Tag Archives: Tongaparutu

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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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Another festive season

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Phew! Those were some crazy six weeks! Can you believe it? Six weeks, one and a half months without writing. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

The first fair of this post is Wellington which was as busy and windy as usual. Then we turtled over the hills to Masterton for a mini Christmas with Dads side of the family. I got a gift voucher for the warehouse! We all had a lovely time.

Waverly beach was our next stay, a beautiful rugged cliff lined shore.

Waverly beach. More cliff than beach.

When we were playing in mountains of wind whipped sea foam a Blue bottle stung me. We immediately raced to the truck and bathed the sting in vinegar. This did not help at all! So we looked online and found “Definitely do not apply vinegar. Bathe in water as hot as the victim can manage. Use vinegar on every other jellyfish sting.”  So we quickly heated up water and soaked the sting for thirty minutes. The stinging sensation went away.

That weekend was New Plymouth and the Festival of light. Together our family, the Nudge crew, Simone, Tiwai, Lette, Aden, Riley, Kieren and Heather went row boating on the lake at night, when all the lights were bright and shimmering. We raced, collided and gazed at the beauty of the light displays. What a splendid night! The weekend was not crazy busy but definitely busier than last year.

After that we had a ten day break! On our way to Auckland for another mini Christmas, we stopped for a night at Tongaparutu. The highlight of Tongaparutu is the three sisters who are three columns of rock jutting out of the sea. Its very beautiful.

 

One of the three sisters at Tongaparutu.

Then we moved on and dropped our car of at Purple Iain’s house in Pirongia.

We arrived in Auckland to be greeted with a flurry of hugs and kisses from my cousins Charlotte and Elsa and  Auntie Ellie and Uncle Matt. Mum’s side of the family. The next few days we spent swimming in pools, playing and celebrating another early Christmas.  I got an inflatable lilo.

It was a lovely family gathering. We also did a day trip to Rangitoto island and climbed to the summit.

A rare Saddle back on Rangitoto island. Plenty of bird life no pests or predators.

On the way back to Pirongioa to fetch the car we got stuck in the morning traffic going out of Auckland. It took ages! Finally we got the car and sped to Raglan. The next day was Christmas day and I got a compound bow!!! Unfortunately I also got strep throat. I spent the weekend in bed, no shows 🙁

We had one day off before moving on to Waihi Beach and New Years. Dallas got sick and better within one day and night. Very suspicious!

On New years eve I sat on Mum and Dads shoulders as we did the countdown, 10! 9! 8! 7!  6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Everyone whoops and cheers, hugs and kisses each other! Its so exciting. I love New Years!

The next week was Whangamata, oops! I just remembered Whangamata was cancelled because the forcast was for very heavy rain and the grounds keeper didn’t want us to ruin the school field. But it turned out to be incredibly sunny! We had seven days to spare. Those seven days saw us through Te Aroha, Opal springs hot pools, Auckland and finally Matakana extravaganza.

Well that’s the end of another festive season, very busy!