Lord of the.....Swings?

This past weekend we ventured to Tongariro national park in the centre of the north island. The trip was the longest we have undertaken so far, at 3.5 hours. To make it more interesting we made the trip in the dark, another first. I was a bit trepidatious about the trip, night driving is no longer one of the things I enjoy. However the traffic was light, and the roads were well marked with reflective barriers, a good thing because it was very twisty!

Once we arrived at Ohakune, one of the ski resort towns at the base of Mount Ruapehu, we entered our accommodations for the weekend. A decommissioned Rail car, it was a cool place to stay! Aidan, who was asleep when we arrived, looked out the window and said.."Not much of a view, are we going to move from here?" Anyway, the rail car was huge with just the living room pictured above, behind the door is the middle section with bunk beds and bathroom. Beyond the middle section is the master bedroom. I must say the setup was nice, but the master bed was a foam mattress on a rough hewn lumber frame...I slept on the couch cushions on the floor of the living room.

Day one saw a fairly lazy morning with breakfast in the rail car, then off to the tourist information site for our hike. I bought a LOTR location guide book and it was a big influence on choosing this place for a trip. So off we went to catch a glimpse of Mount Doom! This is Mount
Ngauruhoe, it was used for long shots for Mount Doom in The Lord of The Rings. However it is a Maori site that is off limits, and therefore closeups for Mordor and Mount Doom were filmed on the adjacent Mount Ruapehu. This is literally right beside it. The day started out overcast, but as we drove up the road towards the summit of Mount Ruapehu, the clouds broke and we got some good pictures. We hiked in to Waitonga falls, which was a good warm up for our upcoming charity walk on the 1st of may. (Donate)

We also had occasion to go to the "Grand chateau" that Peter Jackson and the cast used during filming. This is situated in Whakapappa village half way up Mount Ruapehu. We stopped in for a look and lunch, which was pricey but very good.








Then it was off to Whakapappa ski field, further up the road, that was used as a stand in for the Mordor landscape. The weather again cooperated, as it turned very windy and wet with a great misty quality that totally felt as if it was mordor. I half expected a horde of Uruk-hai
to storm over the nearest peak and attack!! Great stuff, but we had to head back as it was getting dark...and scary.




















So the next day we were off to Taupo and Action World, the kids idea but in the end I think the adults had just as much fun as the kids.

Just outside the airport at Taupo is a road that houses sky diving operations and this place called "Action World". They have inflatable amusement stations that range from Jousting, to a full blown professional trapeze.

The kids were a bit slow to start, but the warmed up, by the end of 3 or so hours we were all pretty worn out.








Well I guess that is all for this past weekend! I am going to work on posting some video from Action World now.

Thanks Rick for your generous support for our charity walk.

Take care all!

check out the Video on YouTube

We did it!!

As part of our training for the Unitron muster of Listen up, we conquered Mount Maunganui. And as promised I have posted my own picture from the top. It is now the blog image at the right! The kids complained most of the way up, but found it much easier going back down. At the end of April we will be flying over the 5Km charity walk in Rotorua, because it will not be so vertical!

The kids had a pretty laid back week, I took them back to the Luge track in Rotorua. A good time was had by all. It really is a great idea and I am sure someplace like Vancouver could make one of these things and at $5/ride they would do well.

We have also been to the beach this week, it's definitely getting chilly in the water and wetsuits are almost a must these days.

We have received a load of firewood in preparation for winter, it's not going to get that cold, but below zero is not unheard of and the insulation in most older houses is non-existent. We do get a lot of solar gain from the large windows at the front of the house but that is quickly lost during the night, especially if there is a wind.

I am loving the Bar-B-Que I bought on the trading site (Trade Me) for $50. I have used it almost every night, and my new favourite thing is grilled Zucchini and eggplant.

Well I guess that's it, short update as we stayed pretty close to home this weekend.

Auckland for Easter

This was a first for us, Easter at a Hotel! With the last of the hotel points we splashed out at the Westin Lighter Quay in Auckland. We had a lovely suite with two rooms that was created by the staff closing the door in the hallway. This cut off our end of the hallway and allowed us to have the two room doors wide open.

The hotel is lovely, water filled courtyards with Maori statues and carvings beautifully illuminated at night. The lobby was decked out with candles in the evening giving a wonderful sparkle to everything.

There is a lock system for boats to access the rear of the hotel, and the adjacent apartment/condo complex.

I seriously think that wherever we end up we will be purchasing the Westin Heavenly bed. I've never had such a great night sleep as on those beds.

Once we had checked into our room on Saturday, we trudged off to the sky tower. On the way we witnessed sky walkers taking a stroll around the tower, attached to a railing that ran around the outside of the building.







We arrived at the tower at around lunchtime, so we combined the two. We had our lunch at the tower revolving restaurant. It was a lovely lunch and kids enjoyed watching the hotel go by.

With lunch under out belts, we walked back along the waterfront to the hotel for a dip in the saltwater pool. Then pizza for supper and bed.

On sunday we got up earlier, with the time change the kids woke up at 6:20AM. We were off to the zoo by 9am (pizza for breakfast)

The zoo was absolutely fabulous, usually i feel bad for the animals in their pathetic enclosures but the Auckland zoo has the best facilities I have seen. The animals did not pace like they do in the Winnipeg Zoo! The Siamang gibbon was the highlight of the trip for me, they announce their presence to potential invaders by filling a frog-like membrane on their throats and hooting loudly! This was a real crowd pleaser.

After the zoo we took a trip the the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT), a collection of old vehicles, printing presses, telephones/radios. The kids had a good time in the printing press area, only runs on Sundays lucky for us! They came away with heaps of free paper products with their names printed on them.

That was such a busy day that when we got back to the hotel, we didn't even go to the pool! We all vegged out for about an hour and 45 minutes, then off to the water front for supper. We strolled along the waterfront with the kids climbing the stone railings as they saw some "free runners" doing the day before. We located a restaurant to the adult tastes and after seeing the food and listening to grumbling tummies, the kids gave in an ordered some fajitas to share...to their surprise they liked them! So after whining that there was nothing on the menu they wanted, they discovered something new that they could eat, hurray!!! Barriers being toppled everywhere.


So a leisurely stroll back to the hotel greeted us with the harbour lights and the sky tower a light with a blue neon glow, very nice.

The kids have had not much trouble getting to sleep at all, that's a blessing.

Our last day started off slower than the previous, it began with a phone call to the front desk to get a late checkout (privilege of a platinum member ) of 3:00pm. Then off to the pool for another swim. Once we had showered and changed we sauntered off to the ferry building and over to Devonport on the north shore of Auckland. Today lunch was taken on the north shore at a place called Platters, with a bit of different food on offer. The kids were able to order something other than chicken fingers ;) Good food on board we started up the road to Mount Victoria, an extinct volcanic cone that had military applications for protecting the harbour since the Maori people first arrived in New Zealand.


After trudging up....and I mean straight up, the 80 meter hill and enjoying the spectacular view, we headed down to the Devonport chocolate factory before catching the ferry back to checkout and return to Tauranga.

It was a very enjoyable weekend for all!










We now have $115 NZD donated for our Listen Up marathon.
Thanks to:
- Steph, Mike & Troy
- Danielle,Andy and McKayla
- Kat, Doug & Jack

Donate Here, thanks!