Mt. Taranaki

After work on Friday we drove to Stratford-- a 6 hour drive (normally 4 hours; traffic and a nice long dinner at cafe slowed us down a bit). On Saturday we started our hike up Mt. Taranaki with the objective to climb as high as we could.

Getting to the top is very do-able (for most). Mt. Taranaki is probably the steepest mountain I've ever been on. When trails in New Zealand encounter a steep area, they goes straight up the hill instead of "switchbacking" (going back and forth) up the mountain. Along with the steep slope of the trail, loose rock (called "scree") near the top of Taranaki made it really difficult to walk up and down. Part of the mountain was so steep that steps going straight up were installed-- there must have been 500 steps in a row to walk up-- with no hand rail. Walking down I had to work hard to quell hysterics and force myself to only look one step ahead of me. I really had no idea that I was afraid of heights until I moved to New Zealand.

Bryce could have made it to the top, but I had to make us stop because climbing on the scree was so difficult. I waited at a pretty (and steep) vantage point to watch a glider and the views for about 40 minutes, while Bryce climbed even higher. It was a gorgeous day.

Mt. Taranaki is even beautiful when viewed up close-- really close.

Near the base of the mountain. Some parts of NZ are so gorgeous I spontaneously start humming the Jurassic Park theme song.

Hiking in NZ is wonderful-- no wild animals to be scared of! There are wild boars I suppose, but it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that there's wild pigs out there.

You can easily see in this picture where the boundary for the park lies. In the distance Mt. Ruapehu (where we ski) can be seen.

NZ fun facts

My cousin Matt just asked me for some fun facts for his son Sean to present at school about NZ. Here's what I came up with:

1) People here say different words. They say "rubbish" instead of "garbage" and "shop" instead of "store" and they call McDonalds "Mackers". They say "carpark" instead of "parking lot," "boot" instead of "trunk," "mate" instead of "friend."

2) The steering wheels are on the right side of the car and everyone drives on the left side of the road.


3) there are 4 million people and 44 million sheep


4) They eat a lot of pumpkin here. They make pumpkin soup, pumpkin ravioli, and even pumpkin lasagna. (But no pumpkin pie).


5) The main sports are rugby, cricket, and netball. The most popular sports team is the rugby team called the All Blacks. They do a native ritual dance called a "hangi" before every game to make the other team scared of them.

6) There are Chinook salmon here (I think it was a gift from the Native Americans?) and there are orca whales here too.

7) there are NO squirrels, raccoons, bears, cougars, or skunks in NZ. Hedgehogs are never pets here, they are pests that carry diseases and that cars run over ;-)

8) The native people here are called the Maori. They arrived on the islands around 800 years ago. They hunted a giant bird (bigger than an ostrich) called the Moa to extinction. (That's Bryce holding a Moa bone in a cave on the South Island).


9) The national bird is called the "kiwi." Kiwis have no wings and are really fat. They have giant eggs. Kiwis are nocturnal so Julie has never seen one :-( Julie thinks that kiwis, like penguins, are part of a giant NZ conspiracy and don't really exist. Possums and dogs that were brought to the islands by immigrants are killing the kiwis because the kiwis can't run away fast enough.

10) New Zealanders like to call themselves "Kiwis."

ER visit

Well, my happy 5-day bout of perfect health ended abruptly in the middle of the night with some bad "tummy flu" (as later diagnosed by a doctor). Bryce had to do the whole "in sickness and in health" thing and take me to the ER at 2am to make sure there wasn't something seriously wrong. We were there for about 5 hours while they pumped fluids into me. We both called in sick for Friday and slept until about 4pm. Luckily Bryce is as healthy as an ox-- no problems with him.

NZ Boardmaker

There's this software program I use often at work called Boardmaker. It's a cool program where I can create visuals for children to support their communication or behavior. I type a key word into its search engine and a couple of picture possibilities pop up that I can choose from. The Boardmaker I use here is the NZ edition. That means I stumble upon the coolest icons that are New Zealand specific. Yesterday, while looking up the word, "pool," I stumbled upon this picture:


sweet AS!

What's new in the Southern Hemisphere

Lets see if I can attempt to get everyone up to speed.
Bryce(I) got a job, working for the Wellington City Council being a finance business analyst. Basically another bean-counting job. I started at the start of February, so this will be my 4th full week.
We've decided to apply for residency, Residency allows us to be in the country regardless of employment status with no time limit. There are some costs and some beaurecratic hoops to go through, but we like the freedom it will offer us.
Julie's had a pretty bad cold/bronchitis the last 3 weeks or so, but she seems to be have mostly beaten it now.

We've been pretty busy the last few days, though I don't know if it's exciting I'll give you a run-down.
Yesterday(Sat); Went out a beach/rock climbing place to play around and enjoy the waves and warm sunshine. Met up with some new friends for dinner at their place.
Fri; Bryce joined in the weekly Friday work festivities, Julie recovered
Thurs: Movies in the park and drinks at the local polictical bar across the street from Parliment
Wednesday: went to a hiking & climbing club meeting.
Tuesday; 7$ Race and beer at a bar on the waterfront, met up with Julie's co-worker, ran a new personal best(at least for the least few years) in the 5k.
Monday: took it easy, busy week planned
Sunday: Went on a mini roadtrip to a nice warm beach, napped on the beach.
Saturday: Wandered our local suburban waterfront; Saw a gypsy fair, went to an awesome authentic Italian combo shop/restaurant, watched water-skiing races.

As you can see we've been pretty busy lately. We'll try to keep everyone in the loop a bit better.
Back to housework and some R&R

Baring Head

A 45 minute drive through green hills with harbour views and peeking blue pukekos and we arrive at the south coast. A 30 minute walk later and we arrive at Baring Head, a favorite spot for rock climbers to try out bouldering on low rocks near the shore.




The waves crashed high against rocks on the shore. We sat on rocks and forced ourselves to wait for the waves to come to us-- pretty thrilling.

Not such a lazy Sunday afterall

We ran out between rain showers to wash the car and then do some muddy weeding. The weeds at the Normandale cottage are just ridiculous! I have one control garden where I decided to stop weeding just in case the "weeds" were actually from flower seeds planted by the owner--- well the control garden has revealed that it is in fact full of weeds. The problem is that the other flower beds-that were just weeded last month- look just as bad as the control garden that was never weeded! ARGH! One the bright note, the succulents and sunflowers are looking awfully happy. Well I think the sunflower wishes for more sun but I probably shouldn't project my feelings onto it.

Anywhoo, while I was out front attacking the garden, Bryce came out to visit. We were near our mailbox and he remarked that he wondered why the mailbox is so big-- we only get letters in the top slot. He looked behind it (which meant getting in the wet foliage and evading spiders) and found that the mailboxes do in fact have compartments for packages that can only be accessed from the back. And-- we had a box in there! Crazy! It was from Becky, a fun Christmas present of a Seahawk xmas ornament, a "W" ornament, gingerbread cookie mix, and a cute Christmas card. Luckily nothing got water damaged. As you can see by the mailbox, it isn't exactly waterproof :-)

Erin and Dave left us with some potatoes, so I used up most of them to make cream of potato soup. I used my homemade vegetable broth, just to make myself feel extra "Little House on the Prairie"-y. Bryce even made bread bowls. Pretty awesome dinner; looking forward to gingerbread cookies for dessert!