A Hop to Kangaroo Island

Travelling to Kangaroo Island was long and very tiring - it is Australia's third largest island, located just south of Adelaide - but we were rewarded as soon as we set foot on the island.

To begin, we woke up at 4 a.m. to be at the Auckland airport by 6 a.m. for our 8 a.m. flight. We arrived in Adelaide five hours later and had to wait nearly seven hours for the half-hour flight to Kangaroo Island. We decided to grab two taxis into Adelaide where we visited the Tandanya National Aboriginal Center. We viewed some aboriginal art and attended a brief cultural performance that included the didgeridoo (a 1.5 meter long piece of wood, hollowed out by termites, which sounds like nothing else you have heard before.) We ate a Thai lunch and practiced boomerang throwing at a local playground in the sun. We then headed back to the airport.

The airport is pleasant but we were confused by one of their signs:

The first part makes sense – it is entirely eco-friendly and sensible to reuse water. But why do they need to tell people to not drink the toilet water? Or are we missing something? (They also had signs suggesting that people shouldn’t spit into the trash cans – although we wish that suggestion was not necessary, at least one can imagine the possible need for that warning.)

After landing in Kangaroo Island, we picked up the car and quickly darted over to the grocery store where we had 45 minutes to shop for six days worth of food for six people. We were staying in the remote western end of the island and we didn’t want to drive 90 kms for a liter of milk! We filled two shopping trolleys and had a fright when our credit card did not work. Fortunately, the second one did. At this point, it was 7 p.m. Kangaroo Island time (9:30 p.m. NZ time – weird, a 2.5 hour difference) as we piled into the car starving and exhausted to begin the 75-minute journey to Hanson Bay. But let the fun begin! The drive included MANY animal sightings including over a dozen possums, some wallabies and a few kangaroos out rummaging around in the bright moonlight.

We collapsed after dinner, but everyone was up early and eager to explore. The children went out to look around the property. Soon, they returned with reports of a koala sighting. We joined the kids and ended up seeing about six koalas, a small herd of kangaroos, some wallabies, several different kinds of birds including Cape Barren geese, and an echidna, a porcupine-like mammal who lays eggs like the platypus!



Later in the morning, we drove to the Flinders Chase National Park Visitors’ Center, got our Kangaroo Island Park Pass and took a walk to Remarkable Rocks, one of the few spots open in the park since the devastating wildfires that swept across the island in early December. The rocks are beautifully sculpted granite boulders with bright orange highlights sitting atop a cliff near the sea. The weather was sunny and warm, the setting was gorgeous and the children were thrilled to be able to climb, crawl, slide down and tumble across the rocks.



We ate a picnic lunch by the lighthouse and then walked down to Admiral’s Arch, a cradled cave-like cove with stalactites overlooking a bay loaded with New Zealand fur seals. Enroute, we crossed paths with a heath goanna, a good-sized native lizard who was on an afternoon stroll. Even though we saw many seals on our New Zealand South Island trip, we enjoyed watching them swim playfully in the surf and at times, bicker more than our children. Not bad for our first 24 hours.



In the early evening, we went on a nocturnal walk at Hanson Bay Sanctuary where we were staying in the “homestead”. We were able to see yet more koalas, wallabies, kangaroos and possums. A special treat was being able to hand feed and pet a young female kangaroo named Amy. We even got to see her joey bouncing around in her belly. The stars were out in full force and we even watched a satellite glide over head (our first confirmed satellite sighting).



On Thursday, everyone woke up much too early, but we did get to see the sky turn from black to pink to blue. Beth sat outside admiring the birds while drinking her coffee. The boys set out to find more animals just after breakfast. The Cape Barren geese were honking in the distance, the magpies were whistling their circus organ song, the parrots were squawking and lots of tiny, colorful birds we don’t know were tweeting and darting around the shrubs.



Later that morning, we drove to the Snake Lagoon trailhead in the hopes of finding a platypus in the Snake River. The forest suffered badly from the forest fires in December. Most of the trails in Flinders Chase Park were closed, including the platypus waterholes hike. We walked through the black scarred trees to the river where we found a platypus, but unfortunately, it was dead and decomposing. The trail continued down through a gorge with caves and curious rocks which then led to a beautiful ocean bay. The children played for awhile on the rocks and in the river before we started back. On the way back to the carpark, the kids found a tawny dragon lizard under a rock.



After lunch, we drove over to Hanson Bay for a couple hours and relished a pure white sand beach with crystal clear turquoise water. It was dreamy. In the late afternoon, Beth took a walk in the Koala Sanctuary. Isaac and Gerard joined her later. We got to have some close-up encounters with yet more wallabies, koalas and kangaroos.



On Friday, we went to see Australian sea lions at Seal Bay. We did the beach tour with a ranger so we were able to observe them closely. Most of them were sleeping; however, there was a little action. Two bulls had a spat, some young pups whined after their mums, a few surfed the waves. Unlike New Zealand fur seals, they don’t stink and they have a varied coloring.



Also, at Seal Bay, we saw the skeleton of a beached young humpback whale and a very cavalier echidna. He was lumping along, focused on finding his “formicable” feast and very casually trod over Gerard’s shoes. The Kangaroo Island echidna has unique blond spikes and even though he is a spiny creature, his calm and approachable demeanor makes him endearing.



After Seal Bay, we traveled to Parndana Wildlife Park. We ate a picnic lunch, then strolled around the property admiring the vast collection of Australian animals. There were many birds on display, some of them incredibly colorful and others very entertaining. The children particularly enjoyed interacting with a talking and dancing cockatiel while Mom found the “attack ducks” hysterical. There were two ducks in the aviary that snapped and screamed at everyone who passed by. The highlight was the Kangaroo Island kangaroo enclosure where Xavier, Quentin, Annick and Isaac got to feed, pet and even cuddle with kangaroos. We had fun!



On the way home, we stopped by the “Little Sahara” sand dunes to see if we should hire some sandboards. It looked awesome and we made plans to return. Before dinner, Beth and Gerard made a tour of the Koala Sanctuary and found a sleepy koala only about 6 feet up in a young eucalyptus tree. We relished seeing him so closely and resisted the very strong temptation to pick him up and bring him home.



The weather turned rainy on Saturday and so we were slow to decide how we should organize our day. We stopped at the Visitors’ Center and let the kids dig in the fossil pit for awhile. Then, we piled in the car to figure out if we were headed to the Borda Lighthouse and cliff walk or to Paul’s Place, another wildlife sanctuary. We chose Paul’s Place and it turned out to be a good decision.

Paul’s Place is not just a wildlife park, but a two-to three-hour Australian wildlife entertainment production on a simple farm-like property in the middle of nowhere. We bumped along a dirt road for about 40 minutes and found a small crowd of people hanging out at the property gate. Paul ushered us in and led us on an animal odyssey that included the following:

bottle-feeding a kangaroo,

sneaking a peek at a baby joey in the mother’s pouch,

feeding emus, sheep, chooks (hens and roosters) and more kangaroos,

handling emu eggs (quite impressive!) and a marron ( a freshwater lobster),

cuddling koalas, a ringtailed possum and a carpet snake,

posing with birds,

going on a pony ride,

watching a sheep shearing,

feeding termites to echidnas.

Paul had a riotous sense of humour and added some special extra antics like pouring birdfeed on a man’s head and surprising him with an emu that pecked wildly at the poor man’s scalp. We enjoyed it a lot, but it ended up being more than we imagined. It was 3:30 p.m. and we hadn’t even eaten lunch yet!



After finding a place to wash our hands and eat, we drove over to “Little Sahara” to walk on the sand dunes. We had hoped to go sandboarding, but it was getting late and the rain kept coming with heavy, intermittent showers, so the sand was wet and sticky. We walked around on the dunes, soaking in the view and noticing that the air had gotten much more chilly. Suddenly, a large group of young adults with sandboards arrived. The boys saw that the sandboards do work on wet sand, so we made plans to return on Sunday to have a go.

It rained all night Saturday night into Sunday morning with some very heavy downpours. In fact, on Sunday morning, we had a fifteen-minute hailstorm. The big boys left for the sand dunes to try their luck at sandboarding while Beth stayed home with the twins.



After lunch, we were scheduled to take a tour of Kelly Caves. Our introduction to the caves was a 40-minute show cave tour. We learned about the history of the cave and what makes it unique. We have been to a few caves before, but this one was the most elegant. The stalactites were often pencil-thin and many of them turned sideways or curved upwards. There were calcified tree roots and many shades of ivory and amber. After the show cave tour, we went adventure caving. With a guide and three other people, we went spelunking. We ventured deeper into the cave, requiring some climbing and crawling. At times, the spaces were so small that we had to drag our flatten bodies along, pulling with our arms and pushing with our feet like beached seals. Beth was glad that this was our final activity. We were dusty dirtballs when we exited the cave. It was an exciting outing and the children wished it had lasted longer. Beth enjoyed it, but prefers being underwater to being underground.

More Kangaroo Island photos:

Kangaroo Island

Otro Fuego de Fiesta

On the Saturday following MERC camp we invited friends over for dinner: Karen, Luke, Isaac and Pearl. Pearl is in Quentin’s class and she was at MERC camp too, along with her mum, Karen. (This dinner was in part a celebration that Karen and Beth survived the fun and chaos of MERC.) Isaac, who we also refer to as Big Isaac (for obvious reasons when you see him) is in Xavier’s class.



Gerard prepared a Mexican menu with quesadillas, black beans, tomato salad and guacamole. After we devoured la comida mexicana, the children collected firewood - our landlady, Kathy, recently introduced the children to firemaking in the driveway and, ever since our first open outside fire, the kids have been begging for another.



And so it was---we gathered around the fire wrapped in sleeping bags because it was a very chilly evening. We enjoyed a moon framed by a halo and huddled around the warmth of the flames.

From April08

Year 6 Trip to MERC Camp

Every year, the Year 6 students from Warkworth Primary go to M.E.R.C. Camp (Marine Education and Recreation Center) at Long Bay Regional Park for four days and three nights where they participate in lots of outdoor adventures and team building. Many parents reported to us that their children loved their experience at M.E.R.C. and talked about it enthusiastically for years afterward. The idea of “sleepover” camp built into the regular curriculum was new to us, but we “gave it a go”.



Beth accompanied Quentin and his class. There were two teachers, eight parent chaperones, five activity leaders and about 60 children. Our first day was held in the indoor hall as we were having a whopper of a storm. There were heavy downpours, gusty winds, huge swells, thunder and lightening. We were worried as the forecast for the rest of the week did not look much more promising. One day of indoor games was enjoyable; however, we all decided that the sky had better dry out---and quick!

The second day was still damp, but we were able to manage some outdoor adventures. Happily, the weather turned nicer for the last two days and we were able to squeeze in most of what we were originally scheduled to do. Activities included rock climbing, slingshot, archery, surfing, sea kayaking, boogy boarding, abseiling (rappelling), and a fun one called “stack ‘em” where you keep stacking crates one on top of the other, getting higher and higher until you finally lose your balance and tumble.



It was a wonderful bonding experience for the children as they played, ate and slept together. There were plenty of silly moments and lots of sugar at dessert. One night, the children feasted on homemade sugar doughnuts topped with chocolate pudding loaded with pink and white marshmallows with a good-sized dollop of ice cream on top of the pudding, then decorated with sprinkles. Some of us discovered that we had gifts that were unknown to us before. Quentin showed some skill at surfing and Beth hit a bull’s eye on her first try at archery!

Warkworth Primary Gala

Every two years, the Warkworth Primary School hosts a fundraising gala. This is a large all-day fair with games, raffles, food and all sorts of fun stuff the children love. Although there are school galas in the U.S., the Kiwis have their own style. For example, Xavier successfully tossed a hoop over one of the bagged bottles set up on the lawn, which isn’t too unusual except for the prize – a bottle of white wine. Yes, at a primary school fair, one of the prizes was booze. However, being a responsible school, he needed to fetch one of his parents as he was not allowed to walk away with it. Next, consider the “Crockery Smash”. For $1 you can hurl 6 balls at a huge stack of cups, saucers and plates. If your aim is reasonable, you get to enjoy the sound of porcelain crashing to the pavement. Xavier described this as “therapeutic”.



Mr. Clip was at the gala, demonstrating sheep shearing and describing the hazards of such an occupation: apparently a feisty ram last week kicked the shears into his finger, lopping off a small portion of the end of his middle finger. Finally, no Kiwi gala would do without a bungy jump. Isaac, Annick and Quentin were strapped to a harness and left to bounce/flip/fly for a full five minutes upwards of 25 feet into the air - a trampoline on steroids.




Of course, there were also the more traditional activities. Isaac had his face painted to look like a tiger. Quentin discovered that he was a good target shooter and ended up winning many large, stuffed animals and about a dozen free ice creams. All of this activity made people hungry. Gerard volunteered for an hour of work at the “Sausage Sizzle” and estimates that over 200 sausages wrapped in white bread and lathered with “sauce” were sold between 10:30-11:30am. He could barely keep up with the demand.

More photos:

April08

Busking at the Puhoi Farmers' Market

One of our Puhoi friends asked if our kids might be interested in "busking" at the Farmers' Market. Beth answered, "Sure, probably, but what's 'busking'?" And so we learned a new Kiwi term. Busking is playing musical instruments for free with a basket out front for the coins. Xavier and Quentin happily agreed. They were able to entertain the vendors and the shoppers for a half hour and hopefully, will be invited back. They earned a couple coins while we spent many dollars on bread ($10), scallops ($25), olive oil ($30), sausages ($8), lollies ($1) and ginger cake ($6) - no worries, it's all good.

Some Very Important Kiwis

“Aunt” Kathy is our perfect hostess and landlady. From our very first email exchange, we clearly had excellent karma. Kathy is a fifth generation New Zealander, but her family moved to Hawaii when she was nine-years-old. She eventually returned to New Zealand while her parents and brother moved to Chester County, Pennsylvania, only about thirty minutes from Bala Cynwyd! Like us, Kathy has four children (all adults now) and apparently, Isaac is the spitting image of her son Tim when he was young. Kathy is funny, witty, fair and energetic. She has been very generous with our family. She has shown genuine and unending interest in the children and they sense her deep care. They are often asking when they are going to see Kathy next. We have found a wonderful family friend that we will treasure forever.



George is the incarnation of the ideal school bus driver. He is patient, kind, attentive and, best of all, he has a wicked sense of humor. George is quick to learn the names of the children (although he complained a bit about our choice of names), greet them with a smile each day and drive them safely to school. In the event of a student disruption, he calmly disentangles the situation. We have utmost respect for George and enjoy seeing his cheerful face every day.



The School Bus Stop Social Circle consists of (from left to right in the photo below) Fran, Gay, Pauline, Lance, and Jennifer. They provide oodles of good advice on what to do and where to go for a doctor, a dentist, school shoes, whatever Beth needs. Beth owes immeasurable thanks for all the cultural innuendos she learned from them as well as a few new words. Most importantly, the School Bus Stop Social Circle provides twenty minutes of warm companionship and good hearty laughs to start the day. Fran, Gay, Pauline, Lance, and Jennifer have warmly made Beth feel a part of the Puhoi community.



Mal is Xavier’s AWESOME piano teacher. From the onset, it was obvious that these two were going to have fun making music together. We started with a half-hour lesson that always ended up being much longer. They had trouble stopping. After a couple weeks, we decided that we should just make the lesson longer and let them play. Xavier routinely walks out of his lesson grinning. Mal shows enthusiasm for guiding Xavier. He clearly wants to help Xavier learn and grow with his piano playing. Mal has a willingness to tailor the program to fit Xavier’s ability and interests. All of this, coupled with a gifted blues/jazz pianist, has made Mal a perfect fit for Xavier. He has made so much progress this year!



Ross is Quentin’s AWESOME trumpet teacher. I can’t believe how lucky we have been this year with musical instruction! Quentin decided that he wanted to learn trumpet, so soon after our arrival in New Zealand, we bought him an instrument and started to search for a trumpet teacher. There are not many in New Zealand. Trumpet is not one of the more popular instruments. After researching this carefully, we found a very talented teacher who is both encouraging and effective. Always smiling and soft-spoken, Ross creates a peaceful ambiance in which to learn a rather loud and brassy instrument. Quentin leaves each lesson feeling eager to improve. Thanks to Ross’s artful advice, Quentin is playing the trumpet!



Heather and Roger run Horse Riding Warkworth where Quentin, Annick and Isaac go riding each week. The children have gone horse riding a couple times before coming to New Zealand, but they never had the opportunity to go weekly to a farm full of horses only five minutes from school. Heather and Roger are genuine and caring souls who enjoy sharing their love of horses with others. Theoretically, we show up for a one-hour horse ride/lesson, but it is always much more. The children are included in preparing their horses and then after, getting them ready to go to the paddock. Heather is brilliant at figuring out the right horse for each child and making subtle suggestions that help them improve without creating self-doubt. After several months of horseriding with Heather, the children have become confident riders.



Kerry taught Xavier and Quentin how to scuba dive at Goat Island Dive Center. Kerry is bubbly, warm and playful while being knowledgeable and thorough with the requirements of the course. When the boys showed any shadow of doubt, Kerry was quick to dispel it and show them that they could do it! And they did! Under her thoughtful tutelage, Xavier and Quentin now look as comfortable underwater as they do on land. (Yes, the crayfish on their heads are real - and delicious.)



Teachers and Friends: There are too many to picture here, but we are grateful to the many teachers and “mates” who have befriended us this year. Both Warkworth Primary and Mahurangi College have provided nurturing environments where our children have been able to learn, play, explore, discover and develop. The children have made friends with many kind, imaginative and outdoorsy children.

Swimming for Warkworth

At Warkworth Primary, the children participate in swimming sports for Term 1. Despite a total lack of training and coaching this year, Quentin managed to do quite well. He participated in a number of swim competitions during the month of March. In the Warkworth school-wide event on March 20th, he won a number of races including the 100-meter freestyle which earned him the "Baddock Cup". A week later, he was chosen to participate in the Hibiscus Coast Regional Championships where he won third place in the 25-meter freestyle against some fierce competition.

Easter on the Tongariro Crossing

For Easter weekend, we made plans to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in Tongariro National Park. The crossing is meant to be a 17 km one-way trek across amazing volcanic scenery, including the easily recognizable “Mount Doom” from the “Lord of the Rings” movies. In order to go one-way, you need to arrange transport at the other end. Not wanting to be bothered with that, we did the “Crossing” in the non-recommended way. In October, we hiked up the one side until we got halfway and then turned around and went down. Then, we returned in March to hike up the other side to the halfway point and then turn around and go down.

The first trip was actually a steeper climb, but about a third of it was in the bush before it opened up into rocky outcroppings with tussock grass. We were able to climb up to the snow line and see a frozen Blue Lake. This time, the climb was longer with some stretches ascending gradually and others with a dramatically steep pitch. The trail this time was completely exposed and very warm.



We climbed up to Red Crater and admired the view into the crater with Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom) in the background. Much further in the distance in the same direction, we could see Mt. Taranaki, the volcanic peak on the west side of New Zealand that resembles Mt. Fuji. Looking out the other direction, you could see Blue Lake with Lake Taupo behind it. Down below were the three Emerald Lakes framed with steaming fumeroles. It was breathtaking.



We decided to brave the descent down to the Emerald Lakes to get a closer view. It was a very steep hill loaded with dusty, pebbly volcanic rocks. Our feet were buried to our ankles and our shoes quickly filled with stones. We slipped and slid to the bottom, emptied our shoes, admired the view and then groaned about the impending climb up. It was challenging. It felt like we were in a dusty, dirty, hot and never-ending stairmaster. We all made it, but we all suffered from sore toes when it was done and we still had to return to the carpark which was about 8 kms away!

It is a gorgeous hike and we were lucky to do it on a beautiful, clear day. We heard later that it was the busiest day this year on the Tongariro Crossing with over 1,000 hikers doing the walk!

The next day, we decided to have a less ambitious day. We drove over to Lake Rotopounamu and did a two-hour walk around a green mountain lake bordered by large rimu trees. There were a few beaches along the way and we spent the afternoon lazing around on one of them.

Eel Wrestling

Quentin noticed an eel on the muddy banks of the Puhoi river - he grabbed the eel and bludgeoned it on a rock to claim his "prize". We discovered that eel slime is very smelly and very sticky. Isaac was disappointed that Papa did not cook the eel for dinner, but Papa was rEELy not willing to venture down that culinary path.

David Scalia Down Under

Gerard’s family friend David came to see us in late February before heading out on a cycling tour of the North Island. Despite a few bumps along the way that included some food poisoning on the trip over and some very sore tendons, David managed to complete his tour with a few more bus rides than expected. With us, he went to many of the same destinations that we like to share with all our visitors—Wenderholm, Sheep World, Goat Island and Tawharanui Beach, to name a few. A highlight of his visit was boogie boarding down the sand dunes at Te Henga. The sand was hot and dry that day making the rides wickedly fast!

Scuba Diving in Aotearoa

Xavier and Quentin learned to scuba dive in December. Since then, Beth did two boat dives with Xavier at the Mokohinau Islands. Later, Beth, Xavier and Quentin dove twice at the Hen and Chicks Islands. The underwater landscape is not as varied and colorful as Bonaire and the water is not as warm, but it is still offers some interesting scenery. The terrain is volcanic, often covered with lush kelp forests. There are about a dozen or so varieties of fish that we see each dive including triggerfish, blue demoiselles and eagle rays. The boys have discovered how much fun it is to swim into the kelp looking for treasures hidden below like urchin shells and big snails. Peering under the overhangs, we often saw encrusting corals in shades of orange, pink and purple. Big kingfish and mokis congregate there as well. Quentin was eager to snag a crayfish, but they are spiny and fast. Fortunately, some fellow divers were willing to share their catch with us one day.

Visit to the Kauri Coast, February 29th-March 2nd

We traveled north to the Kauri Coast to witness the last remaining ancient kauri forest in the world. Kauris are massive trees, not quite as wide in girth as sequoias or as tall as redwoods, but nonetheless impressive, as noted in our earlier post on the North Island. They are large and stately with massive arms that cradle other plants up at the top of the forest canopy. They were lumbered almost to the point of extinction because of their desirability. Kauri wood has a beautiful, warm color and is very hard, making it quite good for floors and furniture. The “gum” (i.e., sap that oozes from its bark) was used for varnish and polished into gems.

We arrived in time to eat a quick dinner and go on a guided night walk tour of the Trounson Kauri Forest. The wind was howling that night. We tried hard to listen for the rustling of kiwi looking for dinner under the leaves, but we couldn’t hear much other than the wind. The kiwi usually chatter to each other quite a bit at night, but, again, we heard nothing but the wind. Our guide was successful at spotting one kiwi that spooked immediately and took off deeper into the forest. Xavier and Quentin were lucky enough to see him for a moment as he darted off, but the rest of us missed it. However, our guide also pointed out two massive eels moving about in streams, some rare kauri snails and a few giant wetas (very large NZ grasshoppers) hanging out on a decaying log. It was a fun experience to walk through the woods at night with glow worms sprinkled amongst the bushes.

The next day, we woke up to heavy downpours, but the rain eased and by 10 o’clock, the kids had put on their togs and headed for the river where they played on the holiday park’s inner tube for the morning. The day was cloudy and drizzly, but it was warm, so we managed.



After lunch, we drove to the biggest kauri trees in the Waipoua Forest. The drive alone is jaw-dropping. The road twists through dense, jungle-like terrain and fairly frequently, you can spy an enormous kauri standing in the middle of the tangle of leaves. The largest kauri is named “Tane Mahuta”, Lord of the Forest and is about 1,500 years old. The second largest is actually older (it’s about 2000 years old!) and quite a bit wider than the biggest one, but not as tall or elegant. Their size, their shape and their skin (a mottled bark that sheds periodically) make them artistic masterpieces.



After viewing the trees, we drove up a back road to a shop named the Labyrinth Woodworks, tucked away in the woods. A large, bearded man named Louis entertained our children for an hour with all sorts of puzzles and magic tricks while we looked over all the interesting wooden toys in his hexagonal store. We are now convinced that Santa and Mrs. Claus have left the North Pole and now reside in a remote magical forest in New Zealand. They have a secret stash of elves who make wooden toys deep in the privacy of their own kauri forest.



We went back to the holiday park, played a little, ate some dinner and headed back over to do our own unguided night tour walk of the Trounson Kauri Park. We left earlier than we had the night before and it wasn’t quite dark yet. As we stepped into the forest, it grew darker, of course. We had five lousy flashlights, but they were good enough for us to see the trail even if they weren’t powerful enough to pick out kiwi in the bush. Almost immediately, we heard them. We heard a female kiwi call and a male kiwi call. Suddenly, the forest grew absolutely silent. The kiwi quieted and the cicadas hushed all at once. We continued our walk and then heard the very eerie moan of cattle in the pasture next to the forest. It is good that the kids have never seen the “Blair Witch Project” – it was a creepy and bone-chilling noise. Hand in hand, we retraced our steps from the night before. We heard more kiwi and more moaning cattle. We found some eels and some kokopus, a nocturnal NZ fish. We saw yet more glow worms and wetas. It was amazing.

Visit with Carolyn (Grandma)

Friday, February 1st-Monday, February 4th:

Beth’s mother Carolyn came to visit us in early February. Her trip had an ominous start. After arriving at the airport to catch her flight to Philadelphia (and then onward to Los Angeles), she discovered that her flight had been cancelled due to a lack of aircraft. US Airways rerouted her through Charlotte, but she only had 45 minutes to make her Air New Zealand connecting flight to Auckland. Things went from bad to worse. The flight attendant didn’t show up, delaying the flight and there was some other passenger issue that delayed boarding, and before she knew it, she was on a flight to LA that was clearly going to arrive long after the Air New Zealand flight would have departed.

In LA, there was more bad news. Because of the wintry weather in the USA, there were many “displaced” passengers and all the Air New Zealand flights were fully booked for at least a few days. The “best” they could do for her was to fly her to Brisbane (a 14-hour flight, at least 2 hours longer than the flight to Auckland) and then a connecting flight to Auckland (another 3 hours traveling). She was handed a voucher for a hotel room and two meal coupons (she got $10 for dinner and $5 for lunch!). After getting lost on her way to the hotel, she finally settled in, completely exhausted and a nervous wreck, ready to abandon all plans to visit us. We pleaded with her to “push on” so that she could make some good memories to block out the bad ones.

Of course, the drama of this adventure did not ease. The flight to Brisbane was one-hour late and fortunately, Qantas held the flight so that poor Grandma could board the plane for Auckland. Grandma arrived completely drained late Monday afternoon. She lost two days of her trip and her checked-in suitcase.

The good news: her bag arrived safely a day later, Carolyn recovered and decided to extend her trip by a week.

Tuesday, February 5th:

Only two days to go before Quentin, Annick and Isaac had to go back to school. We decided to go to Muriwai Beach to see the gannets and the sea stars. We had a hot, sunny summer day. We admired the gannets and their growing babies and then headed over to the swimming beach for some boogy boarding and sand play. We ended up staying there a lot longer than we expected. By the time we left, we were too hot and tired to go looking for sea stars. We planned to come back another day to finish our Muriwai experience.



Wednesday, February 6th:

We took Grandma for the hike in Wenderholm Regional Park to see the New Zealand bush and some gorgeous scenery. After lunch, we headed to Sheep World for the eel feeding and the sheep show. We love Sheep World! Xavier got to try his luck sorting the sheep this time. He did fairly well.



Thursday, February 7th:

Grandma, Xavier and Beth did some errands after dropping off Quentin, Annick and Isaac at school. The children were excited to be back to school and seemed really pleased with their teachers. After a very fun first day of school, the whole family headed over to Tawharanui Regional Park to play on our favorite beach. It was, after all, a big birthday day for Beth, Annick and Isaac. We celebrated by jumping in the waves and lounging in the sand. It was heavenly. There was also a partial eclipse of the sun that afternoon but we didn’t see it (because you are not suppose to look at the sun) nor notice any darkening. Incidentally, Annick and Isaac got to celebrate their 8th birthday twice as they did a special "birthday horse ride" with friends Millie and Matthew one week earlier.



Friday, February 8th:

The three “primary” children went to school. Carolyn, Xavier and Beth went to Whangarei to visit “New Zealand’s most photographed waterfall”. We had a picnic, took a stroll around the waterfall and took some of our own photos to make sure that Whangarei Falls maintained its superlative distinction. We then took another leisurely bush stroll that included some 500-year-old kauri trees.

After, we visited the Kiwi House where we were able to observe one North Island brown kiwi rummaging around for insects. We wanted to make sure that Grandma saw a kiwi before she left New Zealand and voila, she got to see *a* kiwi. There was also a morepork fluttering about in the kiwi display, a small New Zealand owl. There were historic buildings on display like the old women’s jail and an octagonal chapel, the “only one in New Zealand made from a single log of kauri”. Also on the property was a bird recovery center where we got to watch an adorable (but injured) little blue penguin swim around in a little blue plastic swimming pool. We had a pleasant day, but it wasn’t the most outstanding destination we have visited in New Zealand.



Saturday, February 9th:

We took the ferry on Saturday to Tiritiri Matangi to visit the offshore island where there is an open air bird sanctuary. We love that island! It is loaded with birds, many of them that no longer exist on mainland New Zealand due to predators. We have visited three times and each season brings different pleasures. It is the end of summer and many of the birds have quieted down, but the bellbirds were singing rapturously. They are an adorable shade of green-yellow and have a beautifully melodious voice. Whole choruses were serenading us as we walked through the bush.

We arrived at the lighthouse and set up our picnic lunch. Isaac jumped and squealed because as he sat, a very assertive pukeko rushed up and bit his bottom in an effort to crash our picnic. As the children took turns chasing the pukeko away, a takehe keep peeking out from the bushes. Once thought to be extinct, there are now 300 takehe in the world, all in New Zealand, 18 of them on Tiritiri Matangi. Other birds that entertained us that day were North Island robins, saddlebacks and of course, our favorite, the tuis. We finished the day with a swim at Hobbs Beach. On the walk back to the ferry, Grandma and the children got to see a moulting little blue penguin in a nesting box near the trail.



Sunday, February 10th:

The weather did not look so inviting and so we decided to visit the Auckland War Memorial Museum where they offer a daily Maori Cultural Show. The half-hour show features Maori music and dance as well as presentations on the games, weapons and rituals of the Maori people. There is an extensive collection of Maori artifacts in the museum as well as an actual marae house. We toured the various exhibits in the museum that included New Zealand wildlife, geology and history.

Monday, February 11th:

Errands, errands and more errands! Beth’s mother extended her stay by a week because of the grueling trip here and so we needed to go to an Air New Zealand Holiday Store to make the modifications. In the midst of doing copying, groceries, banking and posting, the highlight of the morning was meeting a very cheerful Kiwi named Maria in the Holiday Store.

In the afternoon, we headed to horse riding where Quentin, Annick and Isaac got to pose while riding Black Beauty, Goldie and Renegade. Grandma snapped away. Gotta love those digital cameras!

Tuesday, February 12th:

Despite a rainy forecast, we woke to a clear day. After getting the children off to school, we drove south to Orewa Beach for a run/walk on the beach. Carolyn did some shell collecting too. Later, we dined in style at Ascension Restaurant where we celebrated Beth’s and Gerard’s birthdays when the rains finally descended on Ascension. We observed a big beetle-like bug on the floor upside down trying desperately to right itself. The waitress insisted it was a New Zealand weta (a large and revered native “grasshopper”), but it looked like a big cockroach to us.

Wednesday, February 13th:

Beth and Carolyn headed back to Muriwai because we didn’t have the time or inclination to wander through the sea cave or search for sea stars on our last visit. We spent some time doing both, but got a good soaking because low tide never got all that low. The beach was abandoned except for a few sea birds. The gannets are slowly leaving the colony as the chicks get bigger and stronger. They will almost all be gone to Australia over the winter.

Thursday, February 14th –Sunday, February 17th:

We drove up to the Northland to Cooper’s Beach to spend the weekend in a beach house. We picked the kids up at noon at school and headed north. We planned to stop at the Kawiti Glow Worm cave, but the sky was crying all the way up. Actually, the sky was sobbing. We decided to forego the glow worms and drive straight to the house. Almost miraculously, the sky cleared and the sun peeked out as we drove into the driveway. After unloading the car, we headed down the steps to the beach.



The weekend was not picture perfect, but we were right on the beach, so it was easy to sneak out between the raindrops and enjoy the surf. The beach looked like cinnamon sugar lined with pohutukawa trees. The sea was roiled up, but we enjoyed some mighty waves with our boogy boards. One day, Quentin discovered some clams in the sand called “pippies”. He collected a bucketful and we were able to feast on them for lunch that day. Another evening, we had a family soccer game on the beach. The sunset that night was stunning. The house came with a couple kayaks and that provided some good entertainment for awhile too. (However, Xavier had a freak accident while on the kayak – he rolled in the waves and his sun shirt caught on one of the brackets from his braces, breaking it away from the tooth. Fortunately, we found a dentist in Kerikeri willing to glue it back.)





On the way home, we stopped in Paihia to go on a full-day dolphin watch trip on a sailboat. We had a pleasant day, but not our best experience in the Bay of Islands. The day started sunny, but soon turned cloudy. We saw a few little blue penguins out swimming, but no dolphins, not a single dolphin, all day long. That was a bit disappointing, but we did get to be out on a sailboat all day in the Bay of Islands.

Monday, February 18th-Friday, February 22nd:

After a full weekend of activity and driving, we had to get back to real life in Puhoi. Mom’s last week was often spent watching us do grocery shopping, taking kids to piano, horseback riding and trumpet and a million other things that go along with regular everyday life plus some. Gerard’s family friend David Scalia arrived from Italy on Monday for a short visit before leaving on a cycling tour of the North Island. We spent one afternoon lounging around on Tawharanui Beach before he left us. While the kids were in school, Carolyn and Beth did some souvenir shopping and visited some local attractions like the Warkworth Museum, Mahurangi Regional Park and the Waitakere Ranges. We chased some oyster catchers on the beach at Wenderholm one afternoon. We also got to spend an hour or so in the doctor’s office after Quentin fell off a horse. Ahh, real life. At the end of the week, Quentin was supposed to go sailing with his class, but a tropical storm arrived. Sadly, we got to watch two grown men try to entertain a large group of ten-year-olds by playing games and tying knots to pass the day away. It didn’t work.



Saturday, February 23rd -Monday, February 25th:

The tropical storm worsened and we were held hostage inside while the wind howled and the rain fell in sheets. After two months of very dry weather requiring one water delivery at the Bennett-Cachons, our tank and garden got a soaking. There were many Scrabble and Monopoly games (New Zealand Monopoly, of course, thanks to our thoughtful landlady), followed by movies and computer games. Fortunately, on Sunday, the weather calmed. We ventured out to the Puhoi Sports Hall for the new monthly farmers market. After lunch, we traveled west to Te Henga where there are mountains of black sand dunes framed by a forest. In the midst of the dunes is a lake, the pock of an ancient imploded volcanic crater. The children climbed and jumped, dug and tumbled before heading to the water where they flipped and swam for two hours. Grandma just couldn’t believe that yet again, we were almost the only people present in that gorgeous, pristine setting. Magically, as we settled down to watch the kids, the sky cleared and the sun shone.



Monday was travel day. After a walk on the beach in Orewa, Beth took her mother to the airport. Fortunately, the trip home went much more smoothly than the trip to Puhoi. Still, Carolyn vows to never travel that far again. New Zealand is halfway around the world from the eastern United States and that fact is brutally apparent when you make the trip.