Tag Archives: Auckland

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Hamilton

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Here we are in the mechanic’s yard AGAIN! Hopping in the car, buzzing excitedly, ready for lunch and M.O.T.A.T, the great museum of transportation and technology past and present. We were eating our lunch at Pita pit (not my choice!) when we got….. the phone call!!! For us it was a rather suspenseful, one sided conversation of Dad going “Mm hmm”, “OK”,”Yep”,”alright”,”If we have to”and “we’ll be right there!” It turned out we had to go back to the smelly mechanic’s yard so Mum and Dad could lift Mims cab (MY ROOM!!). Once the cab was lifted the mechanics got to work on the engine. This whole charade took up the entire day. No M.O.T.A.T for us!  The boys and I had to watch movies all afternoon in the boiling heat. So that was our “fun” Monday!

Luckily the mechanics were finished by midday on Tuesday giving us enough time to rush to our cousins place at Point Chev, park our truck and drive our car to M.O.T.A.T. It was worth it. M.O.T.A.T is amazing! They had a new exhibition called ” Above and beyond” about air travel in the future, including lots of interactive features.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the secrets of M.O.T.A.T . Everything was amazing from the rockets to the aeroplanes to the trains.

It was so inspiring, and we only saw about half of the museum! We will definitely be going back next year. I thoroughly suggest a visit!

We also accidentally stumbled upon the Tesla car showroom in downtown Auckland so we just had to pop in and have a look. The Lady (educator) told us all about the amazing electric cars. The model we looked is the fastest car in N.Z, able to accelerate from 0 to 100km in 3 seconds.

Wednesday was mellow, just hanging out at my cousins house and playing at the beach, but that night the fun started! We dressed up gorgeously and drove to the Civic theater in the middle of Auckland to see… Aladdin the broadway musical on its tour of the world.

Ready for Aladdin with my cousins Charlotte and Elsa.

To get there google maps(a.k.a mess up by Dad) took us over the Harbor bridge and back again instead of just going straight there! The Civic theater is incredible! The chandeliers, the ceiling, the walls, everything has statues of elephants and horses. In the actual theater the ceiling was a starry night sky complete with shooting stars from time to time! The walls were that of an Indian palace.

As for the show! It was the most amazing, smooth, stunning performance I have ever seen. There was even a live orchestra underneath the stage. Once the entire stage was filled with sparkly gold tap dancers! I was so inspired, I danced and hummed the catchy tunes all the way home.

Image result for aladdin the musical nz

The next day we traveled to Hamilton arriving late onto the grounds at Claudelands park. Friday we setup ready for a busy weekend. Busy it was, as well as being extremely hot and dry. I was as usual very tiringly busy working in the cafe and performing our shows.

That was our fun and hot (very hot!) city week. Bye!

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Masterton and New Plymouth

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I know I haven’t posted in a while but we have been extremely busy with the festive season as you will soon see.

We arrived at our grounds in Masterton and the site/sight that met our eyes was hideous, unbelievable not to mention preposterous. I mean, we knew it was going to be a gravel pit but not to this extent. All it was was shingle, broken glass and tumble weed!!!! It was something out of a cowboy movie!

We setup on those odious new grounds (our usual grounds had been trashed to mud by a Circus in the rain) then went for a lovely short bike ride around Henley lake, which was so nice I had to do it again with my friend Tiwai, which is unusual for me as biking is not exactly at the top of my favorite things to do list.

The weekend was super-hot. Heat radiated of the shingle and sunlight caught the disturbed dust (which believe me was everywhere).

Poor Daddy soaking up the heat in his black magic costume. Where did all the grass go?

Saturday afternoon we went to the swimming pools with a bunch of rowdy Gypsy kids, we stayed there with almost three hours playing and having a blast!

Sunday night after pack-down we moved on to the Masterton golf course with Simone, Tiwai and Lettie.

The next morning after a quick play with Tiwai and Lettie we said goodbye and headed to the Pukaha / Mt Bruce wildlife sanctuary.

The Mt Bruce sanctuary has New Zealands only white kiwi held in captivity and a number of other rare and endangered species including the amazing Kokako! I thoroughly suggest a visit.

Next stop Waverly beach where we worked on our art projects “Food for thought”.

               Getting into our art project.
Standing on an 80,000 year old Totara tree stump, buried by a volcanic lahar. These had us puzzled for a while until we worked out how they came to be here. They are rooted into rock below the tide line on the beach as well as exposed sticking out of the cliffs.

We then moved on to New Plymouth to have dinner and Movie night at Mums friend Peggys house.

New Plymouth was a hot, fun, successful fair topped off with our traditional boat ride at the festival of light.

                    Beautiful waterfall at festival of light.

Tongaparutu / the three sisters, was our next destination.

 

The arch a year ago, before it collapsed. Such a change!
Glad I wasn’t standing under there when it collapsed!
                           The boys went fishing.

After resting for a few days and enjoying the beach we headed all the way up to Auckland to spend another mini Christmas with my cousins, Auntie Ellie and Uncle Mat.

                        Welcome to Auckland!

We squeezed Mim into their Point Chev driveway and made merry for three days.

                                      Matching nighties…Yay!?

We high-tailed back down to Raglan for set-up on Christmas day. Bring on Christmas number Three.

Bye!

 

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Auckland Anniversary weekend.

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Bang! Bang! Bang! Ahh! I got shot… With a Nerf bullet! We had a massive Nerf war at the Extravaganza in Auckland. It was a hot and busy three dayer. Because the weekend was three days instead of the usual two day fair, we had a shorter week off, three days to be exact.

We spent two days at Shelly beach where we had another failed fishing attempt and only caught a small hammer head shark. It was useless to us but fascinating to see. We let it go.

On Wednesday night was the super moon, Blue moon, Blood moon eclipse! A super moon is where the moon becomes 14% bigger. A blue moon is when there are two full moons in a month. A blood moon is when the moon appears red and an eclipse is when the Earth gets between the sun and the moon so the moon is in the moons shadow. All this happens together every 150 years. The last time it happened was in 1866. Unfortunately it just had to be raining and cloudy so not many people in New Zealand got to see it.

The next day due to the super moon causing high tides and the wind and rain causing waves, the sea came right up the bank and onto the grass beside us. It was scary!

Super moon high tide at Shelly beach. Partial finger eclipse.

That evening we went to Puhoi to met up with Tiwai, Lette and Simone for dinner at the Puhoi pub. I love pub food, meat and chips!

That night I danced in the rain, thunder and lightning, got soaking wet and had lots of fun!

The next day we headed for Orewa to setup. Bye!

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The Auckland region

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We spent three weeks in the Auckland region it was very hot , busy and tiring!

Did you know that a third of the country live in Auckland? That would be 1.5 million, a lot of people huh?

We spent three days at Shelly beach on the Kaipara harbor, where the Great white sharks go to breed. So Mum was a bit nervous swimming.

 

We went fishing off the wharf with our Christmas fishing rods and caught 6 Kawai. Tasty!

Next we moved off to Matakana. We set up at the stables where there were lots of beautiful horses and a great playground!

It was the first weekend that was hot enough to enjoy our new Christmas swimming pool. Also Koco had her birthday party.

Following Matakana we went to Te Ari which is where the festival called Shipwrecked is held. Some other Gypsies went there too. The center piece off the site is a large timber boat hull upturned to make a shelter and sound shell for the piano positioned beneath it.

We also went swimming in the warm man made lake. It was really quite relaxing after our busy weekend.

Next it was off to Orewa where we were interviewed for the Rodney times, they did a good article on us which we hoped would promote the Extravaganza.

Gulf Harbor was that weeks hangout with a stingray to pat and snapper and king-fish to feed.

On Tuesday we caught the ferry to Auckland city where we drove to Kelly Taltons underwater world by shark bus. Later we took a bus to K road and walked down Queen street. We ate in restaurants all day, it was awesome!

Auckland saw the Extravaganza at Blockhouse bay. We set up at Craigavon park which is a lovely dog park with an awesome playground. We did three days of Extravaganza and had a lot of fun dressing up and playing. I had a bad situation with an adult who was not cool at all.       You know, not all adults deserve respect, they don’t just automatically get it just because we are kids. They need to earn it. Some Adults don’t deserve respect.