Yet another view of where we live

As Ian is in the UK, and Annalie is spending this birthday solo, she decided to treat herself.

The local school had its annual fair on, and one of the things on offer was a helicopter ride around the suburb. What a good idea! She managed to convince our friends Jo and Toby to go too, which was interesting as Toby had never been in a helicopter before!

It was only a short flight, but it provided some new views of our lovely neighbourhood, and beyond, that we don't normally get the chance to see.

 

 

Our street is the one that goes up the hill on the right in the photo above.

This is a great view of the Airport and Miramar peninsula.

A great idea and a fab thing to do on a birthday :)

A Hobbit habit

With the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings "prequel", The Hobbit, due to take place in Wellington next week, the whole place has gone a bit Middle Earth Mad really!

Wellington is the rightful place for the premiere, as it was the birthplace of Sir Peter Jackson's dreams and made the work of Weta world famous.

Some examples of the fun things around town:

An Air New Zealand baggage carousel is dressed up as the Hobbit village of "Bag End"!

 

Gandalf presiding over the premiere venue

Gollum chasing fish at Wellington Airport.

I'm sure there's much more fun to come!

First night under stars

We were very excited about picking up the van, so we decided we'd spend the night camping out up the coast.

The owners drive to Levin to meet us half way, so we decided to stay at Waitarere Beach. A sleepy little townships little further north.

As it was our first night, we hadn't fully equipped ourselves as we weren't sure what would be left with the van. So even though we were on a proper campsite, we weren't exactly fully prepared for cooking.

So instead we went to the local chippy. We both ordered burgers, but mine was of the fish variety. They have us a cute way of identifying which was mine!

And the chip portion was that large, the amount of paper it was wrapped in was enough to create a full tablecloth!

Living the Kiwi dream

Ever since our holiday to NZ in 2009, and when we knew we were moving here, we've had dreams of owning a campervan.

So I'd like to introduce you to The Bach!

Now a bach is the kiwi name for a holiday home. Most kiwis have them. But we thought it would be much better to have a bach on wheels to give you freedom to explore. You're not tied to one location then.

So there we have it. I'm thinking there might be a bit more to blog about in the future :-)

A room with a view

Our friends Jo and Toby rather like our house. They live a bit further down our street and have a smaller house with no garage and a more dated interior.

However, it's swings and roundabouts. We rather like the view from their house! Especially as the sun is setting.

That's the South Island nicely silhouetted by the way.

A bit of a stash

Since moving to NZ, we've had more than our fair share of competition luck. It's not so much the luck of the Irish as the luck of the kiwi!

So we thought we'd post a pic of some of our latest stash. Now, anyone would be forgiven for thinking we live in a country that's rugby mad ;-) but lately we've acquired some signed merchandise.

Annalie won a top signed by the winning squad of the Super 15 rugby season, a Waikato-based team, the Chiefs.

Recently Ian acquired a rugby ball signed by some of the All Blacks.

We just wish we could identify who is who!