Kiwi Ingenuity!

Today has been about family fun and marvelling at Kiwi ingenuity as well as admiring the amazing scenery! We didn't tell Ben where we were going first and the constant barrage of questions and guesses was worth it for the look on his face when he saw the signs for the miniature railway! And this was not just any old miniature railway. I'll leave you to read more about the history of Driving Creek Railway here, but to cut a long story short, it was built by just one man, Barry Brickell, originally to bring the clay he needed for his pottery from the mountains in the 1970s. It takes you up the mountain overlooking Coromandel Bay, through tunnels, over viaducts, round spirals, and it even reverses back and forth to zigzag part of the way up. And it was all built by one man! Ok, so it took him 30 years or so to complete it, but even so! It has now carried over 1 million passengers, and the views all along the route, and especially from the top are simply breath taking. And the artwork along the route was an added bonus!

 

We spent most of the afternoon back on the 309 road at The Waterworks, another example of Kiwi ingenuity! Ben says that this was his favourite of the trip so far, I think mainly because he got his Daddy so wet! Pumps and pipes and almost every type of recycled container that you can imagine have been used to create very wet fun and games around the gardens. Jamie loved this one too - he is turning into a cross between Peppa Pig's little brother George and Makka Pakka - he loves jumping in puddles and collecting stones at the moment!

 

Then it was time to travel again, this time to Rotorua. I think that the first part of our journey along the coastal road on the west side of the peninsula is my favourite part of our journey so far - every time we turned another bend in the road there was another beautiful bay. We're planning to spend most of the rest of our time with the motor home in and around Rotorua - a bit of culture, some more things for the boys, and more hurtling down the mountain on go karts! It is safe, honest Mum!

 

The 309

We've spent most of today driving through some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen. We were going to visit Cathedral Cove, where they filmed part of Prince Caspian, but it started pouring with rain last night and continued all morning. I would have loved to have seen it, but it's apparently half an hour's walk, and that would definitely not have been fun with the boys, especially as Jamie has now got the cough and sore throat that Ben had last week. So, we had a bit of a lazy morning - Mummy-cuddles for Jamie and a soak in the hot tub for Daddy and Ben! This campsite has definitely spoilt us. It has just been refurbished, and the facilities are fantastic - great cooking, washing and laundry facilities and fantastic pools - and we had the whole site to ourselves!

We then set off for Coromandel town on the other side of the peninsula, and we drove along the 309 road for part of it. Although the word "road" is slightly misleading. Gravel track is what most websites describe it as! It cuts across the peninsula from Whitianga to Coromandel, winding back and forth following rivers through up one side of the range and back down the other. It's about 14 miles long, and I think T was very glad that it wasn't any longer! I think we met only 4 other vehicles along the way, and thankfully none of them were very big, so no one had to reverse. I tried to take some pictures along the way, but they just don't do the area justice.

The scenery along the 309 is amazing, even in the rain. The inland landscape in New Zealand reminds me of parts of Wales or the Peak District, just on a much larger scale, but then I see a stand of massive fern trees, and we definitely don't see any of those in the wild in the UK! I've been pleased that my geography knowledge hasn't deserted me from lack of use - I've still been able to recognise glacial features such as arêtes, drumlins and kames. If I was still teaching A level geography I would have taken so many pictures for my classes by now!

We stopped for lunch at Mill Creek Bird rescue centre. The lady running it let us in for free as most of the attractions (miniature railway, animal feeding etc) were closed due to the weather, but there were still peacocks roaming around, parrots that delighted Ben when they said hello back to him, emus, and a whole flock of mischievous rainbow-coloured birds that wanted to play!

We've parked up at a campsite in Colomandel for the night. We've got some sightseeing planned for tomorrow, and then it's off to Rotorua!

 

On the open road

I have been meaning every day to write and tell you what we're up to on Down Under, but I never seem to have the time! We're either getting the children ready to go out, out visiting wonderful lakes or hurtling down mountains on go karts (more of that in a day or two!), or getting food ready or children's bathtime done or chatting in the evenings with Hellie and Jamie, the friends we're staying with. And, if you're me, knitting while you're chatting. So, instead of trying to catch you up on everything that we've done so far I thought I'd leave that to come back to later and concentrate instead on what we're doing this week - because we're now out on the open road in our motor home!

This is our new home for the week. It's not exactly top of the range. In fact it's the hire company's cheaper range of motor homes that have already seen three seasons or so, but that means that I don't have to be so precious about the children dropping crumbs etc, and we can spend the money we've saved on the more important things like trips out. It's Wednesday evening as I write this, and we picked up and packed up the motor home in Auckland on Tuesday. We drove down to the Coromandel Peninsula, about 2 1/2 hours from Auckland, arriving for a late tea. This post probably won't be published on Wednesday evening though! You'll have to bear with me as I'll only have internet connection at a few campsites. I'm writing these posts as notes and I'll upload them and move pictures about whenever my iPad gets a connection, so my posts may be like buses - wait long enough and three will come along at once!

A long drive yesterday and a bad night with a teething Jamie last night meant that we didn't get going until nearly lunchtime today, and we headed down to the beach - yes, it may be winter here in NZ, but the sky was brilliant blue today, and it was definitely shorts and tshirts weather! Although to be honest we still would have gone to this particular beach in the pouring rain....hopefully this sign will explain why!

One of the reasons that NZ has always been on my dream list of places to visit is because it has everything - volcanoes, glaciers, beaches, amazing rolling landscapes, thermal areas, lakes, forests - I could go on, but you get the idea! I may spend my working days (and working evenings, weekends etc etc) making jewellery, but I still love geography. I love exploring how the world around us works and how we affect it and how it affects us - but I never in my wildest dreams thought that I'd spend an afternoon sitting in a spa pool that I had helped dig on the beach. On the beach!! It still seems crazy, even though I understand all the geothermal activity that creates this phenomenon! We were there about an hour and a half after low tide, and the hot water was right at the surface. Digging a shallow pool meant that we could mix this water with the water coming back up the beach from the sea to create our very own spa! And in such amazingly beautiful scenery too, and with hardly anyone else in sight. I could, children willing, have stayed there for much longer - but a larger than expected wave suddenly broken through our defensive wall of sand, turned our lovely spa into a swirl of sea water and sent us and the family next to us running up the beach!

Having satisfied my need for a spot of relaxation and my ex-geography teacher's curiosity, Hot Water Beach then satisfied my crafty side after we washed out the sand and cleaned up. T took the boys up to the fantastic cafe for some cake while I wandered round Gallery, only a few yards up the road from the beach car park. So much handcrafted beauty to go with the amazing natural beauty outside! And every craft that you could imagine too - sculptures, ceramics, metalwork largescale such as the rushes outside the main entrance and small dishes, ornaments and pieces of jewellery, woodwork, glass, paintings, photographs. The woman looking after the gallery was lovely enough to spend time telling me about the different pieces and about craft shows and the like over here. It's probably a good job that we've got to think about weight limits on our luggage going home, otherwise my bank balance would have taken a big hit. I still managed to get a few small presents though, and this amazing ceramic carving for me - it took me ages to choose the one I wanted the most, but this one is so beautifully tactile and I love the swirls. I'm justifying buying myself a present by planning to use it as a prop in jewellery photos for the website!

So, all in all, a fantastic day! And there's more tomorrow!

 

Having a fantastic time!

We're having a fantastic time in New Zealand! It has just about sunk in that we are actually here, on the other side of the world. We're thankfully over the jet lag, but I seem to have replaced that with child lag - I've been up with Jamie most nights for the last week between 1 and 4am NZ time that even though he now (mostly) sleeps then, I'm wide awake! I've got tonnes of photos to show you both of Hong Kong and New Zealand, but for now I'll leave you with a couple of the boys playing at a play park at Mission Bay beach here in Auckland in the winter sun on our first proper day in New Zealand.

And they're off!!

 If blogger does it's job, this post will be published while we're up high in the air somewhere on our way to Hong Kong - how's that for technology?! Then it's off to New Zealand for the main part of our trip, and a stop over in LA on the way back. I will be checking in from time to time to inflict my holiday photos on you, but not all of them, honest! And hopefully when I return to the UK in 48 days time I'll be refreshed, full of fantastic ideas for new designs and magazine projects and articles, and not at all frazzled from four long flights with two very bouncy children! I hope you all have a great summer!

I'm getting there, I'm getting there......

That seems to be my mantra at the moment! I always have several "to-do" lists on the go - for family, for DIY, for my business. I'm one of those people who just has to have lists to make me feel more organised, and I have been known, when writing my list of jobs out for the day, to include a couple of jobs that I've already done, just for the feel-good factor of ticking them off.

My to-do lists at the moment have a sense of finality about them, as they have a strict unmoveable deadline as the family summer travels that I mentioned a few weeks ago start this Sunday! Where on earth has the last month gone?!? These are very special travels, a once in a lifetime trip for me and for T (made possible by the payout from my critical illness insurance last year - cancer is apparently the one illness that the insurance companies don't quibble about!), but it would be nice to think that the boys will get to do something like this again when they're older - but without having cancer first to pay for it of course. In case you haven't recognised all the places featured in the photos above let me enlighten you  - she says rubbing her hands in excitement!!

On Sunday evening we fly out to Hong Kong, where we will stay for two nights. Hopefully we'll be able to recover enough from the flight to see some of this amazing city!

We then get back on a plane and fly out to ..... wait for it...... New Zealand!!!!!! I have always wanted to visit, but never ever thought we'd be able to do. We are visiting my lovely friend Hellie and her family who moved out to Auckland just over a year ago. My excitement at seeing her again has overcome my fear of flying and my worry about how on earth we're going to be able to entertain the boys, especially Jamie, on the flights! We're going to stay with them for about three of our five weeks in New Zealand, but not all three weeks in a row, and the other weeks we will be spending in a hired motor home touring first the South and then the North Island.

Towards the end of August we get back on a plane and fly to Los Angeles - another place I never every thought I'd be able to visit! As T says, we're going to have three winters in a row by visiting NZ at this time of year, so as we've got to have a stop over we decided to make sure it was somewhere hot and sunny! We're staying in a self-catering apartment for five nights, before heading back to the UK, arriving back here on Friday 30th August.

Phew! It suddenly seems real now that I've typed it all up. Millie the cat has gone to stay with my parents while we're away, the house sitter (a colleague of T's) moves in on Friday, everything is booked, and there are piles of packing all over the house, but there is still a part of me that doesn't quite believe that by this time next week we'll be away! I've got a couple of blog posts planned before we go and you can expect them to get more frantic as the week goes on!

Oh, and if anyone can recommend anywhere crafty that I really shouldn't miss, either in New Zealand or LA, please do let me know!