Dolphin Watching in the Bay of Islands

Pahia is a small town that acts as the home base for many of the tourism activities around the Bay of Islands (literally a bay with many islands), including several companies that offer tours of the bay and dolphin watching. We signed up with one that offers swimming with dolphins. However, you can only swim with dolphins if the sea permits (if it isn’t too rough, which would make getting people back on the boat hard) and only if the dolphins do not have young dolphins in the pod (because then it might be too stressful for the animals). We did manage to see one pod of dolphins but we were not allowed to swim with them. Actually, that was probably fine – the water was cold and murky, so swimming with them may not have been so much fun. But it was certainly a thrill to watch them! It appears that they could tell they were being watched and they seemed to like it. Occasionally, they would put on an acrobatic aerial display that you only think you would see at Sea World. After we had saturated our viewing of the one pod, the boat left to look for another pod. But we didn’t find any others, so the boat anchored in a bay and allowed people to swim. Xavier and Quentin took the opportunity to jump in the still chilly water. Incidentally, on the three-hour drive up in the morning, we stopped in Kawakawa which has a most unusual public bathroom – one made of bottles and tiles, constructed in curvy, odd shapes. It is a tourist attraction in and of itself.

Xavier's Birthday and Thanksgiving

We decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday for two reasons: (1) we wanted to combine it with Xavier’s birthday party and that was easier to do on a Friday (no school the next day) and (2) it was Thanksgiving in the U.S. when it was Friday in New Zealand. Given that the third Thursday/Friday of November is not a special day in New Zealand, Beth ordered a fresh turkey from the butcher in Warkworth well in advance. Unfortunately, on the day of our first turkey meal in New Zealand, the butcher had no turkey. The butcher made an error and had ordered a frozen turkey. But even the frozen turkey had not arrived (and of course, it would have been no use to us at that point). So the butcher called around to various other shops in the area, but no turkey. The butcher knew he goofed in a big way, so he handed us two complementary chickens along with many apologies. We graciously accepted the chickens and told him we would be back soon. Thus, we have yet to have a turkey meal in New Zealand – but nobody seemed to mind that we were eating roast chicken on a Friday to celebrate Thanksgiving. At the end of the day, we had many “Thanksgiving” moments to cherish, thanks to a kind butcher and a table full of eager, happy and very polite feasters.

Xavier had three friends over for his birthday/Thanksgiving meal – Isaac, Rafael and Richard (from left to right in the photo above). Rafael goes by “Ref” because apparently the Kiwis can’t quite pronounce his name right. (Curiously, Ref has a sister named Eleanor. In the states, we have friends that have two children – Rafaelle and Elena.) Rafael’s father is Mexican and his mother is Kiwi. Richard’s mother is Norwegian and his father is Kiwi. Isaac is pure Kiwi, but backpacked for eight months with his parents in Europe (and is a certified diver!). Xavier has made some worldly, creative friends who are also colorful conversationalists. It was a pleasure to have them at the table.

Xavier and Quentin received archery sets for their birthdays. The bows and arrows became one of the main sources of entertainment at Xavier’s birthday party. The crew also started a project building a landscape model with paper mache. Finally we all enjoyed the dinner, which included, in addition to the already mentioned roast chickens, cranberry relish, stuffing (a big hit), mashed potatoes (another big hit) and black beans.

So You Speak Kiwi?

We have noticed that Kiwis have many words and expressions that are either slightly different than "American" English or at times, quite different. We have been collecting these and here is our current list. Some of these are distinctively Kiwi, yet many are from their British colonial heritage. There are many plants, animals and natural features unique to New Zealand that have Maori names, but we decided to limit this list to English variations. If you know of others, please share.

Kiwi - American
“Sweet as” – “sounds good” or “O.K.”
Bake house – bakery
Barbie – grill
Bach – summer home
Biscuit or bikkie – cookie
Bonnet – hood of a vehicle
Boot – trunk (of a car)
Brekkie – breakfast
Bugger – darn
Bum – bottom
Bush – forest/outdoors
Capsicum – pepper (sweet or hot)
Carpark – parking lot
Centre – center
Cheers – good-bye, hello or thank you
Crisp – potato chip
Cuppa – a cup of tea or coffee, as in “join me for a cuppa”
Dairy – convenience store
Docket-receipt
Flat battery – dead battery (in a car)
Flat white – coffee with milk
Footpath – sidewalk
Full stop – period
Gidday – hello
Give way – yield
Gum boots – rubber boots
Hire – rent
Hoon-crazy, obnoxious driver
Jandal – sandal
Jumper – sweater
Lolly – candy
Motorway - highway
Mum – Mom
Nappies – diapers
Overtake – pass (as in pass a car)
Paper - course (as in students take "papers", not "courses")
Pardon – excuse me
Petrol – gas/fuel (for a car)
Pikelets - pancakes
Plaster or sticky plaster-bandaid
POMS – British immigrants (Prisoner of her Majesty’s Service)
Rubbish – trash
Sauce – ketchup
Serviettes-dinner napkins
Slip – landslide
Stationery-school supplies
Take away – take out (as in food)
Tea – snack or dinner
Till – checkout counter
Tin – can
Tin foil – aluminum foil
To pop in – To come in
To ring – to phone/call
Togs – bathing suit
Track – trail
Tramping – hiking
Trolley – shopping cart
Tuition - lesson (as in “piano tuition” for “piano lesson”)
Tyre – tire
Whilst – while
Windscreen - windshield

Quentin's Sailing Class

It’s Term 4 in New Zealand and you can smell the end of the school year even though it is still ten weeks away. An eclectic string of activities unfolds each week---water “experiments” at the Leisure Centre Pool, a visit by “Iron Brion” who is a creation of the New Zealand beef and lamb industry to promote healthy eating in young Kiwis with their generous offer of free burgers and our favorite, a trip to Algies Bay to learn sailing with the New Zealand Yacht Association. Of course, we were all asked if we would like to continue our sailing education after the outing and invited to join a Yacht Club too.

It was a warm and glorious day. There were six tiny sailboats called “Optimists” lined up on the beach and the children got their first lesson in sailing. Then, brave parents donning wetsuits got into the water and held a rope to the sailboat while each child practiced what they learned on the sand. Then, we let go and the children sailed. They didn’t always catch the faint breeze that blew that morning, but they all sailed. As their confidence grew, the teachers capsized their boats and taught them how to set them right. Quentin enjoyed himself immensely. He was eager to take the course that starts in February. Like the devoted mother that Beth is, she called to enquire. Unfortunately, we have to provide our own sailboats. A quick inquiry on trademe.co.nz (the Ebay of NZ) reveals that they can actually be purchased for something in the $300-$500NZ range. But then you need a trailer and a hitch for the car, etc. So this may not be how we get Quentin back in a little “Optimist”, but we will keep searching.

Visit to Waiheke Island

Mike Trick, a Carnegie-Mellon University Professor, has been visiting the University of Auckland since January 2007. He rents a house on Waiheke Island and invited us for a day on Waiheke along with the other operations research colleagues at the University of Auckland. We planned to catch the 11am ferry but left about 10 minutes later than we planned. This wouldn’t have been an issue had we found a parking garage immediately, but we didn’t, and instead, we found ourselves stuck in traffic as some political demonstration marched down Queen Street. Fortunately, only a couple of thousand people showed up for the rally, so we were able to move with maybe 10 minutes before the ferry left. We found a lot ($36 per day!) and ran to the ferry – well, we all ran except Annick, who was wearing flip flops and finding them unsuitable for anything beyond a relaxing walk. Nevertheless, we somehow made it to the ferry in time, maybe with a minute or two to spare.



Mike and his family met us at the ferry when we arrived, along with many of the other guests. We took a walk through the bush and along a road to reach his house – quite scenic indeed. His house is simply stunning – imagine one side of the house, completely made of glass and overlooking a picture postcard bay. Furthermore, it was only a one-minute walk to a wide and beautiful beach. Along with the wonderful environment, we very much enjoyed visiting with all of the guests, so much so, that it was a bit disappointing when we had to pack up and leave. Our goal was to board the 5 pm ferry, so we naturally started walking at 4:40 – Mike takes 20 minutes to walk to the ferry, but apparently, he walks briskly. We made the ferry, but we are sure the people on the boat loved watching us jump the three meters from the wharf onto the boat as it was pulling away – OK, we didn’t actually have to jump onto the boat, but we did run the last 300 meters and we had no time to spare before they were about to pull away, leaving us huffing and puffing at the end of the wharf wondering what we were going to do for the next hour until the next ferry.

Tiritiri Matangi

Tiritiri Matangi is an island a couple of miles off the coast of the Whangaparoa peninsula. (There are a bunch of towns/neighborhoods on the isthmus, including Army Bay, Red Beach and Stanmore Bay, but our favorites are Big Manly and Little Manly – who would name a town “Little Manly”, especially on a piece of land shaped like a peninsula?) Tiritiri Matangi is special because it is an open bird sanctuary – there are no possums, rats, mice, stoats or other such anti-bird creatures on the island. Instead, there are a number of rare New Zealand species on the island, including kiwis, takahes, stitch birds, North Island saddlebacks, etc. See http://www.tiritirimatangi.org.nz/ for info on the island, including pictures of these birds. We saw a couple takahes (thanks to Quentin’s keen eye), many stitch birds and saddlebacks, but kiwis are essentially impossible to see during the day. The island is chock full of tuis, which alone makes the visit to the island worthwhile.



We arrived at the island via a ferry that was overflowing with “rock watchers” – our term for people that want peace and quiet as they enjoy nature. In other words, rock watchers are not compatible with our kids, who are generally wildly excited about nature, but not quiet in their admiration. Furthermore, the main trail around the island is narrow (say 3-4 feet wide), so you were forced into the contemplative pace of the rock watchers with guides which, again, was not very compatible with our kids. Hence, our visit improved immensely once we were able to find a trail that didn’t have other people on it.




Upon leaving the island, we realized that somehow we managed to leave our New Zealand bird book on the island. We are getting a bit prickly about leaving things behind in the midst of the chaos of our lives. Xavier implored Beth and Gerard not to get too upset given that we otherwise had a good day on the island, but it was hard to not let it “rain on the day” - Beth carried it from the states and that was the first and last time we flipped through it. But overall it was a good day, so we will go back, especially now that we have a better sense of how to manage the island and the crowds.

Back to Muriwai Beach

Muriwai is a special place, even on a second visit and probably on all visits. The gannets were pairing up, which was loads of fun to watch – they stretch their necks to the sky and twist them around each other in a graceful dance. This time the tide was even lower than our last visit so we were able to explore the caves. Finally, we met a nice family on the beach and some of their nine kids. One of their children was named Zion who was about Quentin’s age but got along best with Isaac. Gerard was wearing his Zion National Park t-shirt, which Zion found interesting. Turns out, they are Mormon and would like to visit Utah next year. We were at Muriwai for over four hours and we returned home exhausted but satisfied with our return visit.