Travels in New Zealand and beyond, going back to 2003!
Since getting a weekender in Martinborough we’ve really enjoyed spending more time on bikes with our children. The rural roads are quiet. The terrain is flat. The climate is often milder than our home in Wellington. There’s also ample places to stop for refreshment – from the cafes in the village to the vineyards encompassing…
The Queen Elizabeth Park in Masterton is a delight in early autumn. The park has plenty of deciduous trees to set the tone for autumn, with a mix of yellows, reds, browns and oranges. There’s even a Horse Chestnut tree, near the children’s play area, offering up seeds for conker games. I felt a strong…
Wellington’s coastline is a rugged one, with a mix terrain of beaches, from sandy to pebbled and everything in between. There are well known bays and others so small they have no mapped name, but are undoubtedly given names with affection by locals. This past week we’ve taken a few strolls from our home to…
Wellington to Martinborough, in the Wairarapa, is a one and a half hour drive, skirting the beautiful Wellington harbour, continuing along the highway, through Lower and Upper Hutt, before reaching the beautiful area of Kaitoke Regional Park and then ascending the Rimutaka Hill on State Highway 2. There are a couple of beautiful places to…
It was a perfect evening, with not a breath of wind (rare for Wellington). The sun’s heat was still present, even as it began to set in the sky. The warm evening was too much of a temptation to play. It didn’t feel like the night before the first day of a new school year….
Halloween last year was as it should be – in the northern hemisphere, in autumn (albeit living in Santa Barbara, California, wasn’t quite the northern hemisphere type of Halloween I remembered from my apple bobbing youth growing up in England, UK). It was lovely to be living somewhere where pumpkins were plentiful (as we experienced…
We’ve been back in Wellington, New Zealand, a fortnight and are quickly reacquainting ourselves with favourite haunts. The weather has mostly been conducive to outdoor activities and our children are loving playing with their friends. Here’s five outdoor favourites from the last fortnight… 1. Rock pooling, climbing and beach play at Scorching Bay beach. This…
It was an unusual overcast morning, with cooler temperatures than we have become accustomed to in southern California. We didn’t realise, until we arrived at our destination, that this would work in our favour. We’d planned to meet up with a friend and her sons at the butterfly exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of…
We’ve enjoyed some wonderful moments at the beach in Santa Barbara this week. I often head out for a run when hubby gets home from work, finishing up on the beach, where he then meets me with our daughters. Our youngest two are joining in with a children’s sand race at Ventura Beach soon, as…
We left the caravan park in north Wales on a Saturday morning, after a wonderful family reunion and holiday at Hafan Y Mor Holiday Park, taking the whole day to drive to Cardiff in south Wales. There were no three lane motorways, just single lanes of traffic, flowing in both directions, the whole drive. It…
We’ve seen the groundhogs, (also known as woodchucks), playing peek-a-boo, we’ve stopped in our tracks as a little (or not so little) lizard dashes across our path (or up a wall of the house) and we’ve noticed the colourful, varied birdlife and numerous damsel-flys and dragon-flys. Living in a new country offers great opportunity for…
Less than an hour’s drive north of New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, is a stunning sculpture trail at the Brick Bay Vineyard. Nature and art combine to make a beautiful and fascinating walk. The sculptures entranced even the youngest of our tribe, Miss 3 – Alice, so that she happily walked most of the two…
Wellington never feels like a city – unless you’re stuck in the depths of the CBD or visiting the cathedral. It’s a city sandwiched in hills on a harbour. There is greenery aplenty and a whole harbour to sail away on. This week my youngest daughter, Miss 3 – Alice, made the most of this…
A highlight of our holiday was ‘Puzzling World‘ in Wanaka. Dan and I had visited it over ten years ago, when the original maze was there, but since then an amazing array of attractions have been added. The maze is challenging, with 1.5km of passages. I’m sure I saw a sign saying ‘On average a…