A Winter Weekend at Waitarere

Ha ha ha - a corny title, I know! ;)

We spent last weekend up at Waitarere Beach, because Molly had a gymnastics competition in nearby Levin on the Sunday and we thought it would be easier to be based up there rather than drive two hours on the day. So we hired a bach that we'd been to before and took the opportunity to kick back and relax...

We've been up this way countless times before.... it's a beautiful, desolate, switch-off kind of place. And a beautiful, desolate, switch-off kind of place was so very much needed for all of us at the moment. Life's been busy!

So, switch off and recharge our batteries we did! Our time at Waitarere was lazy and included lots of reading and/or drawing time on couches under blankets and duvets....

And there was lots of time spent sitting on the deck playing games with plastic animals and bits of wood...



And lots of board games by the fire...

It wasn't all laziness though! Both Jake and I got out for a couple of runs each. I have to confess to being not only a fair-weather runner, but also a flat-terrain runner. This is the reason why I have barely run since we left Auckland in 2007: the Falkland Islands were too cold, Alice Springs was too hot, and Wellington is too hilly ;) 

But Waitarere Beach is just right! You can't beat a running route like this...

And during other moments of energy, we all played on the beach. At this time of year there's usually a lot of driftwood along this part of the coastline. Molly made good use of it to practise her beam routine in time for the competition on Sunday..

She also used it for climbing and exploring...

Meanwhile Alfie and Jake made good use of it for stick fighting competitions (?) 

And Alfie and I built a driftwood teepee. We had a lot of fun doing that!

This kind of stuff is what helps Jake and I feel normal again when life gets too crazy. It's really been too crazy lately! Just playing on the beach is the most amazing remedy for stress. We should all do this every week! 

Long jump competition...

Selfies

On looking through my camera roll, it appears that Molly and I took quite an extraordinary number of selfies on holiday. Here's just a small selection of the collection....

Australia Holiday, July 2015 - Part 3, Melbourne

Well, actually not strictly Melbourne. The final part of our trip was spent with our friends the Johnsons who we originally met in the Falkland Islands but they are an Australian family who at the time were doing the Expat thing like us. They now live in a place called Bacchus Marsh which is in rural Victoria, about 50kms away from Melbourne. 

We spent most of our time around Bacchus Marsh but we did get into Melbourne one day, and I spent plenty of time reminiscing about the time I spent living and working there. It's been TWENTY years!!! (Sweet memories of a wizard healing a broken leg, the friendly tramp on the jetty, all-night clubbing, afternoon beers at the Espy, taking the tram to work, roller blading everywhere and more....you guys who were with me will remember all of this). 

Anyway, back to the present moment. It was so great to catch up with these guys again - it's been 2 years since we were last all together (in Sydney).

Bacchus Marsh is an average-sized town, kind of crossed between an agricultural area but fast becoming a commuter area as well, as the city expands due to rising house prices. So it's a little bit built up, but is mostly still fairly rural. We took the dog (Bindi) for plenty of walks, and a lot of the surrounding area reminded us of where we used to live in Alice Springs.

 Bindi the dog became my good friend, and I taught him the art of selfies...



Other than that, we spent a lot of time sitting around drinking tea / wine (depending on what time it was), the kids built a den one night and slept in it, we visited the local cafe for Violet Crumble Cheesecake (twice!), we all went to watch Peter play rugby, and we had lots of walks including one quite adventurous river crossing where several of our party got quite wet (and yes there were tears).

A lovely ending to our holiday, and a big thank you to the Johnsons for everything!

Australia Holiday, July 2015 - Part 2: Trinity Beach Cairns

The next part of our fabulous holiday was spent in Northern Queensland, in a place called Trinity Beach which is just north of Cairns. Wow, what a lovely place Trinity Beach is! 

(And yes, I did check out the real estate, schools and jobs in the area!) 

We stayed at some lovely self-contained apartments which had 3 swimming pools, a tennis court and a fitness room to keep us occupied. Not that we were particularly active - it was a very, very restful 10 days! 

Most days we spent some time at one of the pools... 

In fact, we used the pool day and night!

However, the pools were unheated so although the daytime air temperatures tended to range between 24 to 28 degrees, I wasn't always brave enough to spend very long in the pool as the water was relatively cool. That suited me just fine - I got through plenty of books and enjoyed the view instead with a few quick lengths and splashy games with Alfie every so often to cool off! But for a lot of the time, this was my spot!

The beach was also just a few minutes walk from our apartments, and was very pretty and lovely! (apart from the "Danger: Crocodiles in the area" sign). We spent a lot of time here too.

At one point Jake, Alfie and I were all swimming in the sea when we saw a couple of dolphins playing just a few metres away! Ever cautious about scarey Australian wildlife, I leapt out of the water straight back onto the sand at the sight of the fin and made Alfie do the same - note I wasn't the only person to do this!

More Australian wildlife stories.....early one morning I went to a local yoga class (a 5.30am start on holiday doesn't feel right, but I'm glad I went!). It had to be one of the more unusual yoga classes I've ever been to - the class was outside and there were wallabies hopping around us. Most distracting when you're trying to stay in your downward dog position ;)

Back on the beach, we had endless sandcastle competitions and made mermaids, sharks and real castles too!

Here's a photo I never thought I'd share! Look what salt water does to my hair!!!

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Along the beachfront at Trinity Beach are a handful of little bars, restaurants and cafes. We quickly found a favourite, and many a morning was spent enjoying coffee and iced chocolates while we played Uno and/or Scrabble.

We dedicated one day to a big long walk up the coast across several beaches and suburbs to Palm Cove. The walk was LOVELY. Just miles and miles of beach. The whole way there featured lots of giggling from Molly and Alfie and no one complained at all even after more than 2 hours of walking.

But one of our highlights was the day we spent at the Great Barrier Reef. We took the hard option but it paid off - we went out on a boat to the Outer Reef (where you see more marine life), and were based on a pontoon in the middle of the ocean for the whole day. Despite some initial nerves from Alfie about not being able to reach the bottom (of the ocean!!), the kids took to snorkelling like Pros and spent a lot of time in the water looking at all the fish - it was amazing!

We also took a glass bottomed boat ride from the pontoon and saw a couple of sharks, as well as a semi-submersible boat ride and saw some turtles, awesome!

Back at the apartments, we discovered that some kind soul had left an anonymous box of chocolates and card outside our door, wishing Molly well in the recovery of her fingers (which she had bashed on the wall at the swimming pool the day before). We still have no idea who sent it, but how lovely of them!

Other little things we did.... one day we took a trip to Kuranda, a little village in the rainforest, where we went shopping at the markets, ate crepes at a cafe and went on a bushwalk.

And in the evenings, we drank G&Ts on our balcony, read books, watched movies, strolled down to the beachfront, went out for dinner a couple of times, and generally just hung out together.  It was lovely! 

Australia Holiday, July 2015 - Part 1: The Gold Coast

We've just returned from an absolutely brilliant holiday around Australia! For a family who's travelled the length and breadth of Australia many times, and lived there for extended periods too, it says something about Australia that we can still see new places and get so much enjoyment from the place. 

For the first part of the trip we stayed with some old friends, the Lee family, who live in a place called Tamborine Mountain, in southern Queensland. It's 30 kms inland from the Gold Coast - and nothing whatsoever like the Gold Coast! We've known Stacey and Gareth since our days at Bridge the World in London, and as they are from Auckland we used to see them there too once we emigrated. They've been living in Queensland for 7 years now so it's been a while since we last caught up but it was so great to see them again! 

Of course, while we were there we did take the obligatory trip into the Gold Coast to visit one of the famous theme parks - we chose Sea World - and went on some rides....

And we saw lots of sea creatures....In fact, our stay on the Gold Coast/Tamborine was very much about Australian wildlife. Apart from the fact that the Lees have an insane number of pets, we saw - and touched - a lot of Aussie creatures. See below for more info!

We also spent a bit of time playing on the beach.

But for a big chunk of time we just hung out at Tamborine with the Lees. I would describe Tamborine as being to the Gold Coast what Nimbin is to Byron Bay. It's a bit hippy, a bit alternative.  There's even a fairy shop! There's also a lovely hotel where we had lunch and listened to a band all afternoon while the kids played (and Alfie had a scarey encounter with a big spider). 

There's also a Polish Cafe   with amazing views and beautiful birds flying around your table while you dine, and where you can get the most incredible hot chocolates - apparently it's a traditional Polish recipe but I have to say at no point during my childhood did I ever get traditional Polish hot chocolate. Just cabbage and potatoes. 

We spent our last day at the very special Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. This place is just lovely! We saw koalas and we stroked kangaroos! 

We even held a baby crocodile - yikes!!! 

 All round a great time. Thanks so much Gareth and Stacey - we really enjoyed ourselves!

Just some stuff

From recent posts it might sound like it's all been drama and calamity around here. But normal life has to carry on around it all. So here's some of the ordinary stuff that's been happening lately...

It was crazy hair day at school, and Molly proved that you don't need to have hair to join in on crazy hair day.

Then there was the school disco - and I somehow ended up hosting a pre-disco party here for 6 kids. The girls got ready together and had dinner together, listened to music and talked incessantly about make-up and boys. Well, to be fair, only one of them actually had any real interest in boys (and it wasn't Molly, thank goodness!) - the others just did lots of giggling and plotting and "gross" noises. Jake and I found it very entertaining! ;)

The next day was Molly's annual piano concert. She played a piece called Shadow Dance, which was a fairly challenging piece with lots of crossing over hands and staccato chords. She did really well! Alfie was still fairly soporific from his hurting leg and consequently managed to sit still and listen to the entire concert without any noise (apart from when he dropped his crutches loudly).

Last weekend, we held another of our Wellopecia get-togethers.

Wellopecia is the name of the alopecia group we've set up for the Wellington region. It started with just 3 mums who have children with alopecia and we've expanded it now so the group's much bigger and includes adults with alopecia as well.

It's all about just getting together socially for some
subtle support and also to normalise alopecia for the kids and their families by exposing them to others with the same condition.

It's a nice group, and we've done some nice things so far. This time we pulled some strings with Jake who got us a private tour of some of the film props at Weta Workshop. Lots of fun!

Tonight was Parents Night at ballet, so we got to see everything they've prepared so far for Grade 3. The exam's later this year and they've definitely all still got a lot of work to do, but they've come a long way and I was impressed!

I would however like to point out here that I do invest a considerable sum of money on the proper ballet uniform every year and I do go to the correct efforts twice a week to ensure said uniform is in her ballet bag. But by the time Molly gets to class she adds to/removes/adapts every item of the uniform so that she looks like she's not wearing one.

Other than that, we've had a simply gorgeous wintery June with plenty of blue sky and sunshine, with crisp mornings and sunny daytimes. So we've been outside lots enjoying our lovely city. This has included rolling around on sand dunes....

and it's included hanging out lots on our lovely city centre waterfront...

....and I have enjoyed taking several lovely street walks around our mountain suburbs. I've said it before and I'll say it again (and so will thousands of others) - you can't beat Wellington on a good day, and we are so very lucky to live here.