Exploring the Land of the Long White Cloud

After many re-tries to avoid any copyright content matches, here is my video... ok so there will be some overlap because for a while we both had the same ideas and then Dustin wanted shorter and I wanted longer. So check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRiskfsKmDA We've just got back from 4 nights inland around the volcano region of the central North Island. It was action packed with sightseeing, a rodeo, sailing on Lake Taupo, a hike, and a whole lot of driving. I swear it took us like 4.5 hours each way to do what Google said was a 3 hour drive! I realized we sure picked a good city to live in because going to the tourist zone was so busy and we're so glad that our little city is somewhat off the beaten track. But the tourist zone wasn't all bad... Dustin lost his wallet at the rodeo but we didn't realize until we had driven back to town that afternoon so we turned around back to scour the rodeo grounds right away. After ten minutes of no luck in the hunt...

Here you go, a little peek into our life in New Plymouth... (I wanted to embed the videos but I uploaded them to you tube with a different gmail account than the blog is set up under and I can't be bothered to go and add that gmail account to the blog so I can find them directly. And I made them unlisted because we're not into a mega online presence so I can't search them to embed with the video tool! Most searches with "Dustin" and "xmas" come up with this Irish cartoon Dustin the Turkey instead. And, you see, this video has been hanging on the to-do list for probably 3-4 weeks now! And since it's Christmas Eve, I didn't want to delay any further and it's getting late and any tech-savvy I have in me is wearing thin... But apparently the song in mine won't let me play it for the copyright so I will upload mine again another time after I find a new song that won't cause any copyright notices to come up, maybe next week... yes I am ne...

The Wednesday ritual when we get home from work is based on an "article" in the local paper. The columnist lists good and bad things from the week and they can be anything. Really, we've seen a range of topics. The ritual involves whoever has the energy to snag the paper first reading out the items one by one and the other has to decide whether it's a thumbs up (which emits a grand "yayyy!!!") or a thumbs down (which elicits a deep "boooo!!!") with applicable hand signals. It might sound like it's an easy game but sometimes the stories are tough to follow. Here is a sample from this week: The best part of this one is that it was published on Dec 12th! Not only cool because it was 12.12.12 but if you read the last thumbs down, you have to wonder how she avoided Christmas stuff this far into December anyways and when does she expect it to start, Dec 24th? So that's what people get incensed about, and stoked about, in this part of...

Late report on my trip to Wellington at the end of November. It started out with me being a klutz at the airport and spilling my water bottle all over the floor. Then it was a beautiful day so I had a lovely aerial view of The Mountain on my way out. I'll take their word for it...? After checking into my room, I spent the first day walking all over town. I was taking some photos to use for one of my VA client's projects. Then I went to Te Papa the great museum they have. However, even though it's been a couple years since I went, I remembered lots of it! Which just meant that I could whiz through some parts and that worked out well because I was meeting people for lunch. There was a big outdoor screening of some other hobbit movies that night. I did not attend. Also, the market wasn't open yet in this photo but later I went back and tried stilt walking - maybe hobbit stuff is fun! I missed my first NZ celebrity sighting though! Outside the little taco place ...

When you all wonder why we consider moving across the globe and we aren't always able to articulate why, here are a couple stories that help me explain. Yes the people are kind and we feel a sense of community much more than we ever have in BC but these examples show you how much more we feel and notice it. There was an article in the regional paper earlier this week about a farmer who had about 120 of his cows drop dead within about an hour. The cause of death is still not determined even a few days later and there are some that are still sick on his farm. So yes it's an unfortunate bit of luck and the initial thought was that a container used to store feed was contaminated but it appears that wasn't the case. Today I read the paper and saw a follow up article. The main information was that farmers from hundreds of kilometres around were pulling together to donate a cow or two from their herds to help this farmer. The big milk company seemed to be offering to transport t...

I had to work all day last Saturday Nov 24th so was so glad that we could still attend the Stratford A&P show on Sunday. A&P shows are a long-running tradition here and we likened it to the PNE maybe 30 years ago? Maybe not. In any case, it's a combined trade show for farm equipment and local producers, it's a competition for the best blue-ribbon cows, there's a midway with rides, of course food and lots of entertainment.... including sheep racing!! Notice how the jockeys are horses? If the jockey fell off, the sheep was disqaulified. Food prize at the finish line! In addition to the sheep racing there was also pig racing: And a dog herding ducks: And all the finest wedding couture and farm equipment you could want: "I want to look at wedding dresses!"   "But I want to look at the newest advances in cow-milking !"                       Problem solved. Even though our past review o...

Out of necessity this week I had to take my "work from home" on the road. And what a great idea it was! Notice the photo above and add the sounds of a spring morning chock full of very excitable birds chirping away. And it's warm enough to wear shorts even at the early hour of 8am! So I think I'm going to do more of this. So many cafes and pubs here have little "garden" seating areas like this and it's a treat and it does wonders for focus when I'm not trying to clean up dishes, write an ebook, hang out the washing, set up a new email marketing account, vacuum AND manage my clients' social media posts. I also can test how a pint of beer in a garden affects productivity haha. This last week was a blur to describe it best. We managed to take out another quiz night win (we're batting 75%) and I even stepped onto the rugby pitch for the first time. Not technically because I cut across the rugby pitch all the time when I'm walking...

Our mighty Mt Taranaki in the sunset glow. Apparently it's a bad idea to start your immigration application at about 8pm on a Saturday night. That's what we learned last weekend. It's only bad because of the fact that you're already tired and now here you are filling in 3 hours' worth of details of your lives. Then, even though you've already spent an additional 6 hours researching and planning and mapping out - you hit a snag! So, being tired and completing tedious paperwork = easy frustration! We've adjusted our attitudes already but yep we've found there's a step that we thought we didn't need but it turns out we do - despite going over it with immigration beforehand and feeling sure that they confirmed it wasn't necessary. Oh well that's what happens with this type of thing. So as of today it will be at least 20 more working days before we can hit the submit button on the first step. I do think it would have been useful (albe...

You'll notice that my posts have become a lot less frequent and sometimes less rambling and more photos! I wonder if it's a sign that we've sort of gotten into a pattern of just living here now and not feeling like we're traveling here for a while. Also it might be the same reason that I'm not active on Facebook and Twitter - do you guys really want to know our every move? Especially as they become more mundane? haha. We finally got around to decorating one of the big blank walls in our place. Thanks to a 25 cent poster at the book sale and Dustin's Kiwi ingenuity we have a lovely framed print of "The Hustler" which was one of the best-selling prints of the 1950's. Dustin's work hours have abated ever so slightly, they cut the end of the day from 5:30pm to 5:00pm which is great news for him this week as the surf picks up. It's been pretty grim on the water lately and the surf hasn't come right for a good two weeks or so. ...

Time is flying these days. We got a bunch of Thanksgiving greetings and it hadn't even crossed our mind that it was the long weekend at home because it felt too early for it! We were talking about doing a dinner this coming weekend with our Canadian friend and his wife but she's due with their second child within a week or two so a big dinner might be too much to bring into the mix! Plus if we wanted turkey we'd have to hunt for it far and wide here. (I'm not meaning on a supermarket shelf either.) Apparently during Christmas they bring in a bunch of frozen turkeys but it's not usually on the menu here. Sad news on the rugby front. Taranaki lost the shield to their age-old rivals from Waikato. Back in 1996 Waikato stole the shield off them as well! So the rivalry runs deep. Not so deep that it stopped Dustin from posing for a picture with some of the opposing team the day after the shield match! Not the shield. But a potato growing award we found at Pionee...