Quad bike

 

 

The boys christening the quad bike.  We got Abel the quad bike for his birthday present .

Yumchar @ Majestic 鸿图

 

 

 

 

we tried out yumchar at Majestic. The location is on courtenay place, kinda next to regal (the other chinese restaurant).  Food was pretty nice and was jam packed when we went there for lunch.

Wellington City



  After going to the High Comm submitting my application, I had to wait until afternoon to collect my documentation.  So I brought Noel and Abel to their favourite playground. Actually it was Noel's favourite.

Boy he loved that lighthouse slide.

Abel playing on the baby slide.

Look what I found..

A seashell..

While watching the boys play, I walked about and looked up shells on the beach.

Beach time @ Raumati beach

 

 

After the Fish and Chips, the boys changed into their togs and waste no time running and playing at the beach. 

I had packed a bit of beach toys but they were far more interested  playing with the fish and chip paper.

Fish & Chips @ paraparaumu

Many years ago, (like 10?) we came to Paraparaumu in summer and caught lots of pipi (a type of clams) on the beach.  It was a memorable trip, but the more memorable thing was the fish & chips shop there. They serve the nicest bread crumbed fish & chips and also have very good selection of fishes, like hapuka and etc..

We had a bit of trouble locating the same shop we tried so many years ago, we ended up buying from two of the F&C shops there.  If you want to know, the one facing the beach in our opinion has better fishes. crumbed to perfection.

The first F&C shop we went served us too many fishes as they got our orders wrong but they gave us the wrong order as well..

 

 

we were waiting for our food

first  f&c shop we went ..noel wanted photos taken with the fish & chips

taihape - the gumboot capital

Sorry my laptop has been giving me grief this last two weeks.  The battery adapter thingie is not working properly so it's always out of battery :S

Anyhow, here's more photo of our 'little' drive to wellington.  After Waiouru, [the army musuem] we passed by Taihape.  The icon is the gumboot - humble but hardworking community [excerpt taken from the www.taihape.co.nz]

We stopped by for a quick photo taking session while Abel was still napping in the car.

army museum

About 1/3 into our journey, I realised I left something in Auckland. Mega important document, which without it, my appointment would have been pointless. And dear Jake is NOT pleased at all.
Fortunately, he organised for a flight for MIL so my trip didn't go futile.

We passed by an army museum in Waiouru.  Since Abel has fallen asleep, only Noel and Jake went to check out the tankers parked in front of the museum.
Noel with a mini tanker below.
 

 

 

Big tanker.

Thingamajig.

Old red cannon.

next stop, ohakune

I have been wanting to visit Ohakune for quite some time. What's special? There's a giant carrot in the town, much like there's a pineapple in Sarikei. Some of the smaller towns in New Zealand often have a symbol to represent their town.  So we arrived with no carrots in sight.  

Found a little playground where the boys could spend a bit of time to chill out. Noel wasted no time practising his fireman going down the pole while abel tried the slides.

 

 

 

Ohakune started out as a market gardens. People would plant lots of veggies commercially, and it is still known today for its huge carrots.

Noel posing with a flax seeds.

Finally we drove don the main street and found the carrot but only a little disappointed they had painted it black for Last Year's RUGBY WORLD CUP.

Floras we discovered

Wild daisy

We found this giant Koru (midin) don't think I want to eat it.  Too much hairs.

Here's a finger in comparison to the size of the Koru.

Some sort of seed/fruit from one of the tree. Don't eat that Noel, could be poisonous.

Noel also collected some fern leaves on the way back to the car park.