Been here almost 3 months!

We have had two successive weekends at home and enjoyed cycling and swimming. Last weekend we drove to Waihi and cycled the Karangahake Gorge, an old gold mining area along a disused railway.

We have joined Mount Maunganui cruising sailing club and hope to have some opportunities crewing in the Winter racing season. Thursday evening sees us at the outdoor hot pools - geothermal heating and delightful come rain or shine.

 

 

Avidly supported England football and rugby teams - but alas...Shona had an interview as Cruise Ship Co-ordinator on Friday. An historic local trust needs someone to direct visiting passengers towards their project. For those Geographers amongst you the sub sea view below is interesting. NZ is basically a collection of volcanoes. The risk presented by earthquakes, volcanic activity and tsunamis is ever present !

 

  

 

Rhian captured her first job this week in a large Caerleon primary school. We are making plans now to receive Cal and Rhian in four weeks time.



Watching the All Blacks

Well what a spectacle, England vs the All Blacks at Eden Park. It was a very close game with many people thinking a draw would have been a fairer score, but not to be with the All Blacks scoring a try in the dying moments. There was a lot of hype beforehand in the press here saying the English team was underpar and it would be a whitewash - England definitely gave them a fright!

Unlike the picture above!! Malcolm and I decided we had to support England in this one and there were a few of us in the 49,000 crowd, which Malcolm said was very quiet in comparison to crowds back home!, but still a great atmosphere and good to watch, despite wondering about some of the Welsh ref's decisions!

 

 

We both really enjoyed Auckland, it is a beautiful city of lovely parks and harbours built on 20 volcanoes!, lava fields and islands. We went to the top of the sky tower (but did not jump off!!) and enjoyed a very good exhibition on volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis at the city museum - I really do wonder why we are living in flat coastal Papamoa when White Island the most active volcano in NZ is just off shore! We also found a wonderful Singapore type food court so relived the tastes of mee goreng, nasi goreng and beef rending!

 

 

On the Sunday we had a very special sail on Auckland harbour in a beautiful old wooden sailing ship called a scow, the maritime museum volunteers take the ship out every day. It was superb to see the city from the water and watch all the yachts racing under the Auckland bridge - a very special experience.

 

They even gave us jobs to do - I am really taken with the idea of volunteering with this, if I can!

 



 

Another link with home as we sailed back into the dock we passed a crane tug, where the crane was built at Sir William Arrols of Glasgow, where my dad used to work!

 



June already

Can't believe it is June already, we have been here over 2 months!

We missed a blog last week as we had a quiet weekend in Tauranga with Malcolm not feeling too well with a cough and head cold, it seems we have no resistance to the bugs from the other side of the world!

It has been just lovely to talk to friends on Skype over the last week or so and to hear that summer is coming for you. We had the first day of winter down here, but in Tauranga the sun is lovely during the day but it is cold at night and gets dark now about 5pm!

I have started volunteering at the local Waipuna Op Shops (Charity shop) in Te Puke and at Mt Monganui on a Monday and Friday mornings, it is quite fun and lovely to meet the other volunteers. I am there in the picture!

I popped over to Hamilton with Malcolm when he went for work last week, there is not a lot about the place and the claim to fame seems to be that the chap who wrote the Rocky Horror Show worked there as a hairdresser! They even have a town statue to him, which emits free wifi from the gun!

 

 

On the way back we stopped to sus out the Hobbiton Movie Set attraction, $75 pp to get in , we decided to leave it till the kids come out!

 



 

This weekend was a bank holiday for the Queens Birthday!

 

 

We were in Napier, apparently it was the only part of the country which was overcast with rain! Napier was flattened by an earthquake in the 1930's so it is now a lovely Art Deco centre, one of the nicest building was the Tobacco Company building in the docks.

 

Being in the centre of Hawkes Bay that famous wine growing area we had to try a few tastings, this is something that we will do more thoroughly over several visits as about 3 vineyards in a day is about right. We tried Craggy Range, Black Barn and Te Mata, next will have to include the delightfully named Crab Beach and Elephant wines! Malcolm was not left out he found a local tasting Ale and Cider brewery to try as well! the first proper beer he has had!

 



 

 

We found an amazing art shop selling very clever sculptures - price was clever too!

 

 

On the way back we checked out the Polynesian Spa and a craft centre in Rotorua, where they have literally 'dressed' a tree, in knitted clothes. and we found an amazing place to sit in Macdonalds - yes you can sit in the plane!

 





 

Next weekend we are off to Auckland to see the All Blacks play England!



 





Kiwi picking and packing

Hello again,

As a follow up to the 'how to Kiwis grow' we have now been seeing how the fruits are picked (we were only allowed to pick the ones up that the real pickers had dropped!) and packed for the 52 countries they are exported to. We visited Roger and Janet Le Blanc Smith's orchard and then Roger took us to the Eastpack packing plant. It is one of 10 huge processing plants in Te Puke (pronounced tea pu kay) which is the Kiwi capital of the world!
To learn much more here is a link to Zespri

The only rival for kiwi fruits is Chile and since NZ has developed the 'Gold' kiwi and are developing a red and mini ones they have really no competition!
Eastpack don't export much to USA or UK - Tesco are too mean!!

The plant is huge with 3 big sorting lines, some robots some hand sorted, plus the cold stores and climate controlled longer term storage areas (and lots of fork lift trucks being driven very fast!), where fruit is kept to ripen at the right time to keep the market supplied all year although each orchard only harvests for about 2 days, as the fruit reaches the optimum sugar levels and size!
They only have 7 weeks from pick to market, 4 of which are on a ship!

Love the hats!