bazaar

 foodie stuff, gap year, turkey, us  3 Responses »
May 132015
 

bazaar-6one of the great benefits of ‘slow’ travel such as our gap year adventure is that you have enough time in one place to stumble across things that a normal tourist has little chance to observe.

sal & i had lunch at a little restaurant we had discovered on our walk this morning, and after our delicious lahmacun we went for another wander up through the back streets of fener and we came upon an amazing market that stretched for many hundreds of metres along a road that had been closed off.

apparently it was the Çarşamba Pazar or Wednesday Bazaar, held once a week in this area of fatih. the scale of the bazaar was extraordinary and its hard to imagine the amount of work to set up all the stalls and awnings etc for just one day a week.

Turkey

 gap year, turkey, us  1 Response »
May 122015
 
our first glimpse of turkey

our first glimpse of turkey

we left NZ on sunday lunchtime and landed in singapore after 10 hours flying at about 7pm, we then had about 7 hours in changi airport. I had booked a room in the transit hotel so we just crashed in there and slept until boarding. we then had another 10 hrs or so to istanbul, the flight left at about 2am so we were able to sleep a bit on the plane.

we flew singapore airlines all the way and found them as good as ever, polite, helpful air staff, good food (for planes!), and soft landings!

we were a bit disconcerted when the first glimpse of turkey as we crossed the eastern border early on monday morning was snow covered mountains!! as you can see from the image, its not light snow either, maybe the spring thaw is a little late?

with the aid of google maps on my iphone we were able to direct the taxi driver to our apartment, no easy feat as the area, fener balat, is a maze of tiny little cobble stone streets.

serdar, from whom we rented the apartment was there to meet us and it soon developed into a bit of deja vu – like our arrival in havana some years ago. the similarity was more than just visual, there was a ‘misunderstanding’ about the apartment. We were not in fact renting the whole apartment as we had understood, we were renting 2 bedrooms in the apartment, serdar lives in another bedroom, and there is another double and another single that he rents out also.

so in effect we are sharing with him and whoever stays in the other rooms. its not the end of the world, and i am sure we will meet some interesting people – although so far we are the only guests anyway.

 

its 4 stories high, so kai is sleeping on the ground floor, where serdar’s bedroom is also, then on the next floor is a double and single bedroom, then on the third floor is another double (ours) and a kitchenette, and on the fourth floor is another kitchenette, a living room and the balcony!

the apartment has a narrow winding staircase up through the floors and in the middle of the lounge room on the top floor there is a thick piece of glass set in the floor so you can see all the way down to the ground floor!

we are only just starting to explore the food, so far we have just been getting a big plate with heaps of stuff, rice, chick peas, lamb, kofkas, vegetables etc so we can try different things and see what we like. in fener balat they serve it with the most delicious, light bread – very similar to baguettes.

we have also been buying the most scrumptious tomatoes from the street stalls and fresh hot bread from the bakers for a yummy snack at home!

we have done a bit of exploring in our immediate neighbourhood, my foot gets better by the day, but I still have to be a bit careful about how much walking we do! its certainly a fascinating city to wander around and I am sure we will continue to be amazed as we explore further afield over the next couple of weeks.

Bye NZ

 gap year, us  1 Response »
May 122015
 
May-13

our final housesit

so our final house sit in NZ is over and we have headed to turkey for the next leg of our adventure. I guess a few words of reflection are warranted. NZ has been an absolutely wonderful experience. I think our blog posts over the last 5 months have pretty obviously reflected the enjoyment and pleasure we have found living in NZ.

we were blessed with a virtually never ending summer, we found our own little heaven in piha and sal was moved to comment that NZ was the first place that she had felt she could live outside of nhulunbuy – something i fully concur with. We walked beautiful beaches, explored amazing tracks thru the middle earth like forests and every bend and corner revealed another incredible landscape.

we found great food and coffee, we connected with sal’s family in a way that would never have been possible with just a quick visit, we looked after a huge range of animals in our house sits, from cats, dogs and chooks thru to sheep and cows. The house sits allowed us to really see various areas of NZ including the Coramandel, Waikato and Tauranga areas as well as some suburban auckland spots.

particularly special was spending time with jeremy and leesi here, so much time has been spent together over the years in nhulunbuy – it was wonderful to all get together in their home and home town!

eveywhere we went we found people incredibly friendly and helpful, in fact I cant think of anywhere i have ever been in australia or elsewhere, that people were so friendly. (other than nhulunbuy!)

i am going to finish with my one whinge about kiwis, i only do so to show that I am not romanticising our brothers and sisters from over the ditch. Sorry, but kiwis are shocking drivers, they almost never drive at the speed limit.

on windy roads, (of which there are a few in NZ!), they almost stop to go round the bends! The only time they ever approach the speed limit is when you want to pass someone you have been stuck behind as they crawl around the corners!!

i am pretty sure if thats the worst thing I can find about this country its no bad thing! so thank you NZ for a wonderful 5 months , i am sure we will be back and you have certainly set a standard for the rest of the countries we visit.

whakamarama

 gap year, us  6 Responses »
May 032015
 

Mayour time in NZ is fast drawing to a close, after a seemingly endless summer we now have exactly a week until we fly out to turkey. the last 3 weeks have been spent on a lifestyle block just out of tauranga at a place called whakamarama. its about 3 acres with lots of avocado trees as well as a variety of other fruit and vegetables.

the house is a beautiful 2 storey farm house, very comfortable and with sweeping views out across the rollling hills to the water and mt maunganui. the only pet is a huge old puss called charlie. he is quite a character and a formidable hunter!

unfortunately i had an ‘incident’ with the ride on mower while mowing the extensive and steep yard, we both rolled down the hill and when I stopped at the bottom of the hill the mower kept coming and landed on my right heel, it squished all the meat out a split in the back of my heel and sprained the ankle badly. I also smashed up my shoulder when i landed.

a trip to the tauranga hospital and some xrays, wound cleaning, gluing and bandaging saw me patched up and then it was just a matter of staying off my feet and waiting for everything to heal. luckily I had sal & kai to wait on me hand and foot and there couldnt have been a more pleasant and peaceful spot to lie around doing nothing than this house!

its taken me 2 weeks so far and I am not 100%, but at least I was well enough to have a day out down the line at rotarua and then the afternoon lying in the hot springs at a spot called secret creek near waiotapu.

while we were driving around roturua kai spotted the segways for hire and there was no stopping him from having a go! I managed to do it, bung foot and all, they are actually a hoot!

today we are packing up and cleaning the house, then we drive back up to auckland to meet the people where we have our last house sit – 5 days from tuesday in birkdale, auckland, before flying out. We will stay at jeremy and leesi’s bach in Piha for tonite and tomorrow night, so a last visit to our favourite spot in NZ.

 

tauranga

 gap year, us  6 Responses »
Apr 152015
 
BOP-8

panorama of maunganui beach

well summer has just rolled on and on in NZ, we have been doing a house sit at a place called papamoa beach, near tauranga, south of auckland, and its just been magnificent – i have managed to have a swim nearly every day of our couple of weeks here.

we have been looking after 2 dogs and 2 cats for dave & estelle in their lovely house just one block back from papamoa beach while they are in the UK for a couple of weeks. rush is a border collie, honey a greyhound cross, paddy and fern the two tabby cats.

we havent really got up to anything all that amazing, just enjoying the coastal lifestyle, lots of walks with the dogs, swims, nice meals out down the road in Mt Maunganui and lazing around at home.

we have really enjoyed hanging out in Mt Maunganui, which is only about 10 minutes down the road, the extinct volcano makes an impressive backdrop to the landscape, there are lots of walks and little beaches and islands, and the main strip has great cafes and restaurants along it.

its been very relaxing and its an incredibly friendly place, everyone, all ages, are very chatty and happy – you cant walk along the beach without people saying hello. its interesting because we always say one of the things we love about home is that its such a friendly place and we think of it as being unique in that regard – but the peeps of papamoa was at least as friendly.

we have also been planning the next steps in our gap year, we have decided to leave NZ in early may, so we have a couple more weeks at a new house sit on the other side of tauranga, then we go back to piha for a couple of nights in the bach, then 5 days in a house sit in auckland.

we will sell our car while in auckland and then on the 10th of may we fly out to istanbul to start the next leg of our adventure.

kai has more photos and his take on this housesit on his blog, just click on the link to the right.

 

whatipu

 gap year, piha, us  2 Responses »
Mar 252015
 
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driving along the edge of manukau harbour towards whatipu

yesterday we decided it was our last chance to drive to whatipu to have a look at the beach there and the entrance to manukau harbour. its only about 10kms south of here but because the waitakere ranges are so steep and rugged we have to drive around to titrangi and then back out thru huia and out to whatipu. once again the scenery is just breath taking, how such a small country has so much beautiful, pristine wilderness, rugged coastline and general eye candy is a revelation.

we stopped at huia for a stretch of the legs – which for monkey boy means climbing any available rocks, trees, towers etc – in this case it was huge pohutukawa trees.

when we got there we walked from the car park out across the wetlands and onto the wide, wild, windswept whatipu beach, the mouth of the harbour marked on this northern side by a quaint lighthouse on a rock. kai and i had a surf just so we could say we had carved it up at whatipu!

we finished the day by driving down anawhata rd, its a gravel rd that winds its way about 15km from near the start of piha rd, out to the houses at the top of whites beach and onto finish at the anawhata beach car park. it was one of those things we kept saying we should do, but we always were either on the way home, or going somewhere else when we went past the turnoff, we realised that given we leave piha for tauranga on friday it was now or never!

kai & I made a spur of the moment decision to walk home from anawhata rd above whites beach, which was basically the second half of the walk sal & i did on the weekend. sal drove back out of anawhata rd and back home, beating us walking by about 20 minutes!

there is no doubt we are really going to miss piha when we move on, its been an extremely happy and fulfilling few months and i suspect we will be back in the future!

autumn

 foodie stuff, gap year, piha, us  3 Responses »
Mar 242015
 

 

piha-13

looking down into piha as you drive down piha rd. *home!*

our time in piha is drawing to a close and likewise the warmth of summer is slipping away, the evenings and early mornings are getting ‘brisk’, getting in for a surf needs a little more prep talk, jumping in to harvest a feed of mussels needs to be offset by the thought of the meal and a walk on the beach needs more than just a pair of boardies if its not in the middle of the day!

last weekend we had jeremy, leesi and friends of theirs, geoff & orla over for dinner, jeremy did a dash over to hendo and stocked up on a suitable selection of boutique beers and kai, sal & i bolted over the ridge and braved the surf and cool afternoon to bag a few kilos of massive mussels off the reef. we found the mother lode of the monstor mussels and luckily kai lugged the backpack most of the way back home! it was a great night with lots of mussels, beer, chat and laughs.

we had intended to do a big walk down a ravine, along the pararaha creek over at karekare with jeremy, leesi, geoff & orla the next day, but sal & I piked out and stayed at home, it was a 5 hour walk thru the forest and along the beach and as the weather was a bit dodgy in the morning we gave it a miss.

later in the day sal & i decided to have a walk ourselves and decided to explore a track thru the forest behind our bach which we hadnt had a chance to check out. we just intended to have a quick walk to blow the cobwebs away, but it was so beautiful, meandering along a stream before climbing gently up a ridge behind north piha beach so we just kept going.

the track got steeper and steeper and the views, when we got glimpses thru the dense forest, were stunning, and we kept thinking we were nearly at the top so we just kept going. in the end we realised the track followed all the way up the spine of a very high ridge that peaks up behind whites beach and is one of the highest points surrounding piha – quite a few hundred metres in elevation!

we ended up at anawhata rd above white’s beach and then had a climb all the way down from the peak of the ridge back to the end of north piha beach and home – it took us a good 2 ½ hours. it was breath taking though, so steep – especially down into whites beach, it was pure luck we did the walk really, if we had known how hard a climb it was we would never have set off to do it, but we were both blown away by the scenery and so grateful we got a chance to see it before we left.

piha-29

the ridge we climbed in the background, we started out of frame on the right

midweek we had another meal with jeremy & leesi, they had been over on waiheke island for a few days and got back late so we told them to come down for a stir fry with us, they came armed with french cheeses and sticky dessert wine to go with! we had the gewürztraminer with the soft goats cheese and pear, and then a nice syrah with the camembert.

 

 Posted by at 6:17 pm  Tagged with: ,



new bach

 foodie stuff, gap year, piha, us  1 Response »
Mar 152015
 
the track from the bach, beside the creek down to th e beach.

the track from the bach, beside the creek down to the beach.

well we have moved down the hill from jeremy’s bach into our little rental bach on the beach in north piha, its a very basic but comfortable little home, we only have to walk out the backdoor, across the lawn and down a 25m track to be on the beach.

we can see the ocean and lion rock from the house which is pretty special. kai and i have new boogie boards and we are living in the surf, as well as doing lots of walks on the beach.

now that jeremy and leesi are back we have been hanging with them which is really cool – we have had so many good times at home hanging out so to do it here with the is special.

they brought over a fantastic thai chicken salad the other night and we had a huge night that put us all of drinking for ever, well, at least until next time!

the weather has been stunning, lots of blue skys and gentle breezes – although we look set for some unpleasant weather with the remnants of cyclone pam due to swing past, the wind is already coming up.

this weekend sal’s cousin luke, zekiah and lorenzo came over, we had a huge day yesterday, once they got here luke and i did a quick sprint over the ridge and down to white’s beach to grab a feed of mussels off the rocks, the tide was a bit high and the swell was up so it was potentially a setup for an episode of piha surf rescue, but with luke as spotter and me jumping in between the big sets we managed to bag a feed.

the rest of the day was spent lazing around at home or in the surf and by the time we cooked up the mussels in a chilli coconut cream sauce we were all pretty knackered! an ecclectic range of nz boutique beers helped wash away the stresses of the day on the beach and it was just lovely having them over for the weekend, kai & lorenzo are great together and i suspect lorenzo idolises his big cousin!

 

Patetonga

 foodie stuff, gap year, us  2 Responses »
Mar 032015
 
patetonga-9

the farmhouse

Patetonga, not to be confused with Pategonia, is little corner of the Waikato Valley, south of Auckland, its Chiefs country if you are a rugby fan and otherwise its basically a big valley between two ridges filled with dairy farms. its lush, green, rolling hills and dales, green as a bag full of emeralds – at the end of summer. The Waikato has the jewel of the Coramandel Peninsula in its north eastern corner and Lake Taupo in the south, Raglans beach on the west coast and a bit of Roturua for bubble. The Waikato is home to the Tuheitia Paki, the  Finn brothers, Daniel Vettori and Colin Mead – just to mention a few.

we are down here in patetonga house sitting a small farm for a week, its a stunning property with views across the green and rolling hills to the eastern ridge, a lovely older style farm house with a classic 80’s sunken lounge, a pool, huge vege gardens, orchard, and a happy little collection of animals!

we are looking after a cat who apparently turned up one day and stayed, she is pretty stand offish, although happy to show off the spoils of a hunt – be it a mouse or one of the many rabbits from the fields. There are also about 30 sheep who have to be moved from paddock to paddock every couple of days, NZ’s oldest sheep in the orchard, (an 18 year old toothless suffolk ewe!), she gets fed pellets and we shake a few tangellos out of the tree for her to squish up in her toothless gob. We also have 3 young steers to look after, they need some feed and zinc suplement each morning. Finally there are a few chooks and a huge old rooster that provide a few eggs a day in return for the kitchen scraps and a scoop of meal in the morning and wheat at night.  Kai has loved being in charge of all the animals, feeding, moving, checking etc and has become quite the not so little farmer.

pop over to his blog to see more photos of him with the animals! HERE

patetonga-3

a fresh apple from the orchard

 

we have really only done one day of heading out and exploring the region, we drove over to Thames and then out the Coramandel Peninsula to Coramandel village for lunch then across to the east coast and through Te Rerenga, Whitianga, and out to Hot Water Beach. the beach is famous for its hot water that is just below the surface of the beach at low tide, you can dig holes and make your own hot spring bath! unfortunately it was high tide when we got there, but the surf was great so i had a half hour body surfing before we headed on to Taipua and then back home.

the circuit through the Coramandel has some of the most stunning scenery you will ever see in your life – and thats saying something in a country jam packed with breath taking scenery, its certainly somewhere I would come back to and spend some serious time exploring.

all in all its been a fabulous week, and i am sure we would all happily stay for another week at least, but the owners, dot & malcolm are back on tuesday night so we head back up to Piha on wednesday and move into our rental bach on the beach for 3 weeks.

home!

 gap year, us  1 Response »
Feb 172015
 
harry, the schnauzer, spats and buster.

harry, the schnauzer, spats and buster.

..well, home as in back to Piha! We have been over in a suburb of auckland called henderson for a week, housesitting 3 small dogs. it was somewhat challenging, firstly kai has a phobia about small dogs after being ‘attacked’ at garma one year by a rampant chihuahua owned by one of my grandmothers, secondly they were all typical small dogs, thirdly their elderly owner obviously was not the alpha male in the pack!

so after a few days i had them pretty well trained, i was the alpha male, kai and sal also ranked above them and it was actually pretty amazing the difference. a few good hard long walks each day helped keep them too tired to try to take me on and regain ascendency in the pack!

kai also did really well with overcoming his fears about small yappy dogs, he became friends with all of the dogs, but buster ended up being his favourite!

we had a fun day when we went to a sporting activity day in a local park, 2 young guys from in2it street games turned up with a heap of sporting gear and local kids gathered for fun and frolics in the park. one of the big ‘hits’ was the oversized boxing gloves!

boxin'

boxin’

anyway, without going into too much detail, it was not an easy week and we are extremly grateful to be back, ensconced in jeremy’s bach in piha. we came home yesterday at around midday and had lunch with jeremy, he had got back to NZ last week and so it was lovely to finally be in his home – with him!

he has headed off down south to catch up with family so we have Piha for another week before we head off on our next house sit.

the weather has also turned it on for us since arriving back, glorious sunny summer days, so we headed over to white’s  beach for the afternoon and had a surf, swim and sunbake as well as hooking a few kilos of fat green lip mussels off the rocks, before climbing over the ridge back home to piha and a dinner of bbq mussels! life is sweet, indeed.

BTW, for anyone interested I have posted a thread about House Sitting Sites in our seekrit squirrel forum, hop over and have a look if you are interested in house sits. HERE

 Posted by at 3:57 pm



new stuff

 coffee, gap year, piha, us  4 Responses »
Feb 082015
 
feb 004

karekare beach

 

thats karekare beach which is just next door to us at Piha, its where they shot the film ‘the piano’, we went for a swim in the waterfall which is just a few hundred metres behind the beach. we quite often come over here for a swim and a surf, its an incredibly pretty spot – even by NZ standards!

we have had a busy couple of weeks since my last post, slowly bedding down our plans for nz, jeremy gets back later this month so we have to be out of his place in piha, we have scored a housesit next week for a few days in henderson which is nearby, then we go down to a farm at patetonga, east of hamilton for a week, we have some sheep and calves to look after!

then we come back to piha for most of march, we have rented a bach right down on the beach, as in walk out the door and across the lawn onto the beach, so we will be back here for 3 weeks or so, then we head to tauranga to stay with friends a few nights and housesit a home right on the beach at papoama beach, tauranga for a couple of weeks.

with all this moving around, and the fact that jeremy and leesi would be back and need their car, we tossed up renting a car for a couple of months or buying, in the end we bought a little toyota carib station wagon, we will sell it when we leave and it should work out cheaper than renting a car, even if we lose quite a bit on it.

other than that the strawberries and blueberries are finished, but the corn season is in full swing! we are getting 6 cobs for $1.50 at the moment! needless to say we are living on corn! avocados are still 6 for $1 so guacomale is the other staple.

i have also given in on the coffee front, i realised that we were not going to survive 12 months without decent coffee in the morning, so after some hurried research i decided on a ROK Presso for the best compromise between decent coffee and something i could fit in the suitcase, matched with a knock, hausgrind grinder from the UK. for the coffee tragics you can read more about the ROK and the hausgrind on the seekrit squirrel forum, HERE

 

 

sunset

 gap year, piha, us  4 Responses »
Jan 262015
 
piha 004

nightfall silhouette

last night i was putting the rubbish out just before sunset, ended up spending 10 minutes or so watching the orb of the sun dip below the horizon from the vantage point of our bach perched on the side of the hill high above piha.

i thought the images deserved a post of their own.

 Posted by at 2:46 pm  Tagged with: ,



rawene

 foodie stuff, gap year, us  1 Response »
Jan 252015
 
dport 089

the view from robyn’s verandah

so we were back up north last week, sal’s aunt had her son, beau staying and we hadnt seen him since our last trip to bali (where he lives), so we piled into the mighty nissan march and buzzed up the coast to rawene again. we went via whangarei, and after lunch at the town basin we headed out to whangarei heads for a squiz.

its a fabulous bit of coastline with a series of stunning, pictursque bays heading all the way out to the heads where there is a fantastic surf beach on the ocean side. kai and i went in to carve a few waves up on the boogy board and it was the perfect break to the trip north.

basically the week was spent wining and dining with robyn and beau, with plenty of tiki touring round the north. i caught up with my old mate andrew dargaville over in panguru and he took kai and I for a day sightseeing around opononi and omapere and the mouth of the hokianga. in an extrodinary coincidence, we visited a cousin of andy’s who has a stunning house perched up above omapere with sweeping views of the hokianga – as we drove off our friend jeremy, in whose bach we are staying, sent me an email and asked what we were up to.

i sent him back a message saying we were just hanging out up north again, and included a pic i had taken from the house – he messaged straight back to say we were in the road where his block of land is! i knew he had a section up north somewhere, but had no idea it was in omapere, or newton rd to be exact!

andy then drove us back to the ngawha hot springs before we caught up with his nephew, tia in kaikohe, whom i havent seen for about 5 years.

the following day we went over to panguru and andy took us to get mussels at mitimiti which is one of the best kept secret  beaches on the west coast, not many get to visit its unspoilt wildness. i had a surf, but it was a bit too cool for kai, we grabbed a big bucket of juicy mussels off the rocks and then headed over to rangi point, where i was given some land when i was here for steve’s funeral many years ago – the fact that it is below the high tide mark is a minor detail!

somehow in the whole week we failed to get any pics of robyn, and there is only one of beau! so sorry, you will just have to use your imagination! last sunday we had a great afternoon at the rawene pub, robyn arranged for a local band to play, they were pretty old school and one of them was the almost famous, tommy ferguson, a pioneer of rock and roll in NZ in the 60’s.

i also did a drive up to ninety mile beach, across to mangonui, down to pahia and opua in the bay of islands and back to rawene thru kawakawa, no one else wanted to come so it was a solo trip!

we drove home on friday, we went the west coast route and stopped off in a little place called baylys beach, about 10kms from dargaville. its a little surf beach town and one of the places i had thought we might try and stay at for a week or so at some point. the surf was perfect, a light offshore breeze and a nice wave. kai and I spent an hour or so in the water and then we had a splendid lunch at a little cafe called the funky fish, the chef is french and made the most amazing pizzas.

,

 

devonport

 coffee, foodie stuff, gap year, piha, us  No Responses »
Jan 242015
 
dport 015

kai on the devonport foreshore with auckland in the background

 

i realised its a while since i posted, and in fact when I uploaded the images I realised I had completely forgotten to post about our trip to devonport, takapuna and dinner with the fabulous luke, zekiah and lorenzo!

we were heading over to auckland to sal’s cousin, luke’s for dinner last friday week and as it was a glorious summers day we decided to head over to takapuna on the north shore, for some shopping and a swim before going to dinner.

we arrived in takapuna about lunchtime so i suggested to sal we head down to devonport where we would be more likely to find a nice cafe for lunch, so thats what we did. we had a wander thru the trendy shops, grabbed a bite of lunch, had a great coffee, kai had a play in the playground, climbed a couple trees and had a swim and then we bundled back into the car and headed back to takapuna.

just as we were leaving zekiah sent sal a text saying she was going to takapuna with lorenzo for a swim and did we want to come over from piha early and meet her there!! of course we rang back and said, ‘guess what! we are on our way there now, see you when you get there!’

so a relaxing swim and lazy afternoon was spent on the beach at takapuna and then we went back to luke & zekiah’s for a lovely dinner – zekiah had made a yummy chicken and chorizo dish which we polished off with gusto along with a few beers and a nice wine!

i also found some more images from round piha that i hadnt posted yet, so here are a few more summer snaps! white’s beach is our little private beach, its only the next beach north from piha but the access is a very steep climb up from north piha and then a magnificent view from the peak, and then a mountain goat climb down the cliffs into whites beach! most of the forest tracks start from the back of piha, so its easy access for us and an alternative to getting our exercise on the beach!

birthday!

 foodie stuff, gap year, tech, us  10 Responses »
Jan 082015
 
bday 002

lego!

happy birthday to our beautiful son, kai. he woke this morning fairly early as is to be expected for a birthday boy! we all climbed into bed together and had a cuddle before he opened his little haul of presents, he added some more money to his wallet care of opa and grammy & pop, and some more lego direct from grandma erica and grandpa bob. mum and dad gave him some new games for the 3DS and some lego figurines.

following a birthday breakfast we headed into auckland for a birthday adventure, sal had discovered a ‘play in the park’ day a couple of girls had organised with lots of games and toys in a park on the auckland city waterfront.

kai had a ball running around and playing with other kids and things, we all had fish and chips for lunch and a wander round the waterfront, it brought back memories for me from when i lived in auckland and worked down on the waterfront doing marine maintenance.

we came home in the afternoon to the inaugural bbq on the little charcaol bbq setup i bought this week for the batch, it comprises of a little kettle bbq, a charcoal chimney to light the charcoal and a small butane camping stove for the chimney.

the yacht is the Salperton, you can charter it for a mere 145,000 euro per week if you like! at 147″ or 45m its a lot of boat, http://www.superyachts.com/yacht-charter/salperton-1556/

in other news, kai has started his own blog, you can see a link to it in the right hand frame in links, it is going to form part of his year 6 work this year, you can subscribe for email notifications of updates if you wish.

also i have added a forum to the server, i am moderating another forum and i had to learn a bot more coding, particularly for forums so the easiet way to learn is to do, hence seekrit squirrel was born. Its actually going to be a useful resource i think, conversatios about ideas, passions, things, places, etc can be better carried on in the forum, it also has a chat function if you scroll down and that means live real time chat if we are online at the time! Again the link is in the sidebar, you can sign up and you will ba able to add topics within the categories yourself, as well as replying to existing ones and using the chat feature.

please have a look and feel free to become involved!

 

whites beach

 foodie stuff, gap year, piha, us  No Responses »
Jan 042015
 
whites beach

whites beach

today was a classic summer sunday, warm, sunny and lazy! we pottered around at the bach, sunbaking, cleaning, washing and a little bit of gardening inderspersed with eating and resting while listening to tunes. all very chillaxing.

this afternoon kai wanted to go for a walk so we he and I jumped in the car and drove down to north piha, he beaches were packed at piha, everyman and his dog had jumped in their cars and driven out to piha for a bit of sun ‘n surf, we had the hot tip from jeremy though, head up into the hills and over to white’s beach when its busy in piha!

i can see why its quiet! Its a vertical climb out of the north end of north piha beach and then an even more vertical scramble down the other side into white’s beach – not for the faint hearted! in fact best suited to sure footed mountain goats. jeremy was right though, there were 4 other people there, so it was like a private beach really.

kai and i braved the cold water for a quick body surf and then we discovered the rocks were carpeted with lovely green lip mussels, so we filled our boardy pockets up with a feed of mussels and began the mountain climb, clamber and scramble back to north piha and then dashed home to cook up the mussels.

i decided simplicty was the order of the day, steamed them for a few minutes in water and then ate them with sushi vinegar, soy sauce, chilli, mayonaise, fresh thyme and coriander as a range of dipping condiments! all washed done with a cheeky little sav blanc!

life is sweet!

new year

 foodie stuff, gap year, piha, us  No Responses »
Jan 022015
 
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the view from the summit of mt eden across auckland city

Ok, i am sorry there have been no posts since last year, but nothing much has happened since last year!

today we headed into auckland to see sal’s cousin, luke, his wife,zekiah and their son lorenzo. they live in the shadow of mt eden hence the photo above. kai and lorenzo had a play and i suspect lorenzo was rather taken with his big cousin! i am sure we will spend some more time with them over the next few months.

we popped down to a little cafe in mt eden for lunch after our visit and went to a place called ‘the garden shed’, the food was nice, but the garden was amazing!

we went for a lovely walk to kitekite falls on new years day, its a walk through kauri forest and ferns that winds its way up from basically the center of piha to the falls at the top of the surrounding hills. there are lots of walking tracks up here and we are only just starting to explore them.

meanwhile i have been enjoying the fresh produce and cooking up a few storms, we got some lovely salmon fillets which i pan fried and served on a bed of fresh parsley and rocket from the garden and a caramelised fennel side, with local asparagus, roasted potato and garlic chips.

today we picked up enough mussels for sal and I and i cooked them in coconut cream with ginger, garlic, onion, chilli and coriander – $2.50 worth of mussels and it was sublime.

 

north

 gap year, us  4 Responses »
Dec 272014
 
north 001

lunch at whangarei playground

on xmas day we left piha and set off to drive up north to sal’s aunt Robyn, who had asked us to join her for christmas dinner, we headed up the east coast and stopped off in whangarei for lunch at the basin there.

whangarei has special memories for me, apart from having been through there every time I have done the run up or down the east coast thru there, dad and i also spent a fair bit of time there, tied up on the wharf in the basin, so it was an emotional visit this time – my first time back there since dad died. i realised its just another place i should have brought some of his ashes to spread!

anyway kai enjoyed the lovely big playground and i had a nostalgic wander up and down the wharf.

later that afternoon we arrived at the quaint village of rawene on the hokianga harbour in northland, where robyn now lives. its a beautiful spot that I am very familiar with, although its a remote and wild part of the north west coast. rawene is the site of the only means to cross the hokianga harbour – a small car ferry, and i have spent a fairr bit of time on the north side of the harbour at a small place called panguru.

robyn is living in a small rental property while she renovates the magnificent home she owns looking across the bay, so whe arranged for us to stay in a little cabin in the camping ground next door to where she is living, so we got settled in and then wandered across to her place for a yummy christmas dinner with buckets of fine red wine and good company!

boxing day we caught the ferry across the harbour to drive over to panguru, one of my best friends was killed in a tragic motorbike accident in gove in 1997, and i took his body home to his village of panguru and stayed in the maori marae for the funeral over a couple of weeks, I also came back 18 months later for the unveiling of his grave.

going thru that experience when I was there for Steve’s funeral and the unveiling gave me a very strong connection with panguru and both steve’s immediate family as well as his extended maori whānau. it was, despite the tragedy and sadness, a very special time in my life.

so i took sal and kai to steve’s grave and explained my connection with panguru and the people there, i told them of the power of the tokotoko and my being able to share with steve’s whānau the stories of his yolngu family and what high regard he was held in by the yolngu in his adopted home in arnhem land.

we then went down from the cemetry into panguru to see if i could find any of steve’s family, and while i was driving down the hill i noticed there were a lot of cars up at the marae so we drove up there and i told sal & kai to wait in the car while i checked if any one knew where the dargaville brothers were.

By an absolute fluke they were just finishing a service for the unveiling of a couple of graves and walking into the hall for lunch and i spotted a face i knew – boxer, one of the elders of the marae, so i asked him about the dargaville boys, but he said they were all out of town for the holidays – he then said, “well boy, you better come in and have some kai with us!”, i explained i had sal and kai in the car and we certainly didnt mean to intrude.

Boxer just responded by telling me to hurry up and get my family and come inside for a feed! So we ended up having a wonderful feast of shell fish, smoked eel and an enormous spread of food from the hangi!!

it was a cultural experience no amount of money or desire could have achieved, it was just a fluke of the combination of my longstanding connection with the community, and the timing of our arrival, regardless it was an amazing experience for kai to have and i am sure i could hear steve having a bit of a giggle as he watched us!

we then had another lovely dinner with robyn, and a friend of hers, chad. we will be heading back up here later this month when some more of sal’s family will be here visiting robyn.

today we drove back home down the west coast and are now happily back home in our little bach in piha!

bach

 gap year, piha, us  10 Responses »
Dec 232014
 
piha 011

13 pendrell rd, piha

as most of you know we are staying in our friend jeremy’s bach in piha for the summer, piha is a little surf village on the west coast of nz, its technically a suburb of Auckland. you will have seen from the images just what a beautiful little place it is.

(if you dont already know, ‘bach’ is the term kiwis use for a small holiday house.)

jeremy’s bach is hidden away in the hills above piha, from the street there is no visible sign of the house or an entry point – which makes it incredibly private. although there are houses all around us, there is no point in the bach that we can be seen by the neighbors.

the toilet is a long drop – elevated about 12m above the forest floor! it has a walkway from the main vernadah out to it and the view is magnificent across the surrounding, forest clad ranges.

the bach has a ground floor with a nice large timber deck, and a small living space, dining area and kitchen, the washing machine is on the deck and there is a shower outside. kai is sleeping on the day bed on the ground floor. upstairs is a small loft where sal & i sleep with its own little deck.

the actual village of piha is about a 15 minute walk down the hill, although we nearly always drive because there is no footpath for much of the way, there is not much there, a little shop, a cafe, post office, the RSA club (RSL) and the surf club. For any real shopping we pop across to New Lynn or Henderson, about 20 minutes away.

 Posted by at 7:21 am  Tagged with:



thorts

 coffee, gap year, philosophy!, piha, us  2 Responses »
Dec 202014
 
piha 002

kai playing with kelp

I feel like there has been a significant shift since our arrival in piha, we always knew the first month was going to be a lead into the ‘gap year’, a month still in australia and a month staying with friends and family rather than on our own.

already, after only a couple of days we can feel the difference, its great to be just us in the house again, (as nice as it is seeing friends and family!!), we are also starting to find our way on this path of the gap year, we are becoming very relaxed, but also really enjoying just living.

its the little things – we have been going for big walks on the beach at piha and it crossed my mind that when i get home i must try and walk the beaches at home more – then it came to me that the reason we can do it so easily here is precisley because we are not working or going to school!

piha 001

kai in silhouette

i think our thoughts and minds are becoming very peaceful too, not just from the no work, no school, but on top of that the tranquility of a little coastal surf village in NZ!

i feel like we are also having a cleansing of sorts, eating really well because of both the abundant (relative) supply of fresh produce, but also again because of the time we have on hand, and combined with daily real exercise its got us all buzzing! (excuse my purple patch).

even within the tiny confines of jeremy’s bach, we are finding our own individual enviromental spaces – which has always been important to all 3 of us.

piha 004

looking down from the loft bedroom

little things are great too! the morning coffee ritual continues because jeremy brought one of my Caravels and a Lido grinder and I brought a bag of our coffee with us – so I get up and put the caravel on, grind some coffee while i wait for it to get up to temperature and then pull a couple of shots of caffeine nectar!

piha 005

Caravel

its also giving us a chance to consider some of the aspects of what life in retirement might look like, and I think over the next few months that will be an interesting insight – what will we fill our days with to replace the routine of ordinary life?

that also informs our choices for what we choose to do over the gap year – i get the sense already that as nice as it will be catching up with friends all over the world, having a series of bases like piha where we are in our own space and free to do as we choose, will be our preference.

i will sign off with a picture i took just on sunset last night down on the beach, a surfer and his girlfriend having a kiss, watching the sun slide away.

piha 003

love on the beach!

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