Tag Archives: Christmas

The festive season

January 30, 2019 Dylan 1 Comment

Now bring on the festive season slog!

It rained cats and dogs on Christmas day, we physically had to pull the last six trucks on to the Raglan grounds with the tug of war rope.

The rain stopped and our Xmas party/ secret Santa was safe. For secret Santa I got an amazing Croquet set(thanks Craig)!

We had the first of our summer twilight sessions(DJs and dancing) on that three day fair. My brothers Dallas and Jaz lit up their fire-staffs for their first show on fire!

Tired and happy we booted it to Waihi beach in one day to set up and trade for another three days. Swamp thing played for our second summer twilight session on New Years eve. Awesome music and dancing! We counted the New Year in under the stars, dancing. I was a bit sad because Tiwai and Lettie couldn’t make it as their bus had broken down.

Now very tired and trying to stay “positated”(Dallas’s special word) we made the long haul through Auckland to Matakana, (once again with just one travel day) to set up for luckily just a two day fair. That weekend we sizzled in the hot burning sun.

We surfaced Monday morning exhausted after 13 days straight with almost no air;”just keep swimming, just keep swimming”.

Talking about swimming, we headed for Keri keri and Rainbow falls for a blissful 3 days of eat, drink, swim, repeat with a day of boating around the Bay of islands thrown in.

Thursday night we drove onto Waitangi Marae grounds for our first ever weekend trading in Paihia. The treaty of Waitangi was signed here in 1840. Te triti(the Maori version) is considered by many Maori to be the true document.

We had a beautiful surprise welcome from the Komatua. They blessed us, they blessed our fair and they blessed our weekend. I had my first Hongi(mingling of breath with noses touching) with the guardians of the Waitangi Marae. I have to say I was a bit nervous, but afterwards I felt honored.

An exciting thing has happened! I have a summer job on top of all my other summer jobs. Working in the Lucky Star cafe. Its new and stimulating and gives me something to do! I am taking orders and handling cash at the counter. The first day was ridiculously busy and there was only two of us working! Thrown in the deep end and I loved it.

That was the incredibly busy, fun, exhausting festive season. Now finally back to a normal pace. Next weekend Whangarei.

Bye!

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Masterton and New Plymouth

January 15, 2019 Dylan Leave a comment

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”.

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!

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.