Waiarapa

Mount Taraniki is an incredible sight as you drive anywhere around New Plymouth. Some days you can see the top, some days you cannot…

We went on hikes right up to the base. Rich really wants to climb to the peak if we end up staying in NZ.

This was Dawson Falls:

The hike through the Goblin Forrest and up to the Falls had such gorgeous views of the Mount…

The area also had the oldest working continuously operating power generator in the world, powered by the falls.

We are missing Pica terribly. Every hike we do and every dog we meet we are thinking of her. We get regular updates and she is doing great, but we look forward to when we can all be together again, it does not feel quite right without her 🙁

We went to a reserve that has been constructed by volunteers mostly.

http://www.rotokare.org.nz/

They completely surrounded the 230 hectares with a fence. You can see it is the background of this photo, (to keep out predators like rats, stoats, cats etc). Some of our more endangered species are thriving here like the Hihi, we saw lots! At one point they had disappeared from the mainland altogether.

Luca really getting into it all, the kiwi guardians and his bird book such an incentive to explore and learn.

Pukeko’s are a common sight here, a bit of a Kiwi icon really. They are so funny. Here is a Mum, Dad and chick, hanging out. Luca took this photo…

We left the New Plymouth area and headed down the coast to Wellington, stopping into small towns along the way to check them out. Then we cut across the Remutaka Ranges to the Waiarapa arriving at our next home

It is pretty darn cute with the ktichen to the left, bathroom in the middle and bedroom on the right. This is my morning view as I write this….

yep we are VERY rural 🙂

Yesterday we went and had lunch with some old and dear friends.

Vinu, Yvette and I met in South East Asia when I was 22 and first started with my travels! So many years ago, we have all keep in touch all this time!!!!

Here we are in 1992, I think this was Penang?

and here we today…

Yvette ended up marrying a school friend of Vinu’s ,(Dave), and the last time we were all together we were at Vinu and Hema’s wedding ,(they now have 3 kids, who are all in the below photo!).

It was so great to see them all, it has been WAY too long!!!

Here are the kids hanging with the local chooks 🙂 !

We drove back across the Remutaka Range to explore up the east coast, it is pretty spectacular:

We are talking all the time about what we think it best to do. Tomorrow we take the ferry across to the South Island, what we discover there who knows, but the most important thing about tomorrow is that it is Luca’s 10th birthday!

It is hard to believe it is whole decade since he came into the world. That is what happens though, you blink and a whole decade has gone.

This is of course the whole point of our journey. Making the very most of life and opportunities, doing things we love as a family, creating memories, and enjoying the path together, trying not to not worry too much about the final destination, which of course is the same for all of us…