So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

Here we are, one weekend left before our New Zealand adventure draws to a close.  I can't even say 'where has the time gone' cuz I know exactly where it's gone - into the best adventure we could have chosen for ourselves.  We have thousands of pictures and memories and stories.  New Zealand will never be far from our hearts or thoughts. 

So, you can imagine that this past 3 weeks has been all about readying ourselves for the move home.  Every week we have sold various items from our house till all we are left with are the beds and our secondhand living room/dining room stuff.  The beds will be sold by Sunday and the Salvation Army are coming to pick up the unsellable stuff on Tuesday.  We officially move out to stay in a friend's flat on Sunday.  It's a long week this coming weekend (Queen's birthday) so we have 3 days to stuff every suitcase to the max and clean up the house for the next tennents. 

I was dead set on only dragging home 10 suitcases, having come with 12.  But this past weekend we cracked the seal on the 11th suitcase, despite all my best purging attempts.  Understand that I'm up against the sentmental black hole that is Don.  This is a man who has collapsed down the case that his favourity NZ beer comes in to transport it back home.  Did I ever really have a chance??

Don and Chris have been taking every opportunity to hit the ocean to reel in some big fishies.  I wish the weather would turn foul and pour down rain on us - it would make it easier to pull up stakes.  But no, the weekends have been bright and relatively calm, decent fishing weather.  Last weekend the 2 of them went out and came in with 17 snappers - fish that are about 30 cm long.  And of course this weekend Don hit gold, catching a King fish.  Chris was so determined that Don should catch one before he left the island and their determination allowed them to hunt down one of the crafty little devils.  This fish was about a metre long and left Don black and blue around his rib cage where the end of the fishing rod was dug in as he tried to fight it to the surface.  Anyways, I have seen and eaten enough fish to last me a good long time.  If it's not salmon, please don't try to feed it to me. 

I've been trying to make our last few days here special for the boys as well.  Connor for certain is very conflicted about leaving.  On his calendar, on the day we are due to fly out, he has written 'boo/yay'.  That pretty much sums it up for all of us actually.  They had a bowling party with a couple of friends on Sunday.  They only do 10 pin bowling here so it was pretty funny watching the kids lobe the ball down the alley.  It really did look, at times like they were going to follow it down.  On Friday the boys each took a specially designed cake to class to celebrate their last day at school.  I took them to a cake shop and had them design the cake they wanted to take.  Aidan's was a relatively painless exercise.  Connor took 2 hours and had a few creative differences with me (the person paying for said cake) but we eventually came to a comprimise.  I think the results look awesome eh?

Once we are home, back in Canada, we will be staying with willing(ish) friends and family for about 6 weeks until our new house is in our hands and has been renovated (read: new flooring and paint).  So those family members who are hosting us and said they have missed us will certainly have a chance to make up for our 18 month absence!  We plan on moving into the house during the August long weekend and we have a month to get settled until the boys start school.  I'll be starting my job on June 29th, so the boys will all be hanging around without me most of the time.  Lord knows what trouble they'll get up to. 

So, one would think that this will be the last blog of the McLeod family in NZ.  Lord, what a chapter of our lives!  Thanks for sharing our adventure with us.  I hope that we have inspired you to follow your own dream, whatever it is, whatever your age or situation in life.  I don't think you'll ever regret it.

Only 29 Days Left Now!!!

For some reason the posting on the blog site is not working, so I am posting via Email, not sure how the pictures will turn out.

 

Well here we are on May 10, the time is certainly flying by.  Only a couple of weekends left and we are on our way.  We are leaving the flooding here to return to flooding back home.  Hopefully we will be able to stay dry in our new house, like we have been able to here.

With time running out Victoria and I decided that we need to make one last trip to Wellington, however this time we did it without the kids.  They stayed next door at our friends(and neighbours) house playing Xbox with their kids, so not too much of a hardship for them.

We left Tauranga on Thursday morning at 9:30am and arrived in Wellington at 10:45.  Took the shuttle to the hotel which allowed us right into our room as no one had been in it the night before.  It is a lovely old property smack in the middle of downtown so we were able to walk everywhere we wanted.  The first day was spend walking downtown getting movie tickets and comedy tickets, before heading over to get picked up for the last LOTR tour in New Zealand. 

 

Our first stop was right next door to our hotel, the Embassy theatre where the premier for the third movie was held.  We got to see the seats that the cast purchased as fund raising to allow the premier to take place in NZ.  Then we spent almost 2 hours touring the locations around wellington before ending up at the Weta studios, a very non-descript set of warehouses in Miramar(suburb of Wellington built up after WWII).  Here we were taken to the “Weta Cave”, a small room at the end of the warehouse designed to keep tourists out of the hair of the employees who are hard at work.  Interesting video was shown, and a collectables shop which forced me to purchase some items!  We also had a chance to stop at the gates to the indoor sets that are being built for the Hobbit, and were used for LOTR. I go at picture of the Green Screen in the parking lot that was used for the last movie, before the security guard at the gate walked out and stood in front of us with his arms crossed looking very stern…too funny.

 

That night we did more shopping and went to “Source Code” at the theatre, good movie worth the viewing,  Directed by David Bowie’s son Duncan Jones (Formerly Zowie Bowie).  Friday morning was started off by breakfast at a little café on the  corner that server north American style food, including a bottomless cup of coffee for $4.00 (unheard of in NZ).  Then off we went to our 90 min couples massage at “The Body Tonic”.  This was delightful, but having never had a 90 min massage before it left both of us feeling very tired, so we gulped up a lot of water and headed back to the hotel to shower and rest up before the next bout of shopping.

 

We spent the rest of Friday bar hopping, including a piano bar where we sang along with the “piano man”,  and enjoying a standup act at a near by theatre that reminded us of the Pantages in Winnipeg.  The comedian was Greg Proops (Who’s line is it Anyway).  He was very funny and we both had sore cheeks after that one.  When the show was completed we walked in the rain back down the street to the “Bugy Extreme” location where we strapped ourselves into a chair and were shot up over the rooftops for a spectacular nighttime view of the downtown.  That was totally awesome!!

 

Saturday was the day where all the shopping we did paid off as we made our purchases and hauled them back to the hotel for our shuttle ride home.

 

Sunday was Mother’s day, with the rainy weather I had made two plans for each weather scenario.  Luckily we got to do the outdoor activities which started out with lunch at Breakers in Mt Maunganui, followed by a beach walk which the kids didn’t want to end(they never do.)  For the afternoon we headed to the Katikati bird sanctuary about 20km down the highway, where a cockatoo almost took a piece of my finger due to my trusting nature.(we made up eventually and I was able to feed him some food)  The we finished the day with dinner at the flying burrito brothers downtown, kids eat for $5 on Sundays J

 

All in all it was a very lovely 5 days and we all had a good time on Mother’s day as a family laughing and playing tag on the beach.

 

Well I guess that is all for now, there will be at least one more update before we say fair well to NZ.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Don

 

 

 

#End

59 days and counting

Yikes, the clock is winding down on our NZ adventure. Our hearts are so divided on this upcoming move. There is so much we will miss about NZ but Manitoba is home! And speaking of home, we bought one this week. Yep, sight unseen - save for about 2 minutes of video shot by one of Don's nieces, and about 10 pictures. We are back in the Charleswood area, as it's where
we are most familiar with and puts us in striking distance of lots of our family. We had compiled a list of 'wishes' when we started sending our forces out looking at houses, as one does when buying a new one, and I think we did quite well. We got a bungalow with huge family friendly basement, big kitchen, sunroom and attached garage. It's a dated house, with it's feet firmly planted in the 70's, but as our videographer said 'it's got great bones'. We will take possession in mid July, though we land at the beginning of June, so we will be couch surfing for a few weeks. So plans are definitely advancing!

In one of the weird quirks of fate, the day after we learned we had bought the house (up against 5 other offers!) my parents accompanied their friends into Winnipeg on a completely separate matter. And as they would, they decided to stop off to check out the outside of our new purchase. And wouldn't you know it, while they were idling at the curb, someone looked out the window of the house. Well, johnny on the spot, my dad was out of the car, up and steps, and introduced himself as the father of the woman who bought the house. So he, and everyone else, was invited to tour the premises. Only my parents!

With that major obstacle out of the way, we are definitely positioned to make the absolute most out of our remaining time here. About 4 wks ago I returned from my awesome 5 day road trip with my girlfriend Sharon. We headed up to the 'far north' of NZ, which is very different from Canada's far north - lots of warm, azure water, unbelievably twisty roads, sand dunes and a lighthouse at the end of the road, literally. We were blessed with incredible weather and though Sharon likely lost some years off her life with me in the drivers seat, we shared some awesome food and forged some great memories.

A little more recently, Don had the 'joy' of attending Connor's year 5/6 2 night camp. The multiple day camping trip is very much a facet of the kiwi educational system - much like it used to be for many of us growing up. It seems that kids go out every year starting in year 5, so this was Connor's second go around. The school called Don this year and asked him to come as there weren't enough parent volunteers. He rather felt obligated to go. He also now knows WHY there weren't enough volunteers. First of all it was rather like a forced labour camp for the parents. Up early, feeding and organizing and cleaning up after 90 kids and accompanying them on all the activities (lots and lots and lots of walking). The other reason was the kids themselves - a lot of them were not, shall we say, very positive in their attitudes. Don said the 'screw you' look in some of the kids' eyes was enough to make his hand twitch in his desire to slap it off. And the girls were just as horrible as the boys. The only bright spot was that Don got to see Connor interacting with his peers and with his very small group of friends, and realized that in spite of all Connor's challenges, he's a great kid and so are his friends. Don came back looking like a beaten and exhausted shadow of his former self and I'm still not convinced he's completely recovered. Connor described the whole experience as 'great'.

Last weekend we decided to throw all caution to the wind and attend the annual Balloon Fest night glow show over in Hamilton, which is about 90 minutes from us. It says a lot about the kiwi psyche regarding distance that many people asked if we would stay the night after the show was done at 9 pm. Ummm . . . no. Anyways, Balloon Fest is a huge event and we knew it would be thronged with people. What happens during the evening event is that about 13 or so balloons are inflated if a very small area when it's dark, and then they fire up to music, while tethered on the ground, for about 45 minutes. Quite lovely. About 80 000 were there with us! The best part of the whole evening was the brief but spectacular (Connor's word) fireworks show. It was so well timed to the music and lit up the whole sky. The kids had never been that close to fireworks before and we were all super impressed.

The weather here has been, for the most part, stunning. Clear skies, warm above 20 degree temps, yet fall is definitely in the air; very cool in the morning and the sun has that annoying and hard to drive with slant! Today we decided to take advantage of the continued great weather and we drove over to Rotorura and rented mountain bikes (well Don just loaded his into the van and brought it with us!) and we rode the biking paths thru their famous Redwood forest. It was heavenly. The kids and I were on our own for a bit while Don went off and enjoyed himself unfettered from the slowpokes that are the rest of the family, but he met up with us again and he and Connor set off at a break neck pace down some paths. Connor was definitely in his element, whooping it up as he zipped along behind his papa. Aidan however, is our risk adverse kid, and used the bottom of his shoes a lot to brake his way down the smallest of inclines. My major challenge was to not run into the back of him as he stopped, yet again, to walk his way up or down a hill. I think everyone, besides Don, ended up with a serious case of bicycle bum - but the kids have asked to go again, so it was definitely a hit.

Tomorrow we will be endeavoring to fill up the suitcases a little more - yes the suitcases HAVE come out! We are slowing starting to sell of bits and pieces that we don't need, hoping to simplify things as our time here draws to a close. The next big plan that we have is for Don and I to head out to Wellington the first weekend in May, sans children, to enjoy the sites and sounds of that city on our own.

We think of you all and are excited to know that we will be with you soon to enjoy some summer drinks around the bbq!!

love the McLeods

March Already!!

Well summer has flown by and the kids are almost half done their first term of the new school year.  They finish term one in the middle of April. The last update was a month ago, so you would think that we have a lot of updating to do.... However, we were still recovering financially from our big splash-out south island trip, so we took it easy for most of the month.

Our next visitor is in town, Sharon arrived on the 16th or so of February.  She spent her first week on a bus tour of the north island, and this week just hanging about relaxing and shopping down town.  This past weekend we drove down to Napier with Sharon and did the tourist thing.  We unloaded at our rental place, and then strolled the streets until we stopped at Lonestar for supper.

 Napier is one of two "best preserved" Art Deco cities in the world, the other being South Beach Miami.  In 1931 a major earthquake struck the city and destroyed many of the buildings. When they rebuilt the restored most of the buildings to their original design and it has been a major tourist attraction ever since.  I can only hope that Christchurch is able to recover in such a fashion.

We had a great time in Napier, and also in Hastings, the sister city just down the road.  We spent 5 hours at splash planet water park.  This was our gift for Connor's birthday in lieu of another thing to transport home with us. It was a bit of a cool day so there was limited splashing done on our part, most of the wet activity was focused on the heated indoor pool/slide.  There were plenty of dry activities too! We raced in go carts, Connor had a blast, as did the adults I reckon.  Aidan reserved his driving for the slower "jungle carts" but was a professional jeep driver by the end.  There was mini-golf as well.  All of this keep us busy for the day and the prices weren't that bad.

 After splash planet we returned to Napier and strolled along the marine parade for a while before heading back to Lonestar restaurant for dinner.  The kids enjoyed the place and they had different colouring sheets than the normal, done in 5 seconds (for older kids).  They were given markers, not crayons and went to town on their art both nights.  On Saturday night they were even awarded T-shirts as the hostess recognized us from both nights and saw all the hard work the boys put into their art.

 Sunday was sunnier so we headed back to sight seeing, and the boys took in a skate park that had rentals, while the girls went shopping.

The boys stood and watched for a while unsure if they were ready to brave the fast moving action in the park.  It was the sight of a little girl on her pink scooter who must have been all of 4, zipping around the park without a care in the world that made their decision for them.  We were there for almost 2 hours and this girl was out most of the time only being knocked down once.  She barely even noticed, picked her scooter up and kept on trucking.

In the end that had an awesome time and really enjoyed the park.  We then proceeded to a new restaurant for lunch before making the 4+ hour journey back to Tauranga.

With June fast approaching, we are in scramble mode to complete our bucket list before we pack up and head back to the great white north.  Hardest of all will be leaving the wonderful friends we have living right next door to us, it will be emotional parting to say the least. The right decision is not always the easiest, and the easiest decision not the right one.
:(

Another month gone!

Yep, January seems to be officially toast.  We are officially on the last weekend which for us is a long weekend here in NZ.  And marvels of marvels, the weather may actually be worthy of such a treat.  Last night we had the remains of a cyclone pass over the area and we had rain.  That's a bit of an understatement actually, cuz if that was the tail end of a weakened cyclone, then I can assure you I don't want to be anywhere around a full strength one.  The rain started at about 5 pm last night but really picked up the pace by 11.  It was like a bucket was being upended over us.  By 4 am the kids were in our room complaining that the sound and strength of the wind and rain had woken them up.  The noise really was quite something.  But this morning we have awoken to blue skies, warm temps, and a very brisk wind.  The rain and wind were so intense that it actually blew rain between the roof tiles and dripped into our living room.  But all's well now - the wind is due to die down but the sun will stay and trips the the beach will be the order of the day tomorrow I think.  We haven't had it nearly as bad as Australia but we sure have had 2 intense weekends in a row now so there is lots of flooding and road closures even in our neck of the woods.

After a multitude of adventures, day trips and miles around NZ, my parents have returned back to their home in Manitoba.  10 weeks is a long time to live in someone else's (very small house), living with their schedules and whims and my parents really did it beautifully.  I'm quite sure they collapsed in their house upon their return and vowed not to leave it for a good long time!  On the last weekend they were here I had rented a house for us all in the Coramandels, which is one of the most gorgeous places in all of NZ (which is saying something) and is only 3 hours north of us.  The drive up there is not for the faint of heart as the roads are wretchedly windy and tortuously narrow in places, however the reward is well worth the drive!  I wanted them to experience the beauty of the area, but mother nature had other plans and cursed us with rain for most of that trip.  We did manage to get some site seeing down on the Saturday, when we visited a nifty little amusement park called 'Waterworld' (and no, it was not related to the movie of the same name) and a narrow gauge railway up to the top of a hill. 

Waterworld was a real fan favourite as it is, funnily enough, all about water, which is used to do funny/ingenious things in the very rural and rustic park setting.  Lots of ops to get wet and play around.  No electricity is used to run any of the stuff and lots of the attractions are made using recycled materials.  They had a playground that was tremendous.  Highlights included the human hamster wheel and the 'E.T.' bikes.  The railway is the creation of an area potter who originally built the first bit of track to bring down clay for his crafts and wood for his fire.  But then he went higher and higher/longer and longer so that over the course of more than 30 years he has built a narrow gauge track that extends more than 5 kms, built 5 tunnels and 3 bridges up to the 'Eye-ful' tower.  It's really lovely stuff.

The most wonderful time of the year is on Feb. 2nd for Don and I.  The kids start back to a new school year after 2 months off.  The brilliance of the NZ school system is that you can buy the kids' stationary pack from the school so you don't even have to go school supply shopping!  And as long as long as your kid hasn't changed schools or grown, they can even wear the same uniforms, so no clothes shopping.  And even bigger bonus, no shoes required (even PE is done in bare feet around here)!  All our kids have to do is to show up, and believe me, Don will have them waiting at the school gates at 8:30. 

Our kids have had a pretty low key January, happily spending hours in front of the xbox, either here or at the neighbor's place.  We forced them to participate at a Y camp for 3 days just to give Don a sanity break and for them to relearn what the outdoors looks like.  With grandpa here they ate an ice cream about every 2nd day, so their middles might be a little thicker than pre-holidays, but then with the amount of drinking the adults did I don't think I should be pointing any fingers.

On one of the final weekends they were here, my mom made some Canadian food, including some lovely perogies and I did some pumpkin pie, and we fed up our neighbors.  I do believe we have converted more souls to the wonders of our national foods :)

Up next in our lives, we are expecting my friend Sharon in mid February for a 3 week visit.  While she's here we are all going to make our way down to Napier in West Coast winery region for a weekend and then Sharon and I are going to have a girls' getaway, driving up to the Bay of Islands, which is in the far north of NZ, for 5 days.  So still more adventures coming our way!

I hope all of you are somehow enjoying your winter months, skating or skiing or even making a snow angel or two. 

much love,

the McLeods

Happy New Year!

Hello all, I hope you had a great Christmas.  We had our Charlie Brown tree set up, no lights though as it's always so bright you couldn't see them anyways.  Christmas morning was fast and pleasant, everyone enjoyed their gifts and the excitement was high.  Connor got his own digital camera and Aidan got a DSI.  We were planning on going to the beach Christmas day after going for brunch at a co-worker of Victoria's, but the afternoon turned out rainy.

There was a trip to the petting zoo at McClaren falls, Connor's first outing with his new camera. So these are pictures Connor took.

On the 30th we dumped the kids at the neighbours and headed back to Wiatomo to do some black water rafting....basically tubing through a cave.  Oddly enough we met another Canadian tour guide on our adventure.  It seems that the tour guides in this country are heavy on the Canadian content. Here we are before the trip feeling a little sausage-like!   The water in the cave was cold, not sure how cold but outside the cave it's 11C.  We had a good time leaping backwards from waterfalls with a tube stuck on our butts, clambering along the rocks over some rough areas, and floating to the exit in the dark.  Shirley took the Glow worm walking tour and enjoyed herself as well.

New Year's eve was a fireworks spectacular, it took us over an hour to let off our large box, it was a lot of fun and we had the best display in the neighbourhood! Prior to the xplosives we had dinner in Chris's new wood oven in the back yard.  Lots of yummy lamb and veggies.
New Year's day was a beach day, it was Packed!! I have never seen that many people on the beach.  Christmas is the start of the summer holidays for everyone, with The kids done school until Feb 2nd.  I imagine that if you saw the beach from the air, it would be a solid strip of people from Papamoa to Mount Maunganui... a distance of 12KM!  It was interesting to see the "tents" on the beach, coleman makes a beach shelter?  There were some pretty elaborate setups.

On the 3rd we headed up to Auckland to show Lloyd and Shirley the zoo and the skytower.