Gail Dickson .. my blog from Down Under

Weekend is nearly over …   We’ve had a good weekend though and it definitely feels like we’ve had some time off.   Didn’t do too much on Saturday as it was haircut day … took some coffees/ice creams to the beach and people watched … Browns Bay beach gets quite busy (for NZ) in the summer so there were lots of people in the water and enjoying the sunshine.   Came back up and Kyle and Regan sat in the paddling pool on the balcony trying to cool down a bit.   Regan loves the water.

Sunday, we walked down to Browns Bay for some lunch … it’s the first time we’ve actually walked (which is terrible I know!) and it took around 20 minutes with Kyle stopping every couple of minutes telling us how tired his legs were.   For a normal person walking, you could do it in 10-15 minutes.  We were meeting Caylen and his family at a beach up north at 4pm so didn’t stay in Browns Bay for long.   Walked back up the hill, got the food ready and headed off.

We’ve never actually been to Big Manly Beach on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula before but it was really nice.   We parked up on the grass overlooking the beach and Kyle, Caylen and the other children played on the beach/went in the sea (which was really warm) while the adults (and Regan) sat on the grass talking and getting the food ready.   It was a really nice evening.

Today, we went to Butterfly Creek since Kyle has been pestering us to go for ages.   He seemed to enjoy the butterflies and thought it was hysterical when one landed on Bobby’s head.   An enjoyable day.

Thought we’d hit gold the other day … walked into New World (NZs equivalent of maybe Scotmid) and on the shelf was Irn Bru!!!!   Obviously bought a bottle and took it home feeling very happy with ourselves (we have found canned Irn Bru in the UK shops over here but it’s a bit pricey as they have to import it).   Looked at the label before opening and realised that it was made in Australia so we weren’t surprised when we tasted it to discover it didn’t really taste much like the real stuff.   Oh well, back to cans!   (I must point out that the Irn Bru liking is definitely me … Bobby will drink it if it’s there but isn’t really that bothered.)

On a similar topic, I was talking to the girl in HR the other day (sorting out my new PM … yeah!!) and she was telling me that they’d had a Scottish night for one of her friends who was going home because her temporary visa had run out.   Point of the story is that there is seemingly a Scottish baker in Botany (part of Auckland) who sells tattie scones … now at that Bobby’s eyes did light up!   It’s weird how you miss some things that you just can’t get even although you didn’t really drink/eat that much of it when you were in Scotland.

Anyway, it’s now Auckland Anniversary weekend so we’re off for the long weekend.   Can’t say I’m disappointed to see the back of this working week but it should get better when the new PM starts on Tuesday.   Don’t have much planned for the weekend … Kyle wants to go to Butterfly Creek (he can quote the advert off the TV word for word) so we may go there one of the days.   Also been invited to Caylen’s for a barbie on Sunday …

Weekend at Taupo was good … for those of you who don’t know/didn’t watch it, NZ got pole in the sprint race and 5th on the grid in the feature race.   They then went on to win the sprint and came 4th in the feature which has now put them back on top of the championship.   Made for a good atmosphere at Taupo!

The track is in the hills and so got very windy at points throughout the weekend … we were okay as the grandstand we were in was quite sheltered.   The resulting dust clouds were not good for photography though so we’ve got no photos from the weekend.   The professional photographers there had covers for their cameras so maybe I need to invest in one of those?

The kids were fairly good … I only missed the last few laps of the feature race as both Kyle and Regan were bored and tired by that point.   Fed Kyle some pancakes and maple syrup (a new favourite of his) and got Regan to sleep next to a TV while Bobby watched the end of the race from the grandstand.

The hotel was really nice too … hot tub out on the balcony so after a long day watching cars, we all went back to the hotel and jumped in the hot pool.   It was really nice.

The one negative of the weekend was that the track had a “no food or beverages to be taken into the track” policy which is bad enough for Bobby and I (we don’t like chips and burgers!) but is impossible with a one year old and a four year old.   We ended up taking food in for them anyway and didn’t get caught but I was up for a fight if they’d said anything.   Unfortunately, I still had to eat junk food and ended up having a really upset stomach on the Sunday night when we got home.

Not sure how much has been televised in the UK about the Scottish girl who was murdered in Taupo during last week but it’s been a bit of a shock to the town as stuff like that doesn’t happen very often down here.   It’s strange actually as there are murders here like there are everywhere else but because there are not too many of them, they are all reported in the national news.   Makes it feel like there are lots of them!!   The one thing you can say about the police down here is that when something like this happens they send police officers from all over NZ to help find the people responsible and they usually do find them too.

Anyway, back to work for a full week this week and have been interviewing for a PM for the web factory.   Have now finished all the interviews so need to catch up with my Programme Manager to get the okay to start someone.   Once that happens my days should become less hectic and hopefully they’ll have less meetings.

Next Monday is a public holiday (Auckland Anniversary Day) but since Lynne is over soon and we’ll be away for two long weekends while she’s here, we’ve decided not to go anywhere.   We’ll probably do a couple of days away and then spend one day here doing the garden!   Weather has been very muggy for the last couple of days and a bit wet so hopefully we’ll be back to sunshine before the weekend.

It was Sir Edmund Hillary’s funeral today so it was shown on all the TVs within VF throughout the day and there seems to have been a huge response from the public to the whole thing.   The kiwis are a bit miffed that Queenie et al didn’t bother to come down for the state funeral and have started talking about Republics again.

It was Bobby’s birthday at the weekend so we had a weekend of going out and about. Saturday, we took the kids to a model train type place which was actually a bit of a disappointment. The web made it look quite big with lots of things to see and do, however when we got there it was quite small so didn’t really take us too long to walk round. It was okay (won’t go back though) and the gardens were quite nice to walk in. We left there and headed north to go to a beach however Kyle and Regan both fell asleep in the back of the car and wouldn’t wake up when we reached the beach so didn’t stay there very long either (kids huh!).

Since we didn’t make it to the beach on Saturday, we made a point of going to Wenderholm National Park on the Sunday. It was lovely (very busy for NZ) so we played in the sand/sea for a while … both kids seemed to enjoy it. Strangely enough, we’d been discussing which beach to go to in the morning and had narrowly missed going to one further up. When we got home, we discovered that there had been a shark attack on one of the surf life savers at the other beach that day …. phew! It wasn’t a great white or anything however I still don’t want to come face to face with any shark and would never let Kyle near the water again if he did!
Weather is great just now too … probably averaging around 25/26 degrees every day. Everyone keeps telling me it’s one of the best Januarys they’ve had in years as it’s usually February when they get weather like this. It’s amazing how some sunshine makes me a happy Gail!

Back at work now …. Going okay so far but still busy.

The space station passed overhead tonight so Kyle, Bobby and I were outside at 9pm watching for it.   Finally found it … it looked just like a shooting star and Kyle was very impressed that he’d just seen a spaceship racing through the sky!   Bobby showed him the NASA website afterwards and they’ve got some video footage showing them exercising, eating etc so he was all excited when we finally got him to bed.

Going down to Taupo this weekend to watch the A1GP. Not sure how Kyle and Regan are going to be … will be fine with the noise as A1GP cars won’t be that noisy and we’re going to buy them ear protectors. Just not sure if they’ll sit still long enough to allow me to watch the race!

Summer holidays were really good … weather was great and the accommodation turned out to be really nice (that was good luck since we booked at the last minute!). Left Auckland on Boxing Day and drove up to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. Didn’t arrive until late afternoon so had a wander around that night and checked out the options for the next day. It was lovely … Pohutakawa lined beach with blue water … I know why my mum loved it so much. One of the people at work had warned me that Paihia got very busy during the school holidays however when you’ve lived in the UK and holidayed in Europe … trust me, it wasn’t busy. Decided to take the boat across to Russell the next day … it’s a quiet place but very picturesque (photos are on Flickr). Kyle really wanted to go on the fast boat that goes out to the rock formations further out and also looks for dolphins - decided we didn’t really have time this time, but as we’re going up to the Bay of Islands with Lynne, we’ll probably do the fast boat thing then.

Left Paihia and headed up to Mangonui in Doubtless Bay. Again, a very picturesque area …. With its claim to fame being a world famous fish and chips shop!! We tried to get fish and chips one of the nights we were there .. 45 minute wait due to the fact that people come from miles around to it. Regan and Kyle were exhausted that night so decided not to bother. Actually, fish and chips is a bit of an experience over here … you have to decide what type of fish you want and they cook it fresh for you. That’s a bit difficult when you have no idea what any of the fish are like. You also don’t get “fish suppers” .. you have to tell them how many fish you want and how many portions of chips then you get them all in the same paper. It’s good for eating at the beach though as you can just spread the paper over the picnic table and everyone can dig in.

We took Kyle round the coast a bit to Taipa one of the days so that he could try out his new wetsuit and boogie board … he was great! He caught a couple of good waves and loved it, so much so that he went in a big huff when we had to leave to go back to the motel. As the weather wasn’t the best (warm but cloudy) we also went to a vintage car/tractor museum. Kyle loved sitting on all the old tractors and they even had an ostrich outside which he hand fed.

Spent three days at the bottom of Ninety Mile Beach and realised that the beach is actually a legal road … when you get to the bit where the road turns into beach there is a big 100km/hr sign post! Very strange but there are lots of people who use it as a road … makes it a bit dangerous to use the beach for sunbathing with the kids as you have to constantly worry about them getting run over by a car. As we had the Subaru with us, we didn’t take it on the beach. Kyle went out on his boogie board again but the waves on the west coast are much stronger and there are some very strong rips so although he caught a couple of excellent waves, he got a bit scared when it pulled him under. Regan on the other hand loved the beach … so much so that she ate half of it!!!!

Took one day out to go up to Cape Reinga which is the most northerly point in NZ and above which the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Seas meet. It’s weird as you actually think you can see where they meet if you watch the waves long enough. The last 21km of the road is gravel and it wasn’t fun in the Subaru as it’s quite low and there were some uneven bits in the road.

Regan also began to take her first steps while we were up there … she would walk between Bobby and I quite well, but she’s not for doing it full time yet and resorts to crawling all the time. She’ll do it when she’s ready I guess.

New Years Eve went by uneventfully … we were staying in one room and the kids were in bed, so Bobby and I ended up just going to bed too as we couldn’t keep the lights on or anything. Didn’t really feel like NYE anyway since it was really hot and we were on holiday.

After Ninety Mile Beach we drove down the west coast road along some very twisty roads until we reached Baylys Beach just west of Dargaville. There wasn’t much there except another road beach …. Oh and William …. Kyle’s friend from Pre-School 2!! His family were there for 10 days so Kyle played with William while we had a wander to the beach. Went for dinner in the (only) local restaurant with them that night but Kyle and William were a bit hyper so not sure it was much fun for anyone else in the restaurant! We left the next day to come home … stopping at Orewa for lunch to prolong the holiday a bit more.

While we were away we realised that in NZ there are loads of (lovely) places that you just can’t reach without a 4WD (in other words a truck!). There are beaches north of Doubtless Bay which are only reached by gravel road and after our excursion up to Cape Reinga, we decided we didn’t fancy trying any more gravel. Since coming back we’ve been looking around to see what you can buy 4WD wise and how much they cost … bit strange for us as we have NO idea about 4WDs as we really didn’t like them in the UK. Different here since you actually do need them but still hard to adapt. We’ll see …..

Today was Regan’s 1st birthday so we took the kids to the zoo south of the city. It was a really good day and the weather was really warm. Regan seemed to enjoy seeing all the animals which were met with a pointing finger and a Doo! Kyle wanted to see everything that was further on and when you got to the requested animal would suddenly change his mind on what he wanted to see (typical 4 year old I guess). Had a barbie for tea and then fed her some birthday cake which sent her a bit hyper for a while …. Bobby and I were relieved when they both went to bed! A great day though …. Although it’s hard to believe that she’s a whole year old!!!

Back to work tomorrow unfortunately …….