I just made a new year’s resolution… to take more photos and do more with them.
Yesterday I noticed a stunning picture frame in a vineyard that had a collection of 12 awesome photos of Auckland. I thought to myself that I too have some great shots of Auckland that I could do something like that with. Not sure how, but the vineyard was selling the picture for $295 so it could be worth looking into. I’m not talking about selling stuff just doing more with my photos – I want to get back into it as a hobby.
After yesterday’s overcast weather I was extremely excited to wake up to this stunning view from my hotel room – it meant I would probably be able to see THE mountain.
As I checked out of the hotel I asked the very friendly lady at reception where is the best place to view the mountain and she said it was just down the road from a bridge called Te Rewa Rewa, so after the gallery that would be our next stop.
Our first stop was at the Len Lye Gallery which I’d wanted to photograph for a couple of months after spotting it on the cover of the Air New Zealand magazine – it was stunning!
I also wanted to go inside the gallery to photograph the gigantic “fibre optic” sculptures.
We were in the gallery a bit longer than expected and received a parking ticket for exceeding the 30 minute limit – wow they don’t muck around in New Plymouth! The gallery was just across the road from the courthouse, so I wonder if that had anything to do with it.
Next stop was the Te Rewa Rewa Bridge to hopefully see THE mountain at last.
I finally got to see Mount Taranaki (Mt Egmont) and the bridge certainly was a great place to photograph it from (thank you Devon Hotel reception lady/Manager), not only was it a great vantage point, but the bridge itself was quite spectacular, especially on a beautiful sunny day – all white against a blue sky.
Next stop was Tupare Gardens, lovely very English style settings with loads of beautiful hydrangeas in unusual colours.
Unfortunately it was the middle of the day, really hot and the amazing colours of the plants just didn’t come out in photos, so we headed home.
We stopped at a place called Three Sisters coz it seemed like a nice place to stop for a toilet break.
Next was Te Kuiti which I’ve decided is not somewhere I want to go again – I got out of the car and stood on some chewing gum – yuk! We didn’t stay long after that.
Next stop was in the middle of nowhere to buy Strawberries from the PioPio Berry Shop – there were loads of cars parked out the front so my friend figured it must be a good place to buy fruit. I decided to buy a drink, but to pay for it you had to join the same queue as the fruit buying people so I had no choice but to stand next to big punnets of sweet smelling strawberries which of course made me want to buy some. They were flying off the shelf and I’m sure I waited in the queue for about half an hour! At $25 a punnet they must be good.
The last stop on our journey was at a brand new mega shopping centre in Hamilton called The Base where I had McDonalds for dinner and watched thousands of people frantically trying to do very last minute Xmas shopping.
A friend recently bought a new car and was keen to do a wee road trip somewhere and I was very keen to go to New Plymouth to see Mt Taranaki, the Pukekura Gardens lit up for Xmas and the brand new Len Lye Gallery, both of which I read about in the Air New Zealand magazine a couple of months ago – so it seemed like the perfect place for a road trip.
Our first stop for coffee was in the Clock World & Longitude Cafe in Ohaupo, which is somewhere just south of Hamilton. The Clock World shop was awesome with many fabulous clocks but the cafe left a lot to be desired. The service was incredibly slow, the person behind the counter was kinda rude and prefered to organise her cakes into some sort of order rather than serving us and the coffee wasn’t all that great.
That was our one and only stop on the way to New Plymouth, just as well I’d packed a gift box of Kahlua Chocolates or I may have starved to death. It was a lovely easy drive with lots of great scenery, but the weather wasn’t great and I was a tad disappointed that I couldn’t see THE mountain at all. I was hoping for better weather the next day so I could see it.
We checked in to the The Devon Hotel which was really lovely and set off in search of a snack to tide us over till dinner.
Second dinner was in the hotel restaurant which was a glorious buffet and it felt like half of the the town also went there for dinner – children and all for a Xmas dinner treat I guess, coz it was packed and people I spoke to all lived in New Plymouth. Anyway the food was great!
After that we set off for Pukekura Park which the TSB Bank turns into a “Festival of Lights” from the 13th of December to the end of January. It was truly spectacular and well worth the drive from Auckland.
Today was the first official day of my annual leave, a Monday where many people still went to work. I’m going away on a road trip tomorrow so I decided to try my luck at the local mall and hope for a car park and not too many crowds and buy a double USB car charger. That way I could Bluetooth my iPhone to my friend’s car stereo and charge it, incase that drained the battery too much and still have his GPS plugged in or whatever else he needs plugged into the cigarette lighter.
I was in luck… there were plenty of parks and not too many people, in fact as I walked past Santa on his throne I was fairly certain he was fast asleep and there were no people waiting to have their photos taken with Santa.
I found the double USB thing plus I scored a very handy plug box with two fast USB charging slots and two ordinary sockets and a little extension cord, perfect for travelling when the only place to charge your stuff while in a hotel room is trickily located behind some curtain and there’s only one plug.
I also scored some awesome purple lights for half price at the warehouse.
But I didn’t really know what to do with them, so out of pure desperation to do something with them I chucked them on the towel thing in the bathroom, which turned out to be very cool, coz I don’t need to use the light in there anymore as the purple lights are so bright!
Today was a mini Xmas day. Because the majority of the family will not be in Auckland on Xmas day we had a pre-xmas get together so that the ones unable to be here on Xmas day wouldn’t miss out on some great food and a present. We all contributed some food and only had to buy one present each within the set price limit.
Once we’d eaten we took turns at selecting a gift which turned out to be good fun and I scored a groovy bluetooth speaker which will come in very handy.
Dad was driving so that meant I was able to have a few wines before, during and after lunch which added to the enjoyment of the day.
At 4:00 we left and once I was back home I got to have a few more wines in the afternoon sun – what a lovely day.
Dear loyal readers- all four of you, it’s that time of year again where I sit out in my courtyard sipping coffee wondering what to do next – I’m on holiday and this time it’s for a whole four weeks – yahoo! I have no big plans, I’m not going away, nobody is coming from overseas and even Xmas day will be a nice quiet small affair with many of the usual family members going away and not here on Xmas Day.
Naturally this led to thoughts of my blog. I always have such big plans for my blog but then I get busy and because I work with computers all day long, there are many times when I don’t even want to turn on my PC when I get home. But with all this free time stretching out ahead of me, now feels like the perfect time to crank up the old blog and make a start.
So… what did I do today? Apart from boring old housework I managed to finally upload the photos I took a couple of weeks ago of the Xmas lights on Franklin Rd, so the friend I went with could see them. Then I decided to get the camera out to see if it was charged up and then take a photo of the massive pile of Lego that I have purchased this year but haven’t got round to actually opening and building.
The reason I’ve ended up with so much Lego is that when a set is first released it is expensive and then the longer you take to buy it (from any of the Trade Me sellers) the more expensive it gets. You’d think it would get cheaper but they know somebody will always buy it no matter what price they charge, so I have to buy it as soon as it comes out to save money which I realise doesn’t make sense, but it does in the long run. Check out the little update on my Lego blog.
Then I spent a bit of time hanging up several strings of Xmas lights in the courtyard, after that was done I felt I deserved a beer. Oh yes my holiday has well and truly begun, the sun umbrella is up, the beer is in hand and the Xmas music is playing. It’s a good life. Now I can’t wait to see all my handiwork once it gets dark.
On the 8th of December I went with a friend to view the lights on Franklin Road, so glad I did. It rained a little and it was a tad chilly but that kept the massive crowds away.
Click the link below to see the whole album including videos.
A friend and I were keen to keep a tradition going of hanging out in Wellington for a night while she is visiting New Zealand. Usually I just happen to be in Wellington for work at some part of her holiday so she flies down to meet me, but this time I had no work plans to be there so we flew down together to see the Air New Zealand 75th birthday exhibition at Te Papa.
I was excited to be sitting on the right side of the airplane as I could see the planes at the international terminal where I had been only two days earlier when we flew back from Sydney.
Plus we had a great view of the wind turbines and city as we landed.
We caught a taxi straight to Te Papa, dumped our bags at the front desk and explored.
There was even a place where you could fill out a memory card of your earliest memory of flying with Air New Zealand, this is my card…
There was a virtual reality area where you experienced what flying in the future could be like. It was my first experience of virtual reality and it was AMAZING, I really did feel what I was seeing was real.
I loved the exhibition and would happily go again. I even bought a couple of model aircraft as souvenirs – the Fokker Friendship which was my first plane to fly on and the NAC Boeing 737. After we had a quick wander around the rest of Te Papa.
Outside there is the nose of an old 737 that you could have your photo taken in but the queue was too long and the sun was too hot.
The weather was fabulous and we enjoyed a short walk to the hotel.
Dinner was in my favourite restaurant Portofino and my favourite waiter was there (he’d been away for a while on his OE). There was even a gorgeous sunset.
We found some giant Kina shells and beautiful buildings.
Before going back to the hotel we caught the cable car up the mountain to enjoy the view while eating an ice cream.
We ended the evening by enjoying a glass of wine while enjoying the view from my friend’s hotel room (she had a much better view than I did).
Great flight home the next day and I was even sitting on the right side of the plane again to enjoy the city view as we took off.
On the 8th of December I went with a friend to view the lights on Franklin Road, so glad I did. It rained a little and it was a tad chilly but that kept the massive crowds away.
