Beautiful Aotearoa~!

It's raining, it's pouring,.. It's New Zealand

Autumn beauty has a dark side to it. Literally. It's cloudy and overcast. I wondered out in between rain showers today to the shops. I couldn't resist capturing this lovely leaf.

Rain makes you do crazy things. Like sit by the window and take pictures of it.

Here's our unheated pool.. seen from our balcony.

An impressionist view of our neighbors.

At the end of summer we went out to a West coast beach that had the darkest sand I have ever seen! The iron-rich sand washed up the coast from an eruption in Mount Taranaki years and years ago.

Even though the sand was inky black it still sparkled and glistened!

The rocks were a rich auburn color that contrasted perfectly with the blue sky.

We took a hike up the sand dunes pictured here on the right side.

Aotearoa; land of the long white cloud.

Some lovely olives from the Simunovich Olive Estate in Bombay Hills.

A view straight from Italy...

The Bracu restaurant offers gourmet brunch, lunch and dinner entrees in an exquisite setting. Check out their menus online here.

They also carry two skincare lines they have created from Olive oil (Olive) and Olive leaf extract (tebe). Here is a list of traits describing the skincare lines.

• pH balanced

• suitable for sensitive skin

• pleasantly scented

• free from mineral oils and propylene glycol

• free from petroleum by-products

• free from paraben preservatives

• free from sodium laureth sulphate

• formulated in small amounts for greater quality control

• age-old family recipes

• environmentally responsible

• made in New Zealand

Weekend in Whakatane

My kiwi and I had a weekend in Whakatane recently.. The "wh" is pronounced as "fa" in the maori language creating a word that sounds like "Fakatane." Anyway it is about a 3 hour drive from Auckland so we headed down across the sunset. We captured this beauty from the road.

We stayed in a flat right across the beach! This beach had been a hangout of "Moko" the friendly dolphin but he didn't visit while we were there. We did catch sight of his fin in the river mouth when we were crossing a bridge in town. (So did a hundred other people that were causing the traffic we were sitting in.) Most of the the weekend consisted of on and off showers with cloudy, humid days. We took long naps and listened to the ocean from our bed in the flat. It reminded me of Hawaii being so close to the water.



On Monday it was Auckland Anniversary day so everyone we knew had off as well. We went for an early morning surf in the surprisingly warm water. (We ended up watching from the beach as our friends ripped it up.) Then in the afternoon went for some whitewater rafting in Rotorua. We were meant to go on the Big, Bad Kaituna.. but it had rained so much it was apparently too flooded to run. So we settled for Zambezi..



Haha just tricking. We went on another grade 4 one that was not quite as rip roaring as we would have liked it to have been. The last morning I took a picture of the sunrise from the lanai of the flat. Gorgeous. We headed up to Tauranga on the way back. I'll post some pictures up soon of a weekend trip there from the end of last year. All in all it was a fun trip!

Summer holiday in the Real Far North..

So it's summer time now.. although because of the el nino it's been mostly chilly and cloudy, windy with a few fine days in between. These usually occur when I've been at work inside only getting glimpses of what a Kiwi Summer really is.. So we took a week off and my kiwi and I headed up to Northland where the country has been suffering from a severe drought. We passed fire warning signs in every small town that banned any fire at all. We spent three nights at a private beach called Paradise Bay. Some friends are in the know with the farmer so we got invited along with family and more friends. I'm still getting used to being in the country and then going down steep, windy gravel roads, past sheep and pasture, to the end up at the beach!

We lost most of our photos when we attempted to upload them and they got deleted by our computer! So much for Apple computers being reliable! Here is one of the friendly-ish seagulls that graced us with his/her presence. We amused ourselves one afternoon by tossing them chips and watching them go bonkers.

It was gorgeous most of the time, with the hot sun burning down. We took walks along the beach and collected some Paua shells that had been hidden in the sand. The third day we decided to test the water. I put on my full body wetsuit and still went numb in the water! It's nothing like the water in Hawaii. We also went fishing one morning off a boat and caught a few small ones. We were lazy and went out an hour later than we should have and no one was hungry in the water.

This is leaving the beach.. It reminds me so much of the Big Island of Hawaii! The hills are exactly the same and some of the trees as well.

After the beach we headed to Omehuta where we stayed on a friend's dairy farm. We also took time to see the family farm which has since been sold but the owners were kind enough to let us come poke around.

View from the gate at the entrance off the farm.

Our borrowed ride, one of the few trucks you see in New Zealand..

It was a beautiful, sunny day! But also quite hot. Almost 30 degrees Celcius.

View out of the tool shed.

Some vintage fence lines and a peek at the hills behind.

These flowers reminded me of lavender!

Some fallen down gum trees.

A neat little overpass.

View of the chicken coop and back at the wool shed.

The current owner's cat who apparently got a tui bird a few days beforehand.

Driving through a quarry back on our friend's property.

>

This makes me want to live in the country.

The scenery changes so much in just a few steps.

Some dark clouds loomed over but didn't bring rain.

Another gravel road leading back to the house. After our trip my kiwi and I want to live on a farm! Maybe some day.. ;-)

Thanksgiving in Aotearoa

So I just happened to have off last Thursday so I had time to plan a Thanksgiving meal. I jogged my memory for some family favorites and came up with the 5 cup Fruit salad, Parmesan mashed potatoes, Green salad with fruit & blue cheese, Savory stuffing, Dinner rolls and then added Carrots with caramelized onions & ginger and Mango passion fruit juice.

The turkey was a 4.1 kilo bird at just under $50.. I scrambled around in the garden and spiced it up with Rosemary, Parsley, Lemon, Garlic, Onion and salt & pepper. The legs were tied up and wings tucked under and then placed it in a large oven bag. Voila into the oven! After gauging the Fahrenheit to Celsius oven times I left it for 3 hours. Then it rested happily on the stovetop waiting to be sliced for 20 minutes. The drippings were amazingly not too fatting and made a perfect gravy.

Dessert was pumpkin pie and whipping cream. Literally one pie and one bowl of whipping cream. I researched buttery crusts and was quite pleased at the outcome taste-wise.. unfortunately my guessing at temperatures the first time around in the morning created a burnt crust. The pumpkin pie filling was lovely. There was no canned pumpkin to cheat with so the pumpkin had to be cooked and then mashed before baking. Overall, a success! I would cook the turkey a bit shorter next time as it was a bit dry and will definately use the same pumpkin pie recipe! Mmm! Can't wait till next thanksgiving!

Power struggle

So weeks before we move to New Zealand we stock up on several electronic devices to use for our wedding but plan to continue using upon leaving the country. We arrive in New Zealand and spend almost a week without a converter to the NZ power outlets. We purchase one and use it for my camera battery charger and it's sweet. We try to use it for the tanning gun and it shorts out. I try to use it with my curlers and it heats up too hot to touch. I use it for my hair dryer and it starts to smell burnt. We attempt to use it on our hair trimmers and it fizzles out. What's the deal folks?? Well apparently in NZ the normal voltage from a power outlet is at least 230-240 at 50 hertz! The average US power plug supply is 110-120 volts at 60Hz. So basically we're not on the same page here as in the US. As a result most of our electronics we brought and used are fried.. I still sneak on my hair dryer for about 2 minutes until it smells like burning hair and then I stop. I figure that I'll use it until it dies and then fork over the money for a new one. You can purchase transformers but they can be massive (like 50lbs!) Word of advice: Don't bring a lot of big electronics to NZ!