as the standard of music was so high. I missed it as I had a work function at the Gold Coast that same night. It was a Tiki Tiki Luau, basically a boat trip to an island with a huge feast and heaps of drinks, put on by the Property Council of Australia. It was a fun evening but a 1:00am finish is a bit late for a Monday night!

Katie had organised a BBC Y12 Parent Cocktail Party at the Regatta Hotel on Thursday 22 October, with over 80 parents attending. She has been the year rep for the past five years and has organised lots of lunches and coffee mornings and we have met some really nice parents over the years through this role. Katie had booked and decorated the room and ordered canapés and it was a great evening. She was presented with flowers and champagne for being year rep and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Jessica’s dance troupe, STAGE did an afternoon performance at St Aidan’s on 30^th September. They were the break time entertainment during a quiz afternoon at the school. They were performing a few dances including one the girls had choreographed themselves that I had never seen so I came along in time to see that one. The mums were catering and the event theme was Cruise, so the ladies did their best efforts to embarrass their daughters in Hawaiian Tropical costume.

Halloween was on Saturday this year which made it slightly easier but we knew it was going to be huge. Katie and I spent all day decorating the garage and were pretty pleased with our results.  Unfortunately Jessica had her badminton finals the same day. It didn’t finish until 5pm so we had to get a friend to pick her up. As usual it was a crazy night and we handed out over 1000 wrapped sweets. At times the queue was about 20 deep in vampires, mummies and ghosts trying to get to Katie’s witches cauldron of sweets. Katie had invited two friends Helen and Shelley to come and join her and the three of them spent a lot of time cackling and drinking their own special drink (not for children).  Matthew actually dressed up for the first time in a few years and he and Siobhan either threw plastic spiders on the kids getting sweets or hid under the table and grabbed their legs to give them a big fright. It was quite funny. I did a sausage sizzle on the footpath to raise money to pay back the cost of the sweets this year! After the marauding hordes had left, we had invited all the neighbours to come back to our house for drinks.

Sunday was a clean-up day and then Tuesday 3^rd November was Melbourne Cup. Katie had a nice lunch out with girlfriends while I had a lame chicken salad lunch at work. I was so busy that I didn’t even stop work to watch the race. I must try to organise something less lame for myself next year. That evening it was the BBC Speech Night. Matthew received the Geography prize and an academic award and played in both bands performing so he was on stage most of the evening. It was a very moving evening and some of the musical performances were quite spectacular. The Prefects all did the school War Cry on the bridge outside the Performing Arts Centre at the end of the evening which was quite emotional. Jessica had come with us as it was Matt’s final Speech night and we all went up to cocktail party afterwards and had a chat to the teachers and the headmaster. So many BBC events already and it was only week five of the term! By this stage, not only could we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it was hurting our eyes it was so bright. We are actually going to really miss these endless social occasions.

Katie had organised her final Y12 Mums coffee morning for that Friday. A large group of ladies met at the ferry terminal in Toowong and caught the CityCat into the city. They had champagne High Tea at Parliament House followed by a tour of Parliament House. It was the boys’ last official school day as all that remained was their exam block. Unfortunately Matt was not terribly well with a bad sore throat and swollen glands and Katie was making him lots of hot lemon drinks and driving him back and forth to save his energy. It was only at the very end of the exam block that the doctor suggested he had a blood test and we discovered that he has had Glandular Fever during the course of the last couple of months!

Friday 13^th November it was the Stage Dance Celebration Breakfast. Katie was there at 5:30am to set up and Jessie and I came along at 6:45am. It was a nice breakfast and Jessie won the Year 9 Encouragement Award. We were pleased but she viewed this as a negative thing for some reason. Teenage girls!  

The next day was the Australian Girls’ Choir Annual Concert. We had to drop Jessie off early in the morning for rehearsals and the afternoon matinee. We went to the evening show. As she progresses up the choir she gets to sing in more and more songs. Next year she will be in the Performing Choir which is the highest level and they get even more gigs and opportunities.

Monday 16 November was the start of Matt’s final week of school. I don’t think we have ever heard so many speeches in just one week. It started with the St Aidan’s Speech Night on Monday. It was also at Queensland Performing Arts Centre where Matthew’s had been just two weeks before. Jessica came third in her grade academically and was given an academic award. She was very pleased as she had worked really hard for it. She had been determined to get an academic award as she had missed out by a whisker in Year 8. Matt didn’t come as he was still in exam block. His final exam was on Wednesday morning. Katie took him out for lunch afterwards to celebrate.

On Thursday 19 November Katie went to the Year 12 BBC Mothers’ Farewell Lunch Party which was hosted by Parent Connections. Katie has organised this event for the last four years so it was nice for her to just attend this year and drink champagne and chat to the other mums without worrying about anything. There were nice speeches by the School Captain, the Captain’s mother and a blessing for departing boys by Rev Cole.

That evening was the BBC Valedictory Dinner at Suncorp Stadium. It was a massive event with over 600 people attending. Every boy was presented with a yearbook, a group photograph of the entire grade and a pair of BBC cufflinks. There were speeches by the School Captain (again), the Headmaster, Head of Senior School and the Valedictorian (one of the Y12 boys chosen by the other boys), who made a really impressive speech.

The next morning there was a Barbeque Breakfast for all boys and parents at school and we had to be there by 7.15am. It was a bit of a struggle to get there as it had been well after 11pm when we got home from the previous night’s dinner. The breakfast was pretty good and then we noticed the microphone. We couldn’t imagine there would be anyone left who hadn’t already given a speech but in fact the school produced the Head of Studies, Head of Junior School and finally an Old Boy, who did the best speech of the lot.  He gave the boys some great advice about university life – you will fail sometimes; say yes to things; get involved; keep your links to the school; try out for the mixed netball team. Afterwards, the boys walked down to the Chapel for the Leaver’s Service. The pipe band led the way and all the senior boys lined the path to give them a guard of honour down the front driveway to the school. It was very moving seeing the boys cheering and high fiving with the pipe band piping them into the chapel and lots of parents were in tears. While the boys were in the chapel, parents moved down to the swimming pool and fifteen minutes later the boys came running down one after another and all jumped into the pool in their uniforms. It was very funny. They made a huge whirlpool in the pool and generally had a whale of a time, trying to get their teachers to jump in with them. It was a swelteringly hot day and lots of parents wished they could jump in too. After it was over I went off to work and Katie and Matt went home and just like that his school days were over. It was a long goodbye but finally he was at the end and ready for the next stage of his life.  

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew and Jessica.

The dogs waiting for Katie and her friends to finish coffee.

The queue at Halloween.

Three witches.

Our pumpkins.

The BBC seniors in the pool.

Jessica's Academic Award.

Matthew's Speech night.