Tag Archives: New Plymouth

Tauranga to New Plymouth

Happy birthday Riley!  “Wow!”, “Incredible!”, “Delicious!”. The Gypsy Bakers surprise was revealed! Lettie and I put a lot of effort into baking and decorating Riley’s 11th birthday Pac-man cake, He loved it!

Set up on Friday and trading on Saturday was a little bit tricky as Mum was in Queenstown M.C.ing Miss pole dance N.Z.  Dad and I managed beautifully. Luckily Mum came back Saturday night and everything was back to normal. Our new grounds at the Tauranga racecourse were good for us, hot , sunny and busy.

Monday we pit-stopped at Maclaren falls for a quick freezing cold dip in the waterfall then continued on to Little Waipa. Little Waipa is a lovely camping spot next to the very polluted  Waikato river (thanks a lot dairy farmers!). Jema, my Chihuahua casually wandered past our neighbors bus, an enraged little man leapt out shouting abuse about dogs having to be on leashes. After a moments stunned silence Mum let rip(not farting). That little man was barking up the wrong tree/Mum.

School work done, we quickly moved on to Cambridge, leaving our truck at a safe park over property(P.O.P) while we drove our car all the way to Auckland to see… Cirque du soleil’s new show KOOZA! Mind-blowing, fantastic, dramatic, hilarious, and overall inspiring! That was my second time going to Cirque du soliel and it was better than ever. We got home at 1am and collapsed into bed.

The next morning we hauled to Tongaparutu, an hour away from New Plymouth, where the boys carried out their need to fish. Its beautiful and wild there, a great place to rest and refresh the soul. Tiwai and Lettie arrived Thursday and we romped and roamed the beaches, wildings in the wilderness.

Fish for dinner!

Time to set up in New Plymouth in the pouring rain, us kids snuggled down to watch movies for the day, bliss! Arrrrggggg!!!! A scream bought us scrambling down to the kitchen, Mum had chopped the tip of her finger off making pumpkin soup for us. It turned out she was crying because she couldn’t go pole dancing at the local studio, poor Mummy.

It was a long, grueling, loud three day weekend and we were pleased to leave on Tuesday morning. After stopping in at J-car for new remote control cars and a quick Op shop score, we lunched at Loving Hut, My worst nightmare! Mum and Dad are trying to open our minds to new, healthy(disgusting)foods.

That evening we snuggled down at Paratu rock centennial park. The huge rock loomed above us and I knew that tomorrow Dad would make us climb it. Sure enough Wednesday morning after school work, up we went in the wind and rain, vertigo almost swept me over the cliff, but the view was worth it even though it was shrouded in fog.

Into the car we tumbled and off to the New Plymouth Museum we went to see the new Illusion exhibition.

That night I made pancakes for dinner, a first! Pancakes for dinner I mean.

Thursday morning we headed off for Whanganui with a stop off at Kaupokanui for some schoolwork and fishing. We eased into the Whanganui  grounds late that night. Wow! That was a crazy busy few weeks, calm down Mum and Dad! I think we need some chill-out time. Tomorrow setup, this weekend Whanganui.

Bye!

 

 

Masterton and New Plymouth

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!

 

New Plymouth

New Plymouth was a five day fair, three twilight’s and two full days. On our first day there I was part of a radio interview on the student radio station.

On the last day (Sunday night) the festival of light started with a burst of luminous beauty. We went boating on a lit up row boat.

That weekend Ella held her blue birthday party, literally everything was blue!

After that we drove all the way to Whitianga on the Coromandel where we had a mini Christmas with our relatives(Mums side).It was lovely.