Giff's World

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.

Off we go into the bush...

On our way back to the carpark from the Waitomo Caves visitor centre, we found this track. It looked easy enough so we decided to go for a little hike. The boys were full of enthusiasm.

As usual, they side tracked checking out things.

Pretty soon, the enthusiasm waned and somebody needs his personal porter to carry him on the steps .

Noel posed with the rocks/boulder formation

Soon Abel was walking on his own again..Hooray for the porter

perched on rocks of some sort.

Spotted some morning glories on the way back to the carpark

We made a long weekend trip down to Wellington end of January to get an emergency certificate for yours truly. The trip was made after Abel's party and our first stop was at Waitomo Caves. We didn't go to the caves but kinda just made a loo stop and checked out the visitor centre and also the small track available around the area.