What I've been doing this morning...

Making decorations for Naomi's birthday party. We did all the thinking about theme, food, cake and decorations before I went to Brisbane, so I've been able to come home and just run with the plans. The theme is 'Garden Party' (kind of like a 'Party in the Park' but at home because October still has a frequent possibility of rain, so having it at home minimises logistics of wet weather plans). So this morning I cut out a whole lot of cloth triangles to make bunting. The cloth is scrap material I got from somebody on 'Free cycle' just after Naomi was born, so the decorations have cost nothing so far.

Shared lunch

It was shared lunch at kindy today. But from the food that was brought to share, it was more like a lunch party - sausage rolls, chips, marshmallows, cake, pizza and a stack of fairy bread etc.

The surprise for me was that the teachers sang 'grace' in Maori before we were allowed to start eating. And it sounds like they sing it with the kids during normal kindy sessions as I noticed a number of the morning kindy kids singing along too. This is something that you totally wouldn't find in a government run/public kindy in Australia (if there is such a thing - there isn't in Queensland).

Out of it

I've only been gone for 3 weeks, but I feel totally out of the loop at both school and kindy...

• School has a 'production' on next Tuesday night. All the year 0-1 classes are involved which means I have to find Ben some black pants and shirt to wear (they are dressing up as fantails - the bird, not the lolly...don't think you get the lolly here)
• Kindy has swapped mat time from the last thing before home time to earlier in the afternoon, so we don't get to see what the do and my first impression from our first afternoon back is that it makes the end of kindy very messy and the last 30 minutes is a bit of a waste of time.

Holiday at Dicky Beach

This morning, I got around to downloading the photos from our holiday, so now I can start to blog.

The first week we went up to Dicky Beach with my parents for a nice beach holiday. The kids had stacks of fun playing in the sand and water each day. They especially liked playing in the 'creek' that flows out next to the flag area (for those of you who are familiar with Dicky Beach). I enjoyed being able to sit in the warm sun while watching them, playing with them, and reading.

Other things we did were: go for a walk along the beach; play at the park; eat fish and chips (which costs twice the price it does in NZ); and have a couple of swims in the heated swimming pool (part of the apartment complex we were staying in). It was a really nice relaxing time for us all...I wish I was back there this week!

Changing seasons

Being away for 3 weeks means that things that progress a little each day have made a bit of a 'jump'. Things I've noticed since being back have been:

• the sun has swung around significantly to the east/west now, not so far north as it is over winter;
• the sage plants have a stack of new leaves (so obviously it has warmed up enough for the plants to decide to come alive again)
• a stack of weeds have appeared in my strawberry patch (again, an indication that the weather is getting warmer/sunnier)

This is not to say that all the aspects of winter have left us yet - we had frost this morning (although it was only a light one).

Beach holidays

I think I've worked out why I find them so relaxing...It's because they have such a routine to them that I don't have to think/organise much throughout the day. Beach holiday goes something like this:

1. wake up and eat breakfast
2. get ready to go to beach
3. sit on the beach for the rest of the morning (swim if I want to)
4. back to accomodation for lunch
5. rest time
6. do some easy outside activity - go to park or go for walk along the beach or go for a swim in the pool
7. bath, dinner, kids in bed
8. relax and go to sleep
9. Repeat the next day!

Magnificent Mt Ruapehu

Wow.  What a trip!  While Mel and the kids are away, it's become my tradition to get away to a mountain somewhere for a bit of a walk. The first year it was just Mt Pirongia, the second was Fantham's Peak on Mt Taranaki, and thoroughly miserable weather last year meant that it was "just" Mt Pirongia again.

On the edge of the plateau

This year I had four weekends to choose from, so decided to be adventurous and plan a trip down to Tongariro National Park, with the aim to get up onto Mt Ruapehu for a night, hoping that one of the four weekends would be perfect weather-wise.  At 2797m, it's the North Island's highest peak, although there's actually about half a dozen different peaks above 2700m that are part of the huge bulk of the mountain.  It's also an active volcano, although it hasn't had a major eruption since 1996 - only "little" ones.

Tents in the snow!

Access to the mountain is nice and easy because there's a huge skifield at the base.  We caught the chairlift up as high as you can go (around 2000m altitude) before putting the crampons on and starting the steep climb up towards the summit plateau.  Conditions were perfect - sunshine, a breath of wind and firm (but not too icy) snow underfoot.  It's a fairly long trudge up, with the views getting better and better, although you don't get to see much different.  Once we got to the rim of the summit plateau though, we got to peer across the vast bowl that is the plateau - ringed by the Te Heu Heu ridge, Cathedral Rocks, Dome and Glacier Knob - an absolutely magnificent sight.  By this time we didn't really have time to dig a snow cave (which had been one plan), so we found a hollow that some previous group had dug in the lee of Cathedral Rocks to pitch our tents.  It needed a bit of enlarging to fit the two tents, but the snow wasn't too hard, so that didn't take too long to do.  Once that was done, it was time to get dinner started and get set up for the night - it was decidedly chilly up there and wasn't going to get any warmer once the sun went down!  By the time the sun did go down, the wind was gusting (probably only 30-40km/hr gusts), but with the temperature down around -10C, it was very cold indeed.  Dinner ended up being served in the tents - for some reason nobody felt like sitting outside to eat!

The summit plateau at sunset

Click to see a slightly bigger version!

The night was spent snuggling deep inside a sleeping bag, trying to stay warm, as well as get some sleep with the tent flapping a bit each time the wind blew.  Every gust of wind also brought a gentle sprinkling of snow inside the tent (no, my tent's not really intended to be a mountain tent!).  By the morning, water bottles that were inside the tent right next to sleeping bags were frozen solid, so it must have been cold!
We managed to get a reasonable sleep considering the conditions, and I got up around 6am to get some photos of the dawn.  I intended to just walk around on the plateau taking some photos, but the lure of a view of the crater lake at dawn proved too much, and I ended up sidling up the side of Dome, trying to get a good view.  I managed to get a fantastic view, but then also realised just how icy the slope was - and I hadn't put the crampons on!  Silly boy.  Anyway, I managed to get down safely enough and back to the tent where everyone else was still in their tents.  Not sure why - it was only about -15C.

Fun on top of Dome!

Once I'd made some porridge for breakfast, we all headed up for the top of Dome, where there's an emergency shelter (it's primary purpose is to house seismic monitoring equipment, not shelter) and the best views of the crater lake.  We enjoyed the magnificent view up there before heading back to the tent to get all packed up and ready for the walk down.  The walk down was relatively straightforward, other than getting very hot with the sun in our faces!  We were down shortly after lunch time, and that was that.
There's a full set of photos at flickr, as usual!

It's finally here...

The Rugby World Cup that is.  There's been a lot of flags flying out of car windows the last few days - about an even split between Tongan, Samoan and All Blacks flags.  The Pacific community have certainly been out in force anyway!
(Not that I think that's going to stop the All Blacks hammering the Tongans tonight...)

On our way!

At the airport waiting to board our plane for Brisbane. Got questioned about my checked baggage by security - they were puzzled about the x-ray image...things they couldn't figure out were: my stove top espresso maker (they thought it might be a fishing reel), and the kids scooters. Then had one of our cabin bags searched going through security - they thought there was something unusual in our food, but it was all ok.