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.

Pencil sharpeners on planes?

Does anybody know if you can take pencil sharpeners in your cabin luggage? Or are they considered a prohibited sharp item as they have a removable sharp blade?

Oops

While taking the rubbish out this evening, I managed to brush the bag against my leg...and there was a bit of glass in there. So... I now have a few stitches in my leg. The cut isn't too deep but was enough to require about eight stitches.

Snow Holiday 2011

Last weekend I took a day off work to make a nice long weekend to go away and enjoy some fun at the snow. We just picked a fairly random weekend after the school holidays, and it happened to be a very good one: the week before was the biggest cold snap of the winter and one of the coldest in years... which means lots of snow! The forecast for Saturday was "cloud, clearing", so we decided
not to hurry down, rather having breakfast at home and getting down to Whakapapa for lunch before heading up the mountain for the afternoon. By the time we got to the village, there were thousands of people around, because of the sunshine and recent snow. The road up the mountain was closed because all the carparks were full, but we were let through to get to Scoria Flat - roughly halfway up the mountain. It's usually a spot where you can fit chains if required, but was being used as a carpark so they could get more people up the mountain. We had lunch there and then caught a shuttle bus up to the top. The weather was perfect, so we got a few toboggan runs in. The sliding area this year was much longer than last year,

and shaped reasonably nicely - it was also faster than last year. We tried to get Ben to go by himself on the toboggan, but the first run he did, he got smashed in the ribs by someone else on an out of control toboggan. So he didn't feel like sliding again by himself. The kids also made a snow man with a carrot nose that had been specially brought all the way from Hamilton!

Sunday morning was fine and cold (got down to -7.6C in the village where we were staying apparently!) so after some breakfast we headed up the mountain again. We were early enough to get a park this time, although we were down in carpark #10, so it was easier to catch the shuttle bus up from there than get the kids to walk up! There was a light breeze blowing, which made it rather icy. After a few toboggan runs

the kids were feeling rather tired - a combination of the cold and not-particularly-good night's sleep. Ben and I went for a little bit of a walk up the other side of Happy Valley to explore, and then it was time for some lunch. Everyone was exhausted, so we just went back down the mountain to have a rest in the cabin. After a rest, we went for a walk down to the stream behind the holiday park (where we had a snowball fight!) and a short walk around the village which we'd never done before.

Monday morning was time to pack up - we'd had a much better night's sleep, so we got packed up and back up the mountain for yet another day of perfect sunshine, this time without any wind. Being a weekday, there were far less people around, so we had some nice quiet runs on the toboggan (this time Ben did go by himself, although he still fell off each time!). Mel was feeling a bit weary after walking back up the hill a few times, so I took all three kids for a walk again. Ben said he would show Joanna how to climb the icy mountain, because he was a big boy! We all managed to fall over and slip a little bit on the way up, but got to a nice spot to look down on the ski slopes. And then Ben decided to keep exploring and then found that he could slide down some of the nice smooth icy stuff on his bottom. Joanna thought that was a grand idea, so she joined in.

And Naomi in the backpack on my back was bouncing up and down, wanting to join in. After that we just had lots of fun climbing ever higher, finding nice spots to slide down on our bottoms! We had a couple of final toboggan runs before heading home (and Ben slid the whole way down by himself, without falling off!).

After lunch, it was time for the drive back home, along with a stop at Over the Moon Dairy in Putaruru to get some yummy cheese... and some rest to recover!

The flickr set has lots more photos, and the videos on there are also pretty funny!

BP#3 Construction Birthday Party

We did this one for Ben's 2nd birthday. The original plan was to have the party at our local park, but it was raining on the day so we had to have it at home instead.

Invitation: Was a photo print of a dumper truck with text on it.

Decorations: We didn't have any as we had planned to have it at the park.

Food: We timed the party for the food to be a brunch meal. The food was pancakes, croissants with ham, cheese, maple syrup and jam for the guest to put on as they liked. We also had some cut up fresh fruit.

Drink: There was milk and juice for the kids and tea and coffee for the adults.

Cake: Was a toy dumper truck filled with edible dirt. This was made with cubes of chocolate cake, scoops of chocolate self saucing pudding and chocolate biscuit crumbs. This is the easiest cake that I have made. Just throw it all in the back and it looked great!

Activity: We had planned to take some diggers and dumper trucks for the kids to play with in the bark chips at the park.

Thankyou gift: Was a small construction vehicle (digger, bulldozer, roller) that the kids could use in their sandpit at home.