Halloween in Paradise

Ilona takes her Halloween pretty seriously (see here and here for some examples from Pittsburgh). Halloween is known in New Zealand, but it is not a big holiday (Guy Fawkes Day in early November is much bigger). But we had to do some decorations and invite some of the other kids over. Ilona (helped by Mike) did a great job in making the house look scary, at least as scary as you can make a house full of windows on a bright sunny day look! I fear we went a little overboard since some of the little princesses and butterflies (all of Alexander's friends are girls for some reason) a little nervous. Hands coming out of the snack bowls didn't help.

But once the kids started popping balloons and making ghosts, all was right. Ilona has a wonderful story she does involving ripping apart a monster that had them all captivated. We even had some trick-or-treaters (exclusively the domain of 10 year old girls, here, it seems). Not quite like home: Halloween should be a fall event, and it just doesn't feel right on such a wonderful day. Of course, in Winnipeg, kids end up wearing parkas and flashing their costumes during trick-or-treat, and that isn't right either!

The party ended when we ran out of water, again! The water collection system on our roof obviously doesn't work very well. The water guy was startled the next day when seeing Ilona: she hadn't had the water to wash off her green witch makeup.

A few parents (including us!) were in for a surprise when we found out where food coloring in drinks ends up in little kids. We almost took Alexander to the doctor before we figured out what was going on!

Hey Dads! Octoberfest

There is a group on the Island called "Hey Dads!", organized by Uwe, a German living on the island who is also out banker. The goal is to get Dads and kids out at various activities. Not surprisingly, the activities have included fishing, paintball, and driving earth-moving machines. Today, Hey Dads put together an Octoberfest party. Note: Ilona and I differ on the logo of the Hey Dads group (a sperm). I think it is tacky; Ilona thinks the shirts with the logo would make the perfect Christmas present for any male.






It was a great day (though it would have been even nicer on a sunny day). There were beer, sausages, and pretzels, of course, but also a lot of activities for kids. The day began with a traditional "Gum boot toss" (gum boot being the local name for "rubber boot"). Alexander got off a pretty good toss, but Mike chickened out when he saw some of the Dad's heave the boot 30 meters or more.


There was a clown with a juggling act that had Alexander completely enraptured. It must have been a good day: he napped for three hours afterwards!

Uwe is the guy with goggles and a pen in his mouth, as part of the juggling act.

Birthday party in Palm Beach

We have been told that with Alexander, our social lives will start to revolve around the kids he meets, and that is definitely true. Through one of Alexanders many girlfriends, we met Claire and David, a very nice English couple living for three months on the island. They are animators, with "The Amazing Andrenelini Brothers" being perhaps their most famous creation (it is about to debut on the Cartoon Channel here). They moved to the island a month ago, and live in an area called Palm Beach, notable to us by being the only area on the island that we need a map to find.

They live in a wonderful hilltop house. The only drawback of the house is a lack of driveway (they say a four-wheel drive could make it up, but I don't think so). So getting to the house involves 138 steps up a hill. David's parents (who are up there in age) are visiting, and they limit themselves to one round-trip per day. The view is almost worth the effort of getting up to the house. If we had lived there, Mike would have lost a lot of weight, and Ilona would have flown back to Pittsburgh at the first opportunity.



The party had a pirate theme (there is something about the island that causes people to think of pirates). It began in the house, then we went down to the beach to dig for treasure, followed by a vigorous workout at the playground. This is a great age and place: no need for "ChuckECheese"!

Cover of the Gulf News

The Gulf News is the local weekly (one of three, actually, but the only one you have to pay for). On Thursdays, we read the week's issue from cover to cover. The letters to the editor are especially funny ("Dear Editor: my dog was almost killed at Whakanewha Regional Park when he was caught in a trap drawn by poisoned bait. What kind of sick people are there in this world" Response from the park people: "Maybe if you didn't ignore the twenty "No dogs permitted" and "Endangered bird breeding grounds" signs, you would keep your dog away from the poison we put out to kill stoats and feral cats!").

Mike was the first to appear in the Gulf News with a picture of him buying the new Harry Potter book. Ilona was next with a long article on her and the local Historical Society, including a cover picture. Yesterday, we were delighted to see Alexander on the cover, dressed as a doctor as part of the coverage of a play group he goes to. Now Mike is the only one who has not appeared on the cover.

Whakanewha Regional Park

Wakanewha Regional Park is a new park set aside on the island. We attended its opening way back in February. Today we visited to walk on some of its trails. In addition, Ilona has joined the local photography club (the island has an amazing number of clubs!) and this months assignment is to provide a photo from Wakanewha. So the photos today are a little more artistic than the norm, though there is still enough Alexander to keep the grandmothers happy.

The hike took us to the location of an old "pa", or Maori fortification. You can see the dikes and other fortifications, though mostly you see pits where they stored sweet potatoes.

The birds in the pictures are either tuis (the blue-black birds) or dotterels (the ones on the beach). Dotterels are endangered, primarily because their mode of defense to to be colored like shell-covered sand and to sit on shell-covered sand. Modern dogs and cats are not fooled by this defense, so we are down to about 1500 of these birds, a good portion of which are in this park.

It is a large park and it appeared that the only person other than us there was a windsurfer.

Click for more Whakanewha pictures

Boats and Fish

The long weekend attracted a lot of boats (perhaps 30 in the bay). I don't know what the people do, since there are only two restaurants open in the evening in this area!

We had a wonderful fish for dinner, along with asparagus, since asparagus season is in full swing.

Weather today

The forecast for today is "Fine, with gale winds". New Zealanders seem to have a funny definition of "fine".

It is Labour Weekend, so I hope to get a chance to catch up. Check out below as I enter some back-dated entries (from Coromandel onwards).

Playdate a trois

It is a beautiful day, and Alexander has invited two of the local lovelies over for painting, picnicking, and pirating.


Since it is the start of the long weekend (Labour Weekend), the bay has started to fill with the "sailboat village" of people who have sailed over from Auckland.

Feeding Seagulls

There is a seagull who visits us that has only one leg. Despite that, he gets along fine, landing almost normally (a few extra tumbles in the wind) and he certainly appears healthy. Ilona and Alexander feel sorry for it, though, and have been trying to feed it when it comes by. Of course, word has gotten out, so the entire local populace first sends out Ol' One Leg and then arrive en masse. Kinda like sending out the cute girl to hitchhike and then all pop out of the bushes when a ride stops (hitchhiking still is common on the island, keeping with the island motto "Far enough behind to be ahead"). It is fun to watch the mobs fight over the bread, but a few of them have been eying Alexander for size. You might next hear about this on the evening news.

Some backyard splashing

The weather is highly variable right now: sometimes thrashing rain, often windy, sometimes very nice and sunny. This seems to be pretty normal for spring here.

Alexander has found time to open his swimming pool for the season. Check out his fancy swim gear: much more fashionable than a speedo (or budgie smuggler, as they are called here).

Tairua

Our destination this weekend was Tairua, a town on the east coast of the Coromandel peninsula, where a colleague of Mike's has a "bach" (summer home/cottage). It is a beautiful, rambling place, halfway up a hillside. We had a wonderful dinner last night, then woke to watch the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup. New Zealand was heavily favored to beat France, so naturally they lost. I am not sure there is any country that lives or dies with its sports teams as much as New Zealand does with the All Blacks. Certainly the New Zealanders around us were in shock. I have kinda mixed feelings. This certainly stops the ever-increasing mania around the country. On the other hand, we now have weeks of "what went wrong" as the only topic in the newspaper.



After the game and wandering around Tairua, we went to Hot Water Beach. Here, extremely hot water (created from the volcanic areas around) streams (and steams) out near the ocean. At low tide, you dig a hole in the sand and try to mix ocean water with the hot water to get something that won't scald or freeze you. You can tell where the hot water comes out by the large group of people digging on the beach.

The drive back was uneventful. There is a single-lane bridge on the main route back to Auckland that can have huge backups, but we had no problems. I don't understand why New Zealand peppers their highway system with single-lane bridges (by single-lane, I don't mean one lane each direction: I mean one lane total, either controlled by lights or by complicated right-of-way rules), but there are lot of them about.

Click for more Tairua Pictures

Coromandel: Part 3 The Walk

Our final major activity for the day was to take a walk in the woods. First we did a short walk down to a waterfall, then we did a longer walk to a kauri tree grove. The kauri tree holds a special role in New Zealand society. The tree is huge (not in height, particularly, though they grow up to 50m high, but in volume) and used to cover most of the north island. Deforestation removed many specimens, but now the tree is protected, with many of the largest specimens having names.

After our walk, we continued along the "unsealed" (dirt) road we were using to cross the peninsula (the "309") when we came across a woman with a rental car she had gotten truly stuck. A true kiwi would have put together a block and tackle from junk in the back of the car; we were able to get a mobile-phone signal to call a tow truck.

Coromandel Walk

Coromandel: Part 2 The Waterworks

Our next stop was the Waiau Waterworks, another in a series of places obviously started when someone said "You know, we have a lot of stuff about: why don't we charge people to look at it?" In this case, the "stuff" is all about water. Water fountains, water clocks, water cannons, water pools, water sculptures, and much more. The waterpark is set in a lovely surrounding full of flowers and trees, and the "artifacts" are really quite captivating. Alexander had a great time running from place to place. Mike's favorite was the water guns, where he and Alexander were soaked by some teenager with deadly aim. I think Alexander most enjoyed the rotating tunnel, where he got to see his parents flop around like fishes trying to keep their feet.

"Whimsical" is the most used adjective for the Waterworks, and I think that pretty well sums it up. Best of all, it is for sale, so if anyone is looking for a lifestyle change and has NZ$1.4 million ...

Click for more Coromandel Waiau Waterworks