Tag Archives: Waiwera

Out and about again…

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Time is racing by at the moment, and we’re seriously planning all that we need to do/see/sort out before we leave next month.

The weather has been pretty nice (mostly) recently (although cold – I’ll spare you my usual rant about looking forward to the warmth of Scotland!), and we’re doing our usual of trying to get out and enjoy it as much as possible.

A couple of weekends ago, we had Aunty Heather and Uncle Martin to stay with us, which was lovely. Martin joined us on the Saturday for a trip to Musick Point, and a scramble down to the beach there.

We reckon we must be trying to get as many different views of Rangitoto as possible these days, as on Saturday (just past) we headed north of Auckland to the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, and had lunch watching the kite surfers performing with the wonderful backdrop of the volcano and downtown Auckland. From there we went to Waiwera – nothing quite like relaxing in outdoor hot pools, on a freezing cold day!

Sunday, we had Anna round for lunch, and then we took afternoon tea to Western Springs (park) with Nan and Grandad, and had a lovely walk around the lake.

On a different note, the kids have been getting on pretty well generally, although we’re noticing a similar lapse in Aidan’s ability to concentrate that we saw in the few weeks preceding our move here. Megan’s ballet teachers seem to be somewhat upset that she’s leaving though – after her lesson this week, I was instructed in no uncertain terms that I must find a class for her in Scotland which is fun [so that she doesn’t get put off], but which follows the RAD syllabus – “she’s got potential” they said… 🙂

I realised that I’m feeling a bit lonely on here – so, if you are reading please do leave a comment and say “Hi!”, just so I know I’m not alone!! Ta!

Trips away…

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We’ve been pretty busy settling in here since we arrived but we have managed a couple of trips away.

On Waitangi day, we went to the beach at KareKare – one of the black sand beaches north west of Auckland, and setting of the movie, The Piano. It was a beautiful day and we took off with our picnic, and drove through glorious scenery and arrived an hour or so later.

The kids had a wonderful time playing in the sand and the river, which wends its way to the Tasman Sea splitting the beach into two. It’s mainly a surfing beach and the kids weren’t too keen on going into the sea, much beyond a bit of a paddle, but they loved playing in the shallow river – Aidan spent a considerable period of time running through the water to ocean and back again. Megan spent her time in tamer pursuits, making a series of sand cakes (complete with twig candles), each one bigger than the last.

We ended our day with a walk across the burning sands, and through the Pohutukawa Glade (sadly, we’re beyond the season for these NZ “Christmas” trees to be in bloom, but the glade was lovely nonetheless).

Our second trip away was yesterday, and we went to Waiwera – the attraction there being the hot springs. Again, we took our picnic (courtesy this time of our fab local bakery cum patisserie), and headed off, this time north-east of Auckland. We all had a lovely time, this time the kids were also content to lounge around relaxing in the hot pools for long periods of time (last time we came Aidan was only three and a half, and Megan a mere eighteen months or so, and too small for the hot pools). What a lovely relaxing day!