A family outing to Long Bay

We have been taking turns at organising a family walk/beach trip recently, to some of the (former) Auckland Regional Council, parks. It is good that we have been 'taking turns', because otherwise I would want to organise an outing and a walk every fortnight, at least, as I just love walking and especially in our beautiful regional parks.

Today it was Mum's turn to decide on our destination, and she chose the very popular Long Bay Regional Park. We walked first, and then went to the beach for a lovely refreshing swim...followed by fish and chips at the beach. All good. Thanks Mum!

Cathy - it's your turn to choose the next outing! Here are some pics from today's walk.

PS Leanne and Sz you would like this walk/beach.

Long Bay Regional Park

Hamish, Mum, Emma, Bruce, Zak and Cathy

Looking back towards Long Bay beach

Emma

Mum and Cathy

Pohutakawa trees

Atiu Creek Regional Park

Today we went to visit our friends Murray and Rachel and their daughter who live in the Kaipara Flats, near Warkworth. Rachel and Jessica were out giving their pony, Rainbow, a work out in one of the paddocks when we arrived.  For brunch, Murray cooked us up a delicious chorizo hash on the BBQ, with poached eggs. Very yummy. After a catch up with them we then drove north towards Wellsford, and went west to head towards the Atiu Creek Regional Park.

This park is the newest regional park in Auckland, and was gifted to the region by Perre and Jackie Chatelanet in 2005, so that the public could enjoy access to the Kaipara Harbour. It's quite a drive to get there...but well worth it as it is a beautiful part of the country and has fabulous views of the huge Kaipara Harbour.

We went on the Reservoir Walk, which took just over and hour and a half. I had wanted to go on the longer Oruawharo River Trail, but just as well we didn't, as it was a sweltering hot day and quite steep in parts of the track. We'll go back another day to do the longer walk.

Here we are at the start of the walk, overlooking the Kaipara Harbour.

Here are some images from the walk, which started off following the ridge track through a few grassy paddocks, then went down through a pine forest to the reservoir, followed by a steep up hill stretch at the end to get back to the car park.

One of the two Pou Kaitiaki (Guardians)

 

A spur of the moment idea

We have a number of DIY projects that we want to do around the house this summer, and others that we need to finish from last summer... and the summer before!  But instead of being practical and finishing off the old projects first, I had a spur of the moment idea late yesterday...which was that we should lift up all the old bricks on the pathway to our house, water blast them, level the earth, and then lay all the bricks back down again.

Hamish was all set to paint the garden shed today - a project that he started a few weeks ago, before the weather changed - but no, I had other ideas. Hmmmm, possibly not my best idea for our Christmas break.

After spending yesterday evening and many hours today using a crow bar to lift up some 260 bricks, move them to the driveway, water blast them, turn them over, water blast again, and then stack them, we are both knackered.

I think Hamish is wishing he had stuck to painting the shed, as it would have been an easier job, and much quicker than this brick path project, which I think will take about three times longer than I anticipated that it would, which always seems to be the way with our DIY projects.

Here are some pics of our huge efforts today.

Stage one of the path uplifted

Hamish water blasting the bricks



A work in progress



260 stacked and freshly water blasted bricks

Our temporary plank path to the house

We now have some 260 bricks water blasted and looking much better and cleaner. Each brick weighs 3.5kg - and needed to be handled three times each during the lifting, water blasting and stacking process - so between us we have moved around 2,730 kg.  And we also now have a very tired Hamish and very tired and very sore Kristine.  I wonder whether we will manage to see the New Year in...?!

Last day of 2010

It is New Year's Eve and we are having a very busy day at home - more about that in the next Blog. It's really hot today and I notice Hamish has cracked open a beer while assembling the rotisserie part of our BBQ. Tonight we are having a NYE dinner of BBQ rotisserie chicken, new potatoes with mint, fresh beans with lemon and salad. Followed by brandy snaps, cream and strawberries. Yum!

Before the New Year kicks in, I thought I'd post some pics from Christmas this year.

Here is our Christmas tree. This is the first year we've had a 'real' pine tree, which we purchased from the church down the road. Fortunately it has not made me sneeze too much...yet.

Here is a pic of  my nephew Zak, and niece Emma, being Santa and the reindeer at my Mum's pre Christmas family BBQ a couple of weeks ago.

Zak and Emma

And here are some pics of Christmas morning at my sister Cathy's.






Uncle Hamish and Emma

Zak showing Pam how to use an iPad



Mum opening her Bokashi compost bin



Sad news from Canada

Today Leanne emailed to say that Susannah's Mum, Pauline, who we met in Victoria in October, had passed away early this morning. It is hard to believe that Pauline became so unwell, so quickly, when only a couple of months ago we had enjoyed a wonderful thanksgiving dinner with Pauline and the rest of the Street family, and she seemed just fine.

It  was such a fun evening, with members of the Street, Scherp and Pryce families all enjoying a great Thanksgiving meal, some wine and lots of good humour together.  I am so pleased that we had the opportunity to meet Pauline and hear a little about her early years growing up in New Zealand.

Here are some pics from the Thanksgiving evening in Victoria.

Susannah and Pauline

The Street family

Pauline, it was a real pleasure to have met you. Rest in peace.

A fabulous farewell feast

Nicola heard through her Mum that Hamish was a good cook, and very very good at cooking curries, something he must have inherited from his Mum, Pam. I agree - both Pam and Hamish cook fabulous curries, which reflects the Pryce family's long and strong association with India, the place of Hamish's grandfather Ernest and father Peter's birth, Peter and Pam's wedding, and Hamish's birth.

Nicola wanted Hamish to show her how to cook a proper India curry from scratch using real spices, so Hamish drew on an old family favourite, Madhur Jaffrey's Rogan Josh, and he and Nicola spent a couple of hours in the kitchen when we got home preparing the curry feast. My contribution to the meal was my always popular lentil dahl.

Nicola studying Indian recipes, the night before the feast

Nicola's lovely apartment

Hamish searching for the infamous Rogan Josh recipe online

The chefs in action

All under control - time for a beer!

We had a great home cooked meal and a lovely last night in Seattle. Thank you Nicola for your wonderful hospitality and for planning our long weekend so well. We will be back one day, and will look forward to seeing you next year when you come to New Zealand at some stage over summer.

Sunday in Seattle

It was Sunday so we had a lazy start to the day before going to a suburb called Ballard, where we met Nicola's friend Solange (sp?), who is from Montreal originally, for brunch. We had the most enormous meals and it was interesting talking to Solange. She and her husband Eddie are about to move to Portland for Eddie's job, so Nicola was a little sad about that.

After brunch Nicola, Hamish and I went for a wander around the Ballard Farmers Market, which had lots of organic food and veges, and some really beautiful hand made jewellery. I bought Mum some pretty glass earings and Nicola bought a pair almost the same for herself. It was a good way to walk off some of our huge breakfast.

Ballard Farmers Market

Hamish and I  -  I am holding the flowers I bought for Nicola at the market

After the market we drove to the Chittenden Locks ship canal, where we watched the boats wait for their turn to be let up or down the lock. Quite fascinating to see how it all worked and there were some beautiful boats there.

Some cool sculptures at the Locks - they looked a bit like the New Zealand koru shape

Another attraction at the Locks was the salmon ladder. It was the time of year when the adult salmon were heading back to their breeding grounds to spawn, and they had to swim upstream against the current.

The salmon ladder

We saw these salmon jump up through the fish ladder, which was pretty cool to watch

Nicola and Hamish watching the activity at the Locks

On the way out of the Locks I spotted a (yet another!) squirrel. I quickly went into squirrel photo shoot mode - they are so damn fast it is difficult to get a good shot of one. Nicola called them 'rats with tails'! Hmmm.

Another great day in Seattle. We then headed back to Nicola's apartment, via Costco - what a massive store - to buy some supplies so that we could cook up a curry feast for dinner. We didn't bother about lunch today as were all still so full from our big brunch.