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.