Travel Thursday: A Hidden Gem In New Zealand

I am so happy to share these photos with you! When we were home at Christmas time we went exploring and took the long way to Whakatane from Taupo one day. We ended up finding a beautiful lake, dam and river. When we went looking down some small windy roads, I thought I could hear some water.. And so I went crawling through the bush with my camera and popped out here, at this beautiful wee stream and waterfall. I wanted to swim but instead, I took some photos and crawled back. Yes, I was in a vintage dress and jandals at the time. It makes bush crawling a little trickier, but its so good for road trips!

Enjoy..

Hooking up with my lady pal Laurie at Andiamo for Travel Thursday. Today it is New Zealand, who knows where next week will be?!

Travel Thursday: Wairaka, Whakatane

Today I am sharing one of my favorite spots in the whole world!


Wairaka is one of the Marae's of Rob's Iwi. Wairaka is special to him, and it has become special to us. On the day of our wedding we had photos both in front of the marae, and in front of the statue at the river mouth that commemorates the bravery of Wairaka.

Wairaka was on one of the original seven canoes that came from Hawaiiki, the ancestral homeland of the Maori. When the men had gone ashore to scout the area, the canoe became loose, and started drifting out to sea. Although paddles were Tapu (sacred), and only men were allowed to use them, Wairaka cried out and took up a paddle saving the women. Legend tells that as she paddled to safety, she cried out in prayer “Kia Whakatane au i ahau (let me act like a man)".

Here are some shots we got one evening, when we were home in December, hope you enjoy our photos!

Wairaka, the rivermouth and the view out to Motouhora.

Sunset over Mount Putauaki in the background.

Wairaka on her rock.

Join Laurie and I for Travel Thursday!

 Whether it is across the globe or down the road, share your photos yo!

Photography Friday - Lose Yourself

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is a society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in it's roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more..."

Lord Byron

Calling Kiwi Bloggers!

Yes you!

So, I don't know about y'all, but when I first got into blogging, I started trying to look for a group to join for Kiwi bloggers to connect. And, unfortunately I didn't have that much success. I did find some great individual blogs, and I joined Kiwiology, but I am not sure on how current that is, and how much it gets updated.

Are you?

I know we are a wee group, compared to the thousands blogging over here - but we gotta get together.

Luckily, a talented wee lady called called Hayleigh is putting her hand up to fill this gap!

You can check out Pea Soup here or on facebook here, it is New Zealand's newest blogging directory! Hayleigh has also created a forum so we can chat about blogging tips, techniques and giveaway opportunities.

So, if you are a Kiwi blogger, get your details up on the blog and lets get connecting!

Chur!

PS. Isn't the button cute!

Travel Thursday: Hamilton Gardens

Ain't it pretty!

This week's Travel Thursday brings us to the Hamilton Gardens. A large, botanical garden full of native bush, themed gardens, water features, rose gardens and lots of beautiful green grass. When Rob and I lived in Hamilton, it was our favorite spot to explore, picnic and take a dip in the river. When we were back in December we had a picnic at the park with some dear friends, and met their wee one. Here are a few shots from our fantastic day in the park.

New Zealand in Insty Form

I'm back dear friends! I can't wait to share all our big photos, but here is a sweet wee summary of our amazing trip home. 

We had the most amazing time at home, seeing friends and family. I met my beautiful nephew for the first time and fell head over heels in love, the second I saw him. I saw that my sister has become an amazing mother and is so relaxed and fantastic with William - it's no wonder he is such a cool kid. We ate some amazing burgers, thank you burger fuel. We saw friends who are so fun to be with and despite the passing of time things are exactly the same each time we catch up. We sat in grass. We walked bare foot in grass. We lay on the grass in the sunshine. And went swimming in the clean blue ocean. We went exploring in swamps and searching for waterfalls. We walked dogs and cuddled with cats, fed chickens and took turns spotting eels and trout in the river. We drove up hills and around windy corners. We heard birds singing and cicadas chirping. And we fell in love with home all over again. We saw every single shade of green and then we saw some more. We ate yummy fish and chips, and lovey fresh fruit. We lit fireworks and drank cocktails with family on New Year's Eve. We saw William having his first Christmas, and giggling as he got to rip open wrapping paper. I talked with my Pop about his time in the navy, and had long chats with my Daddy about when he was a kid. Went shopping with Mum and got to hold her hand like I was little again. My sister and I didn't argue, not even once - an all time record, and I got to plait her hair and lend her jewelry. Rob and I got to make plans for the future, and learn more about our past. We picnicked in the park and watched a wee one cover himself in strawberry and yoghurt. We were lucky enough to see family and learn more about our history. We are blessed to have family around to pass on these things. One morning I woke up and opened the windows and said morning to two wee cows. We swam in the pool and drank cold beer. We laughed with everyone we were lucky enough to catch up with, and then occasionally got to crack up with strangers too.

As blessed as I feel to be living the expat life we do, there is just nothing like being home. We are from such a beautiful place and we are so lucky to have this paradise to go back to. Feeling a little sad to have left for another year, but very full of love and excitement for the new year.

This Kiwi is headed Back to the Nest

We fly home today!

Here is my top 10 list of things I am happy about seeing:

1) Babies! My wee nephew Willy of course, but also a whole flock of new bebes await! Liam - I can't wait to snuggle you.

He is bigger than this now... But even more cuter!

2) My Mama and Papa. Life just aint the same without hugs from your parents.

3) All our family and friends. Obviously.

4) Chilling in Ohope with a glass of wine and Rob's family.

5) Shopping at the Saturday markets in Pukekohe with Mama and Amy.

6) Grass. Bare feet on grass. And jandals.

7) The dogs! I can't wait to see their goofy faces lol

8) Food! Roast Lamb! Fish and Chips! Berries! Fruit! Salad!

9) Christmas! Babys first christmas, Mamas trees, Christmas ham, stockings.

10) Seeing the beautiful country that I call home.


Happy poppet.

Let me Compare thee - 9 months in

Okay, so it has been long enough for the "holiday" feel to wear off, I have gotten past the major feeling of home-sick-ness and now being here is every day life...
Although I'm still eating and drinking as if I was on holiday : p

And while no one likes the person that says "well, at home we do it this way".. Believe me - I found that out the hard way in Australia. I do still have a list of some differences that either caught me out at first, still catch me out, or that I just think are weird. We are lucky enough to have friends here who told us a lot of things to watch out for but you can always get caught out. Hopefully if anyone from here is heading down to New Zealand or Australia for a trip, they can use this list to lessen the surprise they come across!

The VERY first thing I noticed was at LAX the first time I arrived in the US. And it still puzzles me. TOILET DOOR GAPS - it is super weird. Let me explain, when I walk into a public restroom, I would far prefer to have the ladies waiting for a vacant stall to not be able to watch me. But the gaps in the doors here are so wide. I actually measured it once. Some gaps are as big as 1 cm! At home they are mms at the most. I still can't get past it. It s very unsettling making eye contact with another human being while peeing. I'm sorry. It just is.

And speaking of restrooms - I have never seen PAPER TOILET SEAT COVERS in New Zealand or Australia. Maybe that is gross to people who have always had them. And I get why they are there. But like, I dunno. I don't get how they work. Or what you do with them after. Anyway, that is like something that is totally lost on me, lol.

When you order LUNCH here, 9 out of 10 times you get offered chips and a fruit cup. It is very handy, but I have never had that before in my life. I guess it is good if you need a little snack after your sandwich. But I have enough trouble with calories without a big bowl of chips.

And since we are speaking of CHIPS. No one ever knows what I mean when I say chips. At home chips mean both fries and chips. But generally, the context is such that it isn't an issue. Fries with a meal and chips for a snack or at a party. Terminology also seems important when it comes to take out. At home, any hot thing in a bun is a burger. Whether it is a chicken breast or a meat patty. But here, "burgers" with chicken in them are sandwiches. Which I am alright with, because that makes me feel like I am being healthier lol.

SEASONS AND HOLIDAYS are a much bigger deal here. Which is awesome, I have had a lot of fun helping friends decorate for fall, and go trick or treating. But it does essentially mean you have a lot more stuff. Someone asked me the other day if we decorate with pumpkins and I cracked up. Cos, we just don't. No one really celebrates Fall/Autumn coming - cos that means its about to get cold up in here lol. But yeah, I like the funness, yesterday spent 3 hours at a craft store buying Christmas things to take home!

This would be odd at home lol.

Steph told me once that when she got to New Zealand, she was shocked by how small the SUPERMARKETS were. And when she went to buy cereal she was like "is that all there is to choose from?". However, when she moved back to the States, she was, in her own words "paralyzed by choice" and couldn't believe there was so many types. I totally understand the second half of that. I can never get over how many pickle types there are, or how many varieties of BBQ sauce are available. It totally blows my mind. And then there is Costco and Sams Club - but that would be like a whole other blog post. My favorite thing about this giant super market phenomena is - giant jars of jalapenos!

A photo of me while my mind was being blown at Costco.

VALET. This is odd to us. But I can see two very big positives. First of all, if you have valets you are creating employment. Second of all, I hate looking for parking. And that solves the issue. But seriously, we do not have valets at bars and restaurants the way they do here in Houston.Another thing we don't really do is TIP, but I really don't mind tipping someone who gets paid $3 an hour. When we first got here, we didn't know that you had to wait for the bill to be bought to your table - we went to pay on the way out and the staff thought we were gapping it. Pro tip - if you go to NZ and wait for the bill to come to your table - you will be there all night lol.

There must be something in our ADVERTISING rules back home, that say when you are discussing your product, you cannot name another company to compare it to, or to criticize. And, there must be something in advertising rules here that says, "destroy them" lol. Because, companies go to town dissing their competition,. They even get famous actors or sports men to talk about how shit the other companies are. Its kind of funny, kind of sad, kind of mean. Probably effective though.

And while I am mentioning ads. Wow. MEDICATION ADS. What the hell people? When we first got here, we were kind of horrified. Then amused. Then bemused. Now we just love quoting the ads to each other. My favorite one depicts a man who is sick, and then gets this medicine (which he is warned could lead to liver failure), it then shows him getting better from the medicine and taking a trip to New Zealand (woo hoo) to see the Hoiho penguins. Love it.

_________________________________________________

So anyway, these are some differences we noted. Luckily we have friends who are patient and willing to help us learn a new way of doing things. Every now and then we come across someone who won't explain things or looks at us like we are stupid. But I have to say that people here are super friendly and lovely, it is really true what people say about Texan hospitality. And, people love to hear about where we are from, and what life is like back home.

It has been a fun and crazy year, I love being here, and I can't wait to see how weird New Zealand will feel at Christmas time when we head back and can't buy a bunch of different chillies in the supermarket!

Here are some words to leave you with, they might help you interpret my posts haha..

Coriander - Cilantro

Capsicum - Bell Pepper

Bathroom - Restroom

Loo - Toilet

Daggy - Lame

Jandals - Flip flops

Gumboots - Rainboots/galoshes

Naff - see Daggy

Undies - Panties

Knickers - Panties

Eftpos - Debit card

Guest Post - Crochet Tips with Leah!

Today my post is being taken over in the loveliest way possible, my dear friend from home will be sharing a DIY crochet project and some handy tips!

Tehani, Leah and I at our MSc graduation!

Hi Blog readers!

You don’t know me yet, but I am a uni friend of the wonderful Sarah. I live in Aotearoa New Zealand with my lovely fiancé and our gorgeous son. Since our son was born 7 months ago, I seem to have decided I am somewhat of a crafty person (curse you Pinterest!) and Sarah asked me to guest blog about one of my recently finished crochet projects so here I am :-)

I recently learned to crochet – only very simple, mind you. My sister-in-law-to-be was crocheting one evening at my house, so being the nosy sod I am I asked her to show me how to do it. What started as me learning to crochet turned into this cot blanket for my girlfriend’s baby due in November – she is British, he is Argentinean so I chose Paua shell colors to represent New Zealand and the new life they are building together down here.

 


Now my niece, bless her, she is a character and I love her to bits. Very crafty herself at almost-5 years old, she saw me working on the cot blanket and asked me to make her one for her 5th birthday in red, white and pink. (When I told her I had decided to do purple, white and pink she simply said, deadpan, “huh. That could work”. So funny!) I won’t go through trying to teach you to crochet, there are loads of tutorials and blogs online already but just thought I would share with you some of the things I learned in this project!

Now, the first thing you should know about me is that I get bored kind of easily. I started out making the two-toned granny squares, changing every round to a new color. Then, because I get bored easily, I changed it so that on one square it would end on a colored round and the next would end on a white round. Then instead of changing every round, I changed every second round. 

Tip 1: don’t cut the yarn when you change colors. Otherwise you are going to have to thread in a whole lot more loose threads than you really need to. It means that you will see the yarn on the wrong side of the blanket but trust me, it will make the final job a lot easier and you won’t even notice it!
When I had 8 squares done, I tried to get an idea of what sort of pattern might look good for the finished piece so tried laying it out. But really, it was too hard. My FB community was pretty evenly split on which way to call it! I took a picture and decided to wait and see before I started joining the squares together.

Tip 2: don’t be afraid to start a project without the end product firmly in mind. It just makes it more exciting when it comes time to try and cobble it all together and you aren’t locked into something  if you happen to change your mind when you are further through.

Originally I thought I would only have four granny squares per row, but realized quickly this would end up being too narrow to have enough coverage on a single bed. I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how the middle row would go – I needed something that would fit with the rest of the squares on that row, but when I tried it out it didn’t look quite as I wanted it to. By shifting the center squares up one space it suddenly worked a whole lot better. 

Tip 3: Experiment! Crochet is great because it is quick – if something doesn’t look right, it doesn’t take long to take it apart and try other color combinations.

Tip 4: do what you have to to stay interested. I said already, I get bored easily. So when I was about halfway through how big I wanted the blanket to be, I decided to stitch it together to spread the workload and so I wouldn’t have loads of threading and sewing to do at the end.

I have to say it was very rewarding finishing the last of the granny squares. After doing a double-crochet border on the cot blanket (so time consuming!!) I decided to just do trebles around the joined squares, one in each color to make a border. It was quick (yay!) and it looked better than expected, though it did blend in some places more than I thought it might. 

If I am being brutal, it is probably still a tiny bit narrow for a single bed, but one more granny square would easily spread it out that little bit more.

So yep, those are probably the best tips I have if you are going to start a simple crochet project. It was quite fun doing something similar but a bit different, and I hope my niece will love it as much as I enjoyed doing it for her. I also hope she keeps it for years and years, and maybe even passes it on to her daughter one day.

Happy crafting!
 

Isn't the pink and purple adorable! You can check Leah out at her Pinterest page here.

Beautiful New Zealand - Day 12 of Blogtember

These photos are from a road trip Liz and I took the week before the wedding in January.. This is Mahurangi Regional Park, about 40 minutes north of Auckland City. It lies across the Gulf from the Coromandel Peninsula... And isn't it just stunning!!



Todays Blogtember prompt is "Just Photos". I have been thinking about our upcoming trip home in December, and have been waiting to share these photos. So it seemed like a good opportunity!

To check out more about Blogtember, follow the link below.