Kiwi Christmas Tree

The iconic Kiwi Christmas tree is the Pohutukawa tree that blooms near Christmas and has beautiful red blooms.  I stopped with the kiddos near the traffic circle at State Highway 3 and Glover Road, here in Hawera and snapped a few shots.

Actually three trees

A closeup of the blooms

Our friends told us about the trees before they started blooming and I expected them to turn bright red all over, but none in town have bloomed more than this one.  Still, it's a pretty tree.

Shooting

Richard, our friend and Laura's colleague likes his guns and has been kind enough to take Jack and I out shooting at nearby farms.  Jack has taken a turn at a .22, a silenced .177, .243 and a 12 gauge automatic.

Target shooting

.177, note the silencer

One night, we went out for rabbits and possums.  The possums are an invasive species from Austrailia and are hunted to control the population and for their wool.  The belly fur is plucked and combined with other furs to line boots and gloves and each possum fetches in the neighborhood of $6.  Jack bagged his first rabbit with the .177 before nightfall and nailed a few possums after dark.  We heard some feral goats in the hills, but didn't see any.

First kill

Jack and Richard stalking

Feral goats out there

Christmas Parade

We made our way to downtown Hawera for the Christmas parade and shopping on 13 Dec.  It was another nice day in the sun.  We came to New Zealand hoping to stock up on wool products, but it has been a challenge finding finished goods.  Most places just sell yarn.  From what we gather, the majority of raw wool produced (along with dairy products) is exported for offshore production.  We found a nice lady at the local craft show who weaves as a hobby and bought one of her blankets.

Last photo with Santa?

A favorite eating joint

A new blanket

Things American seem popular in New Zealand.  We see heaps of American made cars, mostly '60s and '70s, but some newer models.  Route 66 is a recurring theme we often see.

South African Pizza!

We've been to our friends' house several times for pizza.  Richard bought a second hand outdoor pizza oven and is getting quite adept at cooking up pies.  We met Rob, a mate of Richard's who is a NZAF veteran.  Rob was a Flight Engineer on Hercs for twenty years and is now working at the dairy plant.  He made a number of trips to Antartica over the years and it was fun swapping stories.

Christmas Program

 The kids' school finished the year with a Christmas program the evening after the last rugby match. One of the unexpected pleasures of being a parent is watching your kids perform in these things. The school staff did a great job keeping things organized.  Another function of the program was a "farewell" for the kids finishing up at St Joe's. Most kids attend a boarding high school after Year 8 and Steven will be classified as a Year 8 student when school resumes in a few weeks.  Jack will be a Year 7 and will be taught by Mr. Bartlett, Steven's teacher for the past three months.

Full house

We continued to get tripped up by the term "tea". Parents were requested to bring a plate of food for "tea" after the program. Laura and I took it to mean a "covered dish" and I took a shot at a vegan potato recipe, which failed miserably. In actuality, it really was a tea and everybody brought light snacks. We haven't broken the code on when "tea" is actually a social with light finger foods or a full blown meal.  The potatoes were promptly discarded after the "tea".

End of Rugby

Touch rugby finished up the first week in December.  Steven improved a lot and had a lot of fun playing.  We had fun watching.  The team had a pizza party after the last practice and Steven took himself off his milk free diet before I could catch what was going on.

The last game was grey and overcast with a light mist. Steven's coach, Sean was great with the kids throughout the season.  Here are some shots from the last game, a win!

Panorama of the rugby fields

Zopf

Steven learned of Zopf from a Swiss friend at school and had to try his hand, since it is a dairy free recipe.

Christmas Preparations

We've been quite the thrift store shoppers since moving to Hawera.  There are three stores on main street within 50 meters of each other, the Hospice Shop, Salvation Army and the SPCA store. The first week of December, we grabbed a $5 Christmas tree and a $2 bag of ornaments from the SPCA store and put our Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the living room.  It's been fun having it up and Jack has loved his Lego Star Wars Advent calendar.

A tree Charlie Brown would love

We had a birthday party for Steven and some of his pals from school.  I'm here to report that a party with eight boys and water guns has predictable results the world over.

LAN party begins

Spaghetti Dinner

Fortunately the weather was perfect.  Eight boys kooked up in the same house for four hours would have similarly predictable results.

New Plymouth Course

My apologies for taking so long to get updates out and thanks to all
who commented on the canoeing story.

Laura had a requirement to update her "CPR" certification, so she
spent a week or so looking over the course materials borrowed from a
colleague. Turns out the course on 5 Dec was a combination of two
advanced resuscitation classes she took as a resident. She was
disappointed in the quality of the study materials, but enjoyed the
course overall.

She made two amusing discoveries during the course. One was a Laerdahl
medical manikin used in the course. Laerdahl builds these models in my
hometown of Gatesville, TX. The other was an unexpected personal
connection. The course instructor had spent time working in Little
Rock with Laura's friend and medical school classmate. Small world.

Medical Manikin

River Adventure

Jack playing by an old jet boat

Last weekend, we traveled to the tiny town of Pipiriki for canoeing on the Whanganui river.  Canoeing the Whanganui is one of the so-called Great Walks of New Zealand and nothing I read mentioned above average canoeing skill, so I was anxious to give it a go (insert foreboding music here).  The great walk (paddle?) is a three or four day canoe trip through the Whanganui National park, which sounds fun, but I don't think our kids are quite up to something that long yet.  I picked an outfitter that runs one day canoe trips from the Bridge to Nowhere.  We didn't make it out to the bridge, but the trip was interesting nonetheless.

Here we go!

The hour long jet boat trip up the river was pretty, but fairly cold.  The area had had a decent rain the night before and some spots in the river looked somewhat challenging (more music).  We actually jet-boated to the drop off point for the hike to the bridge, but the canoes were a few minutes downstream and we had to ride back down the river to put in.  The company set us up with two Old Town canoes and we were off with instructions to avoid obstacles, "stay right" of both rapids, and to abandon the canoe if we tipped.  The two company boats run up and down the river most of the day shuttling hikers and mountain bikers to the bridge.  Our boat driver told me he would check in on us as the day wore on, increasing my comfort level.  The first set of rapids was two hours downstream.

We started down the river with Steven and I in one canoe, Jack and Laura in the other.  The scenery was beautiful as the river cuts through an ancient volcanic landscape and drains a large portion of the countryside.  There were many small waterfalls along the way and the canoeing was easy and pleasant.  We stopped about 30 minutes downstream for a quick lunch.  The nagging feeling I was having about the rapids prompted an early stop to eat.  The company loaned us a waterproof barrel, but I had visions of our lunch floating down the river.

A waterfall from the jet boat

Putting in

After lunch we had another 90 minutes of pleasant canoeing.  We took lots of photos and had fun nosing into cuts in the rock walls.  When we reached the first spot of fast water Steven and I pushed ahead of Laura and Jack.  I was thinking it would be easier if we were in the lead to fish Laura and Jack out if they spilled.  We made it through the first bad spot fairly easy and were about to round a bend when I heard Laura yell.  I looked back to see them in the water near their capsized canoe.  Steven and I pulled up and turned around to get back upstream to help.  We pulled hard into the downstream end of the fast water, but we couldn't make any headway further upstream.  I could tell their canoe was pinned on an obstruction and I had the sinking feeling Laura was somehow trapped.  Jack was standing holding his paddle and seemed okay, but Laura was really low in the water.  We had no options.  The sides of the river were shear rock walls and no other boats were in sight.  Laura and Jack were on their own.  I was yelling for them to abandon their boat and float down, but they didn't seem able to do so.  Steven and I took another run trying to get upstream with the same result.  During my yelling, I asked if they were okay, which seemed to get through and Laura held up an "Ok" sign.  I breathed a big sigh of relief as they moved downstream of their canoe and began to float down to us.

Minutes later, we pulled Laura and Jack, shivering, into our boat.  We found a place to pull out, strip wet clothes and wait for help.  It took about 30 minutes for the first boat from another company to pass.  We waved and signal, but frustratingly, they didn't stop.

Lunch break

Steven in my boat

Jack in Laura's boat

Moments before swimming

The next boat was also from the other company and the driver had folks to meet up river, but promised to contact our boats.  The first boat from our company arrived about 20 minutes later and only had room for two, so I put Jack and Laura in it while Steven and I waited another few minutes for our ride down river.

All's well, but chilly

Whanganui from River Road

Except for the unplanned swim, we had fun.  Jack claims to be done with canoeing.  I'll have to get him on the Sipsey with the Yingsts to improve his outlook.