Tramping in Wellington

If walking (or "tramping") is your thing, then Wellington is a pretty perfect place to live in. There are bush reserves, coastal tracks, heritage trails and mountain walks all around the city.

Over the last 18 months we’ve become regular users of some of these tracks and trails, but we have been a little guilty of using and re-using the same few favourite tracks.

So this week, Alfie and I decided to explore some new ones.

We looked through the website www.tracks.org.nz and chose the Piwakawaka Track because....well honestly? Just because we thought the name sounded cool!*

It starts off as a pretty easy walk along a well maintained track which climbs up gently to an open area where there's a big water tank and some other equipment (for weather monitoring??). Alfie thought this was the coolest thing ever and asked lots of questions - how does the water get in, how does it get out, what's it for, etc - although unfortunately I couldn't answer a single one of his questions! (If anyone can help me out here, please feel free to provide information in the comments field below!)

Lucky the track was good as the little guy decided it was generally far more fun to be piggy-backed up it instead of using his legs. I got a good work out, but I'm not used to carrying 20 kgs on my back and  I collapsed in a heap at the top.

The views from the top were awesome and we spent a long time poking around looking at the city, the Westpac Stadium, the airport, Mount KauKau and Matiu Somes Island. I'd brought a flask of coffee with me and just as I thought to myself what a great spot it would be sit down and enjoy it, Alfie found the next part of the track - some downward steps and decided it was time to shoot off down them.

It didn't take me long to realise that lots of steps down means lots of steps back up again on the return journey - most likely with 20 kgs on my back. So we didn't go much further, and Alfie was forced to use his legs for the rest of the walk as it was mostly downhill. I'd love to do a bit more of the track though, so will have to train him better for next time - or develop my own muscles a bit more!

* The word "piwakawaka" is the Maori word for the New Zealand fantail bird. 

The last couple of weeks...

Part of my job is to ghost-write a weekly newspaper column about marketing and technology, and in the process of my research for an article this week I discovered that the first message ever sent over the internet (back in the 60’s) was “LOG”. It was in fact meant to read “LOGIN” but the computer system crashed before it was completed.

This really summed things up for me about working in my field as an online marketer, as I had just lost a whole section of a really important report I’d been writing when my laptop decided it didn’t really like working so hard and shut down. Grrrr! I was grateful that the sun was shining so I put things on hold and went for a big run to de-stress. (OK, it was actually only a 31 minute walk-run but a "big run" sounds so much better!) 

The last couple of weeks have involved a lot of very hard work by me and my laptop, and some late nights. 

But they’ve been a good couple of weeks, full of sunshine and happy times with the kids as well. The good weather means the car’s been left in the garage a lot and the scooters are being put to good use...

After school we’ve had lots of time relaxing in the garden (and sometimes not so relaxing). And on our “hanging out days” Alfie and I have enjoyed several lazy morning take-out coffees/fluffies in the park followed by a bit of pottering about in the stream getting muddy.

Alfie’s started tennis lessons this term and I must say he seems to be extremely good at it, he's a sporty little thing. A small class of just three boys means he gets plenty of attention from the coach and plenty of turns hitting the ball. 

Molly continues to practice dancing all the time, everywhere she goes. She's happy but is starting to get that "end of the school year syndrome" where she's extremely tired and is definitely in need of the long summer holidays (only 6 weeks to go now).  

Oh – and she's also made herself some pretend boobs. 

Work-Life Balance - and a lot of dancing

It’s been a big week for our little girl. On Thursday morning she took her Grade 1 ballet exam, which is a huge deal and a massive achievement for a six year old (well, I think so anyway!)

The level of emotion, excitement and hype in the dressing room beforehand was enough to make any adult burst into sobs, so I wasn’t surprised when Molly’s eyes welled up in panic tears a moment before she was due to go into the exam studio. 

But she managed to compose herself again a few seconds later, went on to do her exam successfully and came back out again smiling and giggling.

The hairstyle (using 75 hair clips, 6 hair bands, two hair nets, a tub of gel and half a can of hairspray) remained in place for the rest of the day as she wanted to show it off at school in the afternoon, and was kept in place until Jake came home from work at 7pm.

The next evening was followed by more dancing at the school Halloween Disco. I don’t remember going to any discos until I was at intermediate school, aged about 10. But these days they start them early and Molly’s been to about 4 or 5 already. I’m still not entirely sure that the playlist was completely appropriate for her age group (eg I’m Sexy and I Know It – but luckily Molly has interpreted the lyrics as I’m Sixteen and I Know It), and it’s crazy to watch the kids dancing and singing along to all the pop songs, word perfect.

The disco was preceeded by a “getting ready party” at her friend’s house where six girls squealed and shrieked for a couple of hours while they put their outfits and make up on, and was followed afterwards by a sleepover at her friend's house where I believe four girls squealed and shrieked until 10.20pm. They got up this morning at 5.30am – therefore Molly is a bit of a mess today! 

Meanwhile, I have taken on a number of extra freelancing projects lately which means I’m going to be working full time, 40 hours a week, for the next 3 weeks or so. Yikes!

I know, I know, people do it all the time. But Alfie’s only at pre-school for 15 hours a week and this is where the plan falls short. In order to fit the work in I will need to drop some other stuff out of my life for a while, eg cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, paperwork, school drop offs and pick ups, and taxi-ing to and from the kids activities. And house hunting? Ha ha, that’s not going to happen any time soon! I guess I also need to strike off the list zumba, coffee/cafes, playing the piano, walking up the mountain, reading, blogging and anything else that usually makes my life fun! 

Alternatively I could just reduce my sleep time down to 3.5 hours per night. I can handle that for a month, surely? Wish me luck... 

We ♥ Auckland (and Wellington too)

We love our new home town of Wellington. The size of the city suits us, its facilities are great, the people are awesome, the setting amongst the mountains and beach is stunning...and our list goes on and on.

But we do often miss our old home on Auckland’s North Shore. We miss the lifestyle and the people. So we’ve been talking and dreaming about a visit there for months now and have been keeping an eye out for low air fares. When a local bank ran a competition recently and Jake won $150, we put this question to our kids:  shall we buy new toys or shall we buy flights to Auckland. Phew – they chose Auckland!

So we made our trip last week. After we got over the initial shock of arriving in such a big city (no sarcasm intended here – Auckland may be a city of “just” 1.4 million, but in New Zealand terms that’s pretty massive and no other city in NZ comes close to that sized population. Not to mention the fact that our homes for the last 5 years have been in tiny, remote communities in other countries. So anyway, traffic, crowds of people larger than 1000 in one place, and lots of skyscrapers are a little out of the ordinary for us these days).

Anyway, after the first hour, we all settled right back into it, and enjoyed 4 days of re-visiting old haunts. Our old beach. Our old playpark. Our old house. Our old friends. Our old high street. Our old cafes. Our old walking routes. Molly didn't remember much from her early years, but the kids both loved it and we certainly packed a lot in and wore them out! It was just like old times, and surprisingly hard to leave at the end. 

After numerous debates about if and when we should move back up to Auckland one day, we were starting to feel quite confused. So when we flew back into Wellington yesterday I think Jake and I both felt some degree of relief when the scenes from the aeroplane windows began to fill our hearts up with that lovely feeling of being "home". Although this does all leave us in the slightly odd position of not really understanding where home is anymore...  

Food Additives

Our friends from Auckland have been staying with us for the last 6 days. They have two children, roughly the same age as ours, so with four under sixes in the house you can imagine how our days could have revolved around mealtimes, snacktimes, hunger, etc.

However, our friend’s little boy has a number of food intolerances, mainly surrounding additives like preservatives and artificial colours and flavours. So our food choices had to be made very carefully.

We're not a family who usually has great stocks of chippies (crisps to you English readers!), burgers, sugary drinks and such like in our cupboards. Although we do normally stock up on a few treats when we've got visitors coming! But anyway, I thought we'd be fine serving up most things we normally eat. 

With the help of my friend, I went through our fridge and cupboards and pulled out everything that had these additives in them and I was fairly gobsmacked to find how much I had underestimated our consumption of food additives.

Vegemite, hummus, pesto, rice crackers, gravy powder, tortilla wraps, ham, dried apricots, mustard, sausages, margarine – all our staple foods had to go!

(Ironically, our sugary strawberry jam and our stash of chocolate were free of additives and ok to stay!)

The need for our food to taste more sophisticated, look more pretty and keep fresh for longer is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s only really arisen in the last 50 years, but it seems to have skyrocketed in the last decade or two. Thousands of additives have become so normal and commonplace in our lives that we very often don’t even realise they’re there. The food industry is a fairly profitable one, and is using these chemicals to keep costs down and sales up, but I just wonder at what cost to our health?

Anyway, the consequence is that our kids have pretty much been on a detox for the last 6 days! I can’t promise that we’ll be able to remove all additives from our diet from now on with immediate effect (as that would mean an awful lot of our food supplies would need to be thrown out), but I’ll certainly be checking my food labels a lot more from now on.

The Wairarapa

It’s school holidays again, already! (Where did that last term go?)

We kicked things off this time with a few days holiday in the Wairarapa, a beautiful region north-east of Wellington which is famous for its vineyards, farming and wild coastline. For a change, we’d decided not to stay at a beach house this time, but chose to stay on the most delightful farm about half an hour inland from the coast - we had a little tin & wood cottage next to the farmhouse, very basic, but just perfect for us. 

On arrival, the kids belted out of the car and just ran and ran for hours around the farm, while Jake lay down on the sofa and read the paper and I tried to explore a bit. Unfortunately I didn't get very far as I was bullied by 3 large cows who blocked my pathway and gave me evil menacing stares, as if they were daring me to walk any further. I chose not to risk my life and returned to the cottage where I found the kids still running around (now caked in thick mud) and Jake still on the sofa (now playing games on his iPhone). 

By day 2 we were well and truly into the swing of things. The kids were now proudly responsible for feeding the farm's pet lamb 3 times a day and checking the chicken pen for fresh eggs,  and had both decided they wanted to remain on the farm for ever and never go home again.

But I persuaded everyone to explore a bit more and we managed to get down to the river, where we found the biggest pile of driftwood and set about making a teepee, digging mini rivers, and having stick throwing competitions. 

Meanwhile back at the farm we all completely and utterly enjoyed the feeling of being away from everything, with no phones, no internet and no TV. We played tennis, walked around the farm collecting big bags of pine cones, had pine cone throwing competitions (!), read books, drew pictures, and had plenty of very much needed sleep. 

The Wairarapa is an extremely beautiful and wild part of New Zealand and we feel very lucky to be living so close to it. In fact, much as we love our home city, we found it very difficult to return to Wellington - Molly in particular was in tears when she had to say goodbye to "Lamb Lamb" (named by the farmer's 2 year old Grandson, not by us!).

It was a great trip - big thanks to Karen & Clayton at the farm for making us feel so welcome! Next I need to plan loads of distractions for the rest of the holidays to take the kids' minds off their dearly missed animal friends!

Wellington's Best Playparks

I was planning to have a lazy start to the weekend this morning but having already been up for over 3 hours (and it’s still only 9am), the kids are getting restless and have come up with a grand plan for a “Playpark Tour”. Apparently we’re scheduling 84 of them in today.

Our whole family have invested a considerable amount of time at Wellington’s playparks over the last 18 months, so I thought I would put together a list of our favourites.

Wellington has 104 playparks so children are definitely very well catered for here! Most of them are pretty excellent, which makes choosing a top five list very difficult indeed and we have certainly left some good ones off this list.

But, in no particular order, here are our personal, all-time family favourites:

1.      Khandallah Park 

The flying fox here is a huge hit for our kids, as is the very long slide (which is frequently covered in bird poo, leading to very dirty bottoms and legs). The muddy stream is another drawcard and has also been responsible for many extra hours of laundry.

2.   Waitangi Park 

Also known as the “science park” in our family, on account of its water play area which allows for endless hours of “experiments”. Also, for some strange reason, every single time we go to Waitangi Park, we always bump into someone we know. The kids think it’s a guaranteed source of finding friends.

3.       Karori Park 

Mysteriously, it always turns out to be sunny when we go to Karori Park. It doesn’t matter what the weather’s like when we set out – by the time we reach Karori Park it’s cricket weather. We love this one for its 1km circuit path – it’s the best place to take bikes and scooters.

4.       Nairnville Park

A year ago Molly was stung by a bee here and it took us a wee while to get her back again as she was convinced the bee would still be sitting on the dandelion waiting for her. The long tunnel slide here is brilliant, as is the helicopter shaped climbing frame. So long as it’s not a windy day, this is an awesome spot.

5.       Frank Kitts Park

You just can’t beat ambling around Wellington waterfront on a sunny weekend, and we always end up spending a while at Frank Kitts Park. The kids can’t get enough of the big lighthouse slide, and are clever enough to have worked out that there’s always an ice cream van nearby too! 

Having finished this post, I better go and get my gear ready for our "Tour" now! 

September...

September in Wellington has been full of sunshine – and also some serious heavy rain, hail and gale force winds! But we’ve had a great month of playing outside whatever the weather.

We've had lots of very cool visitors this month from all corners of the world - Kevin, Hayden, Mark, Dan, Mark again, Tracey, Anton, Leigh-Anne, Debs - it's been brilliant to see you all! 

Other than that Alfie and I continue to enjoy our days off together, doing swimming and gymnastics, catching up with friends, exploring and playing and making things. 

We're on a mission to visit a new and/or different playpark every week at the moment and we're doing quite well. I'm happy so long as the sun's out and I have a flask of coffee and Alfie's happy so long as there's something to climb, something to hang upside down from, and something to jump off. 

This month however, we’ve often had to wearily plod through our days very slowly due to Alfie’s ongoing battles with eczema and nightmares which have been keeping us all up alot at night.

The eczema has involved countless trips to the doctor, a bucket load of creams and steroids, antibiotics (three doses in the last month), and we still can’t clear it up. 

On the plus side, we have turned a corner with the taniwha & monster nightmares by making our very own dream catcher. It took us an entire day to shop for the parts and put it all together, but Alfie came up with the fabulous idea of putting a plastic eye in the middle (to look out for the bad dreams) and 4 small round mirrors inside so that when the bad dreams are caught, they see themselves and get scared and run away (!).

Now we've come out the other side of winter, Molly and Alfie are both spending most of their after school hours in the garden, blowing bubbles, playing on the swings, collecting bugs and leaves, and perfecting their swing tennis techniques. The house we live in is great because I have a perfect view from the kitchen window while I cook dinner - and it's not far to run when I have to break up yet another fight over who broke the swing tennis rules! 

Molly’s school have been really busy this month studying film/drama. Every single class has made a short movie (Molly’s class did “Snow White and the 15 Dwarfs”) complete with casting, storyboards, acting and editing, and culminating with a movie premiere in town. A real cinema was hired, they all dressed up and walked up the red carpet and the movies were shown on the big screen. Lots of fun and excitement all round.

Meanwhile Jake has spent over 50% of this month on various holidays, oops sorry I mean business trips around the country, and we are all missing him a lot. 

Other than that, we're very focussed now on house hunting in every spare minute we get, and have been encouraged by all the new listings suddenly appearing now it's Spring. We have our eye on one in particular - but unfortunately we know that a few other people do as well! Still, there are lots of very lovely properties coming up at the moment so we are hoping we'll have some good news soon.  

The Day We Met The All Blacks

There aren’t many people out there who haven’t already heard all about the amazing weekend we’ve just had with the All Blacks. But it’s got to go down on this blog anyway!

Last week, I entered an online competition with Air New Zealand. I wasn’t really expecting to win – but on Wednesday afternoon I got a phone call from a lovely guy at Air NZ who began to tell me the good news while I was trying to restrain Alfie, who was attempting to eat the entire food cupboard right before his dinner.

The Air NZ man was very patient with me, even though my conversation jumped backwards and forwards between him and Alfie, but he basically told me we’d be going to the rugby on Saturday and meeting the All Blacks on Sunday!

Our prize started off on Saturday night with four tickets to the All Blacks v Argentina game at the Westpac Stadium. It was the kids’ first time at the rugby and quite a poignant game for us (considering Alfie’s place of birth).

We managed to persuade him out of his favourite Argentina soccer shirt for the night (disclaimer: he is too young to understand the politics and only likes it because he likes the yellow sun on their flag) and into a lot of warm, waterproof layers. 

New Zealand's spring weather is renowned for being quite  unpredictable: for the last couple of weeks we’ve been basking in sunshine, but all of a sudden this weekend a violent storm came crashing in with winds of up to 140kph and torrential rain. Not the best weather for the players to give their best, but Air NZ came up with brilliant seats for us and we were some of the lucky ones under cover, protected from the worst of it.

However a surprise power cut half way through the game put the stadium into darkness for a few minutes, and had Alfie completely spooked and wanting to go home.

Meanwhile Molly surprised us by fully embracing the game, chanting “All Blacks clap clap clap...” at the top of her voice, enthusiastically joining in the Mexican waves, and giving out an almighty scream when Cory Jane scored a try (my ears are still ringing).

Anyway, after a very late night and a bit of a lie-in the next morning we got ready to go and meet the team! 

Excitement would be an understatement! The kids spent AGES choosing a pretty dress for Molly to wear and then spiking Alfie’s hair up so that it matched Richie McCaw’s! (They used up so much hair gel that it's still not all out, 3 showers and one swimming lesson later!)

When we were finally introduced to the team, I had to try extremely hard not to become like the man in the Mastercard advert and I forced myself to act dignified and restrained when I shook hands with Dan Carter and Richie! (I think I managed ok, but my heart nearly stopped!) 

We then got on the plane and flew down to Dunedin with the team! After a very shy start, Molly and Alfie took a great shining to Israel Dagg and Ben Smith and regaled them with tales of gymnastics and school and DS games and Barbie dolls and other such important stuff.  

Anyway, a huge thank you to Air NZ and the All Blacks. You've given two children some amazing memories (and for me and Jake too!). We had a great time at the game, and you guys were awesome on Sunday as well. Can we do it again soon please?! 

You Know You Have Young Children In The House When...

• The laundry basket is constantly overflowing. The washing machine is on every day. The job is never finished.
  
• Your best, most expensive, high heeled shoes only come out when your daughter has friends round and they decide to play dress-ups with them.
  
• You realise you haven’t worn nice clothes or high heels for several years (with the exception of our wedding last February).In fact you pretty much live in trainers or gum boots now, and it’s a truly exciting day when the ballet flats or boots come out of the wardrobe.
  
• The same goes for handbags. I used to have heaps of pretty handbags. Now I carry a humungous sack like thing filled with spare clothes, water bottles, snacks, more snacks, tissues, toys, a toilet roll, etc, etc. 
•  Your kitchen cupboards are full of fruit roll-ups, little boxes of raisins and kid-sized packs of crackers & cheese dip, six different bottles of food colouring, and a truckload of different varieties of cake decorations and sprinkles. I never had this stuff BK (before kids), and can think of plenty of better things I’d prefer to fill the cupboards up with!
• Your toothpaste tube has a permanently congealed, sticky blob of toothpaste at the top. 
• You realise you are probably playing a key role in keeping New Zealand’s dairy farmers in business (we go through 6 litres of milk and who knows how much cheese and yoghurt each week). 
• The kitchen floor is NEVER clean, despite sweeping and mopping several times a day.
•  If you want a relaxing bath you have to clear a trillion toys, water bottles, bubble makers, funnels, etc out of the way first. 
• You can’t remember the last time you went to the toilet on your own. 

This is what real life is like in our household. But it's worth it of course, because they are gorgeous!!! 

“We’re Going On A Bug Hunt and We’re Not Scared...”

"Uh Oh....A Weta Hole!" 

Alfie and I went on a bug hunt today!

Thanks to the help of a very lovely gardener at Otari Wilton Bush we learnt all about how to recognise Mahoe (Whitey Wood) trees and how to spot weta holes in them.

Alfie of course thought this was a fantastic activity and spent the best part of two hours searching for weta holes, all the while hoping very hard that he’d find a real weta. 

Thankfully we saw none. Alfie was gutted but I was secretly relieved as wetas actually scare me more than the Redback spiders we used to find in Alice Springs!

However, we did forage around in the mulch and mud a lot, looking for fungi and little bugs and worms, and we managed to collect a number of fallen fern leaves and a dead caterpillar (all of which were returned to the bush when we left). We had endless games of Pooh Sticks on the bridges across the stream and managed to complete one of the walking tracks with almost no complaining from Alfie. 

It's a bit of a secret little corner of Wellington, but Wilton Bush is starting to become one of our favourite places in Wellington: it has amazing plants and trees, heaps of native birds, barbeque areas, good walking tracks - and lots of bugs! 

Countdown to Spring

The winter weather is just about hanging in there - we’ve just had a very blustery few days – but we’re all very aware now that Spring is just around the corner now (just a week away, officially).

I recently managed to win meal for two at one of our favourite south coast cafes (The Bach Cafe), so we went for a very luxurious, cozy Sunday lunch yesterday, and then spent the rest of the afternoon at Lyall Bay, where the beach was empty and the waves crashed in and the wind blew sand in our eyes and we were reminded a little of the old days at Surf Bay...

But it’s almost September, the daffodils and hyacinths are out in the garden and the evenings are lighter for longer. Molly is as busy as ever and Alfie is permanently outside on the deck with the hosepipe and a large bucket of water. 

Meanwhile, Spring being so near means house hunting season is about to begin again. During the winter hardly any new houses are put on the market, with people preferring to sell during the drier, sunnier months when their homes look more appealing. Not that it's stopped us: since March I've viewed 64 houses (with my 65th viewing due tomorrow). 

This is our 3^rd time purchasing a house but it’s proving to be the most difficult. Perhaps it’s because we’ve become more fussy over the years, and there are now 4 people’s needs to consider (both our previous house purchases were made pre-children).

Or perhaps it’s just Wellington’s unique market. Wellington is a small city so there’s not as much choice (our previous homes were bought in Auckland and London). Only a handful of suitable houses are listed each month. 

Each property is individual and unique so it’s hard to compare prices – unlike London where there were whole streets (if not entire suburbs) full of terraced Victorian flat conversions, all identical and all similarly priced. In fact more often than not there is no price here - auctions and tenders are popular selling methods instead.

And just to make things super tricky there’s the city’s topography to consider. So many houses here are on the wrong side of the mountain or road and hardly see the sun, and it's so difficult to tell which houses they are when you're on a 15 minute viewing.  Thank goodness for iPhone apps: we're using a great one which tells us exactly where the sun rises and sets in relation to the property we're looking at. 

We're all looking forward to the day when we can move. There's certain things you can't do in rental accommodation. The kids are desperate to plant strawberries and get a pet. I am desperate to buy new furniture and hang our paintings up, and Jake is just desperate to stop paying rent / somebody else's mortgage. 

Wish us luck - it's got to happen soon! 

Working Hard (well, some of us are!)

We sometimes go through periods when Molly has quite a significant level of homework (for a 6 year old, anyway) to fit into a regular week. This term we're having one of those periods.

Once you factor in a couple of after school activities and some rest time, plus allow a bit of time for playdates, it starts to become a real challenge to fit in all the spelling, writing, reading and news preparation each week.

(Especially when you have an attention-demanding 4 year old in the house whose main goal in life is to distract his sister).

Last week's news topic was to perform a song or a dance for the class and Molly spent roughly 3 or 4 hours - at least! - practising in total. 

This was mainly due to the fact that she kept changing her mind about what to do. After starting off the week by learning the dance to "Hoedown Showdown" from Hannah Montana she decided it was too fast and after a lot of frustration on her (and my) part she then changed the plan to choreographing and rehearsing a dance to "Everybody Walk The Dinosaur". 

Then, at the eleventh hour when she realised how hard it was to keep in time to the music for that one, she broke down in tears and eventually decided to sing "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars instead. Which involved a lot of time learning all the words. 

Thank goodness this week's news topic is simply to talk about your two favourite places in Wellington - although currently Molly has a list of eight places to talk about so I'm expecting more dramas over the next few days. 

(For the record, these are: Makara Beach, Nairnville Park, scootering on the waterfront, the Sunday food markets, The Beehive, Frank Kitts Underground Market, Te Papa Museum and Raumati Beach). 

Meanwhile I am loving the fact that we’ve now got WiFi in the house so I can finally move my workspace out of our small, dark, cold, uninspiring study and mix it up around the house instead. I work so much better when I have natural light, warmth and big windows near me. I have some lovely clients at the moment and I’m sure they’re benefiting from my moves!

But when it comes to mixing up your working environment Jake definitely wins the family prize. His job frequently seems to involve hardly any time sitting behind a desk in the office and plenty of time outdoors instead doing the kind of stuff the rest of us can only dream of. 

His last few months at work have included helicoptering around the mountains in the South Island, hiking three of the famous "Great Walks", a total immersion week on a Marae learning the Maori language and protocol, attending team meetings at the Monkey House in Wellington Zoo .... and more. I won't go on, except to say that the rest of the family are insanely jealous! 

A very special corner of Wellington

And THIS is why Wellington is such a lovely capital city.

Makara Beach. Where else in the world could you find somewhere quite so special, and so rural and remote right in the heart of a capital city? 

Makara Beach is a tiny suburb in a rugged and wild patch of Wellington, right on the shore of the Tasman Sea. 


It's not a long drive to get there, but literally within 5 or 10 minutes of leaving our house you feel about as far away from a big city as it's possible to feel. 


The drive winds through farmland and valleys, with fields of cows, horses, ducks and of course the lovely native pukekos...until eventually you get to the very end of the road and see this:


Just stunning!


There's a spectacular 6km walking track at Makara which takes you up and over the clifftops, past an old Maori pa site and some old WWII gun emplacements. 


However, after a late night on Saturday night we were all feeling quite sleepy (and full of colds) yesterday so we decided to take it easy. 


A sunny day spent rock-pooling down by the sea was just what the doctor ordered!  We wandered around the shoreline, clambered up and down rocks and boulders, collected crabs and water snails, pebbles and paua shells in our buckets and took turns snoozing in the sun. 

And when we'd finished, we went for hot chocolates & ice creams at the local cafe, the perfect way to end a day at the beach! 

Winter Sun

July has been ticking along rather nicely here in Wellington, with a blast of what could almost be described as summer weather in the middle of winter to keep us going. We’ve had plenty of sunshine, and even a few afternoons where no jackets have been required!

We all love being outdoors, and the sunshine has allowed the kids plenty of playpark time, me plenty of mountain & walking time and Jake plenty of cycling & running time (although still probably not as much as he’d like!)

I’ll never tire of the views around our suburb – even just walking around the streets it’s breathtaking, and it’s even better from the nearby mountains. I went for a hike early this morning hoping to see snow on the South Island mountain tops in the distance, but there was none. Just blue and  green as far as the eye could see. 

In the meantime, Molly has been a very busy performer this month. The school choir (which she's in) did a performance at Assembly last week (they performed Kiwi classic "Six Months in a Leaky Boat", very cute). And next week her class are doing a singing assembly too so she will be performing again - although this time there are no Kiwi classics and I suspect a Bruno Mars track might be making an appearance but we'll see. Not only that but she's still in the Kapa Haka group and practises with them every Thursday - and if that's not enough, ballet has stepped up a notch as she'll be taking her Grade 1 soon, so there's lots of Hungarian Folk Dancing and barre-ing and chasse-ing going on too. It's no wonder her eyes shut as soon as her head hits the pillow these days!