A few walks

Here are some older photos from earlier in the year.

Since Ku-ring-gai national park we go there a lot and strangely the kids favourite walk is to go through the mangroves despite there not being much to look at.


There are a few nice rocks though.




There are also some nice trees such as this Angophora costata.


A nice Black Jezebel butterfly.


This is just down from the backdoor after rain.


A handy rock seat.

Ku-ring-gai wildflower gardens again

This time the whole family came along.


Lace monitor

Blue pools and Haast pass

On the last full day of our holiday we drove from Wanaka along the Haast pass highway. We did three walks before Alex literally fell asleep as we were walking and it was time to go home. The first walk was to the blue pools which was nice although it had more tourists than sandflies.


The blue pools.


There were lots of stone towers, Alex's effort was probably the smallest one there but he was still pretty chuffed with it.


Claire spent half an hour tring to perfect hers to little avail.






The plaque at the bottom of Haast pass.


The walk to the top of the pass was quite straitford even though we had to carry the little ones most of the way.


On the crown range road on the way back to Queenstown.

Matukituki

Once we had moved to Wanaka it was time to visit one of my other most favourite places, the Matukituki valley.


It does not get any more New Zealand than that.


So green.


We did the Rob Roy track, the kids only made it to the lower view point and they only made it that far because they got carried all the way. They really need to get some more practise with longer walks in.


I did go and have a closer look at the glacier though. Might need a better camera one of these days though.


Alex getting aquainted with some matagouri.

Lake Sylvan

On the day we had to leave Arrowtown and go to Wanaka, we went first to Glenorchy which is one of my favourite places in the country. Well not the town itself but the mountains and forests around it.
We did the easy walk to Lake Sylvan as it is a beautiful piece of forest and nice and flat so the kids could walk the whole way, although extremely slowly.




The very same tree Danilo somehow convinced me to have my photo with 15 years ago. Long before I ever thought I would be trapped in Australia.


Lake Sylvan, and beautiful mountains. It was lovely although like a lot of things in NZ today it was more of a road than a track with everything catered to the plagues of tourists that infest the country. Still though you only need to go on a track which is not featured in the lonely planet to avoid the vermin.


South Island Robin - Petroica australis. The advantage of going really slowly with the little ones is lots of robins came in to investigate.

Arrowtown

After the wedding we decided to have a holiday down south based in Arrowtown and Wanaka for a week and a bit.


The playground at the park we were staying at had a lovely view as did most places in the area.


The rebuilt Chinese miners cottages in Arrowtown.


The kids were super excited to go to the snow. That is until they got there and realised it was really cold. Nonetheless they had fun for a few minutes until a blizzard rolled in and they started to get a little cold. We drove to the remarkables skifield which still had a lot of snow.


Some lovely snow.

Wedding

The main purpose of the trip was my sisters wedding which was lovely. The weather was a bit dicey but held out for the ceremony and the children really enjoyed especially the flower girl.


Ready for the wedding.


Claire and her cousin as flower girl and page boy.

Home and surrounds

We had a week at home prior to the wedding. The kids got to see some real grass, and were amazed at how soft it was.

Getting a little close to the danger end.


Enjoying some proper coloured sand.


Bridal veil falls

Auckland sights

We had a quick two days in Auckland recently, just enough time to check out a few of the sights.


Auckland Zoo


MOTAT


Maritime museum


Aquarium.

Halloween

The kids seem to really like halloween for some reason, and it is not the lollies as they eat very few of those. Probably getting to run around with all the other kids on the street is the best part.



Alex managed to fall over despite only walking at a speed of about 500 m an hour.

Ku-ring-gai wildflower garden

I had the day off a long time ago (April) so Claire and I went and got some plants from the Ku-ring-gai nursery which has now closed unfortunately but while we were there we also popped into the wildflower gardens for a short walk.


Finding a track for some lazy legs.


They are a lot friendlier on weekdays when there are fewer children to terrorise them.


Ready to start school. The year is nearly over now.

Putty Beach

Back in January we spent a day at the beach for Claire's 5th birthday.






Faking it.