How to Enjoy a Hot Meat Pie

Here's how, in only six steps.

1. Get up early. 
2. Drive up a mountain. 
3. Ski a bleak winter's morning in wind and snow.
4. Camp out on a icy deck, because the cafe is full.
5. Enjoy the hot pie warming your cold wet frozen fingers
6. Enjoy the hot food going down into a empty hungry stomach.

Lucy enjoying a well deserved Turoa cafe meat pie in the cold after a morning's skiing.

Feeding of the Lambs

Amelia and Lucy feeding the lambs at sheep world.

The shearer running the show was a 'bit of a dagg' himself. But he was pretty handy with his dogs running the sheep.

Pakiri Beach

There is something magic about Pakiri Beach. It is a classic remote wild northland surf beach.  Each visit is a memorable experience, even if it is only a trip over a hill and down a dusty country dirt road from where we are staying at Christmas.

This year I took the kids over for a visit with the camera, determined to get some shots of them in action in the white sand and surf.

Lucy took to her heels and ran of course straight down into the surf. It took some convincing to remind her that the waves where not as forgiving and tame as the beaches she is used to.

 On the beach was a surf club in action teaching their nippers.

Both the girls enjoying running down the sand dunes. 

More shots here.

Horses

Amelia and Lucy riding the horses outside of Matakana. Its a popular summer time activity for them, something they always look forward to each year.

 More shots are here.

Christmas Day

Shots of the kids enjoying the day, and of course, the presents.

School Holiday Ski Week

First weekend of the school holidays saw us up at Ohakune. Weather was patchy during the week with a bit of time on the snow mixed in with some off-day activities.


On the Thursday we headed over to Taupo for some lakes, waterfalls and other touristy things the kids love.  The kids enjoyed Huka Falls but the feeling I got was the thing they enjoyed the most was the simple act of hanging out by the lake and playing with the pummice rocks.

Playing on the shore of Lake Taupo

Lucy at Lake Taupo

Huka Falls

The kids made good progress on skis. Lucy continued to find and improve her balance in her first year of skiing. Meanwhile Amelia has been well and truley bitten by the snow bug. On the Friday she cracked the Movenpick for the first time and skiied top to bottom successfully. Not to finish there, on the Sunday she had another go on the Movenpick once again and then cracked her first run down the Giant. Again top to bottom successfully. Good way to end the trip.

School Holiday Ski Week

Some shots of Amelia and Lucy in the snow over the school holidays. Amelia and Lucy up bright and early one frosty morning.

Lucy practicing some of here slope style attitude.

 On the snow. Lucy's first day on skis. Amelia has taken up a spot of ski coaching before heading off on her own for a session while I teach Lucy.

Lucy did pretty well for her first week on skis. She managed to stand up balance and ski unaided by herself on her first day. She wasn't so keen on Dad giving the directions however. Nor being told how to stop. She's more a point it straight down the fall line type of girl.

Waitarere Beach

This weekend we travelled up to Waitarere Beach to spend some time out of town. It was a gloomy winter weekend but the wild west coast beach was welcomely remote.

 On Saturday morning, in a quick gap in clouds the sun managed to peak through making for some rich autumn light on the driftwood.

 The kids enjoyed running wild and playing on the driftwood.

Probably the most amusing aspect was that the accommodation we stayed in. It was an 100 year old church that had been converted to a bach. Complete with organ and roaring fire it was a comfortable way to spent time next to stormy beach.  There is always something about going to bed with the surf rolling in your ears.

More shots here.

Amelia on Her Bike

Amelia's got the hang of her bike without the training wheels.  We've been out learning for an hour each Sunday for about 3 weekends. Last weekend she started to click, but this weekend she was totally away.

Teach a kid to ride a bike. When they click, find their balance, its magic.

It all goes click

 Lucy was in a supporting role on three wheels.

Hot pursuit

I can ride a bike

Lifetime skill taught. More shots here.

Staglands

The grandparents visited this weekend to bring their grand daughter Amelia back to Wellington.  We had a fun weekend entertaining them and Wellington turned on the weather.

An interesting and different highlight was taking the entire family on a visit to Staglands wildlife park in the Akatarawa's.

The walk nestles through different farm wildlife settings with the animals pretty much doing their own thing. A very refreshing change from a typical zoo.

Sitting pretty - swan glides past the ugly ducks.

The prize ram at Staglands is a pretty interesting character. Ironically he's keeping that grass like carpet. Things could go full circle for this guy.

Going full circle

The main attraction for the kids is the chance to get involved and feed the animals.

Feeding the fish

The grandparent's really enjoyed seeing something quite different than they normally would each Wellington visit. It provided a great chance to hang out with their grand daughters as well.

Grandparents Granddaughters

Easter at Leigh

This Easter we flew back to Auckland to spend time with the family up at Leigh. The weather was welcomely fine, but with a fair bit of wind. So while we were able to get out and about with the kids it was pretty stormy on the beach and out at sea.

The shot below is of Mathesons Bay one morning, with the sun hitting the salt spray in the air driven off the beach by the strong wind and huge swells that were pounding the bay all Easter.

The beach was off but the bush was on. The kids ran through the local Kauri forest near Warkworth.

The clan Macdonald cousins

While the days had grown shorter, the kids managed to enjoy some fun with sparkers after dark. The shot below shows Peter getting a kick out of with playing with light.

Gwen writes with light

On Easter Sunday the Leigh community puts on a local Easter fair at which the kids had a blast. Lucy and Peter had a good time on the merry go around. 

Lucy on the Leigh Easter merry go around

Peter enjoying the merry go around action

Probably the highlight of the day was the local fishery providing the ice to make a slide down a slope which the kids attacked with boogie boards.

Gwen gets her grin on

Amelia enjoying some summer snow

Over Easter the full moon was in full swing, making also for some interesting shots.

With the full moon, high tides and stormy seas, the river into Mathesons Bay had been blocked by a large sandbank driven up the beach by the tide and waves.  Over several days the river continued to backfill against the sandy dam.  One afternoon we took the girls down for a walk on the beach, just as the dam burst. The result was extaordinary. A normally placid bay had a white water river thrashing through it with spectacular results. Huge standing waves were generated that crashed and curled and carved out a ravine through the bay. It was rather impressive, and watched by many. Sadly I didn't have the camera with me, which I dearly cursed myself for. The swollen river drained itself within about 15mins leaving quite the scar through the sandy cove and out into the bay.

Later in the afternoon I took the fishing kayak down into the bay for a paddle and spent an amusing few hours surfing the swells in it. I originally though it would be terrible to surf with but with a bit of paddle action and weighting I managed to catch a number of waves and carve a line diagonally across the face of a wave then pull out before the wave broke and swept me sideways.

On the Monday we returned early to Auckland to beat the Easter traffic. To fill in time before the flight home we took the kids for a stroll along the new developments on the waterfront in the Wynyard quarter. The shot inside the ships air vent sort of fell into place.

Sunday Chill Out

After a busy Saturday there was a general chill out on Sunday with the kids.  The dawn had some thing to wake up for with the view over the local horse paddock.

After breakfast the kids enjoyed handing out at the local playground. For some reason this playground usually gets some fun shots of the kids at play.

More shots here.

Martinborough Camping

Last weekend we packed up the family, the camping gear and the car and drove over to Martinborough for a quiet weekend get away. Well as quiet as possible with two families and four noisy little girls.

Last year we got well and truly washed out when we tried this. However this year, the weather smiled on us with the hot and dry Martinborough micro climate we come to expect.

Saturday awoke like this.

So we packed up, for a day over in Masterton for a local A&P show. Time to get some country into those city girls.  They were naturally pretty fascinated with the local live stock on display.

Not to mention the activities in the sheep race where the realities of handling live stock where on display.

All the city girls, go round the outside, round the outside.

The moving onto the "P" part of the A&P show, there was some good looking produce on display. The strawberries and blueberries were hard to go past.  The vendor wanted $20 for the shot, I'm not sure I was meant to pay or she.

The old tractors, scrubbed up as well as the strawberries.

Afterwards we drove back to Martinborough to chill out in the sun and swim in the local pool.  The local town pool is actually pretty low key and good fun. Reminds me of the old school pools when I was a kid. It definitely was just the thing to relieve the heat of a hot Martinborough summer afternoon.

At the end of the day I caught this shot of Amelia on the local swings just as the after glow of the sun was burning away. I quite like the narrow depth of field and bokeh in this shot. She's happy to be on the swing also.

More shots here.