Well, vacation is over. I’m back to work tomorrow, Sarah is heading back to college (or “uni” as it’s referred to here) at Reed, Cindy is off to the States visiting her family for a couple weeks (my Christmas present to her!), and Max starts at his new school (Westlake Boys) in a couple weeks.
One of the many projects for me over the holidays was to keep up on my blog, which along with some computer organization projects, didn’t happen. (Maybe I’ll make progress while Max and I are baching it for the next couple weeks…) Instead, we did a bunch of day trips around Auckland, and then four days out at the Coromandel Peninsula.
Here’s a summary:
- Beach walks: Milford to Takapuna, Browns Bay to Campbells Bay.
- Play Laserforce.
- Walk through “Jurassic Park”. (Our name for the nearby Centennial Park, because of the foliage, you expect a dinosaur to stick its head out at any moment!)
- Traditional Kiwi Christmas trip to the beach for a picnic – We went back to Muriwai, and saw that the gannet chicks had hatched!
- Watch our favorite Christmas movies, “White Christmas”, “A Muppet Christmas Carol”, and “Christmas Vacation”. (Sandy gave us “The Polar Express”, but I haven’t gotten to see it yet.) Also caught an unexpected gem, “The Man Who Saved Christmas“, about A.C. Gilbert, the man who invented the Erector Set.
- Go to the Auckland Zoo. (Which was fantastic! Thought we’d only spend a couple hours, and stayed most of the day.)
- Take Cindy out to dinner at the Orbit Restaurant at the Sky Tower for our anniversary. (Like the Space Needle back in Seattle.) It has a glass-floored elevator, and glass floor sections at the observation level – very cool, if not disconcerting!
- Walk, picnic, and swim at beautiful Shakespear Park.
- See Peter Jackson’s latest, “King Kong“!
- Walk in the Waitakeres (Lower Huia Dam trail).
- Ride the Watercare “Rain Forest Express” tram, that was used to build the Upper Nihotupu Dam. Narrow gauge, long tunnels, glowworms, giant dam. Excellent!
- Go to the Auckland Museum, including the Maori cultural show.
- Go to Devonport, and walk up Mt. Victoria (more of a hill, really) for the fantastic view of Auckland, Waitemata Harbour and the Hauraki Gulf.
- Work our way through all the episodes of “Firefly” that Sarah brought down for us to watch, in preparation for watching the movie “Serenity“. We all really enjoyed the series, and were very sorry to learn that it had been cancelled just partway through the first season. (Probably to be replaced with yet another insipid sitcom or stupid reality show.) Apparently the movie does well by the fans, but it’s not yet available here on DVD – I’m having Cindy get it while back in the States!
- Walk through the Chatswood Reserve, which has a grove of nice large Kauri trees.
- Watch some favorite movies during the month, like “The Princess Bride”, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Lilo and Stitch”, “Crocodile Dundee”, “Zoolander”, “Whale Rider”, etc.
- Fooled Sarah with Peter Jackson’s mockumentary, “Forgotten Silver“. (Long live the legend of filmmaker Colin McKenzie!)
- Our container arrives! (I’ll have to write about that adventure in a separate post.) Unloaded, inspected, and unpacked.
- Lunch in Ponsonby, dinner in Parnell.
- Go to Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World.
- Visit the One Tree Hill Domain, the adjacent Cornwall Park, and the Stardome Observatory.
- Sarah and Max work on learning more computer programming: Sarah is learning Lisp, and Max is learning to use HTML, CSS, and PHP.
Coromandel trip highlights:
- The incredible Driving Creek Potteries and Railway! (I’ll have to write a separate post about that!)
- Spectacular grove of Kauri trees along the 309 Road between Coromandel Town and Whitianga.
- Snorkel and picnic at beautiful Cathedral Cove.
- Bodyboarding at Hot Water Beach, that has hot geothermal springs coming up under the sand at low tide!
- Delightful hosts, Barb and Jim Law, at our Cooks Cottage rental in Whitianga.
- Relaxing in the shade in the cottage garden.
- Lots of spectacular scenary!
- Lots of winding roads… (Not recommended for those susceptible to car sickness!)
We didn’t get down to Rotorua, the gloworm caves at Waitomo, the Hobbiton tour, or to the island of Tiritiri Matangi – we’ll do that when Sarah comes back down for her summer break (winter for us).
Time to get my bicycle ready to start commuting again!
One response to “What I did on my Summer Vacation”
Wow! You packed a lot of adventure into a short period of time. What a beautiful place to explore–so many interesting things to see and do. Don’t pity us as we go through day 28 of consecutive days of rain. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/weather/ –just enjoy the sunshine.