At first I thought 'Shemp' but maybe now I think 'Moe'

Amiri got a big kick out of discovering that he can stand underneath the big WHHHRRRRRR hand dryer in the bathroom.  His hair stayed like that the rest of the evening.

A trip to Bastion Point

We enjoyed the flower gardens, the reflecting pool (although it was tremendously disappointing for not containing any fish), and the Savage Monument which we ran around and over and across about a billion times.  We watched the kite flyers, played tag, both hid and sought, and had a highly amusing game of catch-the-imaginary-ball.  Arram is awesome at that game!  I didn't manage to get any good shots with the boys in them because I was just too busy playing, but take my word for it that we all had a wholesome afternoon of exercise and went home thoroughly tuckered out.

At the Wintergardens we saw something so entertaining we ended up staying for most of the afternoon

The Wintergardens are a couple of gorgeous greenhouses amid some courtyards and formal flowerbeds inside the Auckland Domain.  We went exploring there on a whim after lunch the other day.  We poked about and stuck our noses into all the little corners and then we found Something Amazing.

A pond.  With goldfish.  Real goldfish. 

It turns out the fish are half-tame and beg for food.  They school up and will follow you en masse as you move around the edge of the pool. 

Well, that's that.  Mom just better sit down and make herself comfortable, because we're going to be here a while.


I was totally proud that my kids were respectfully observing the fish, not snatching or hassling them.  What's better, I didn't even have to tell them to.  That's just the kind of people they are.

Just a little scenery for you today

The boys were fast asleep in their carseats; a light mist was falling.  I came to a lovely spot in Mission Bay and stopped for a moment to snap a couple of photos.  You can see Rangitoto in the one on the bottom.

Water play

The boys love playing with water out on the balcony.  They ferry their little buckets from the sink in the bathroom to outside, pouring the water from vessel to vessel, splashing around, and watching it drop down. 

So it was with some interest that I noticed the other morning that they were ferrying bucket after bucket of water, not outside, but into their bedroom.  Then, sounds of great merriment ensued.  I had no choice but to tiptoe in with my camera.

So this explains why he's so good at climbing

A drive out to Piha

Piha is one of the most famous beach towns in New Zealand, and the site of a popular lifeguard reality show.  When we were out west anyway the other day, I decided to take a little side trip and check it out, even if the weather was looking a little threatening.  Here's what we saw.

First, I snapped a triptych showing the left-to-right panorama of the seashore.  Note the famous 'black-sand beach'... in reality it's a basin of talcum-fine gray powder that goes aerosolised with the slightest breeze and must make Piha housekeeping a nightmare.

Here's Amiri posing in front of iconic Lion Rock.  Arram was asleep in his car seat so we just hopped out for a second in the carpark.  Notice his, 'Mama, my eyes think the wind has rocks in it!' face.

 

Here's another view of Lion Rock, from inland at roughly the point where it bisects the north and south halves of the beach.  

 

Given Piha's notoriety in NZ, I would have expected it to be a Daytona-esque tourist destination full of flash and underwhelming substance.  But in reality, it's a quiet little town with surprisingly few opportunities for visitors to be separated from their money.  In fact, despite the obvious differences-- the hairpin turns through a mountain range, the jaw-dropping vistas, water that can be glassy one day and malicious the next-- Piha gave me a distinct rural-Wisconsin-in-the-1980's vibe. 

Piha is a town with its feet firmly on the ground.  It's as if it squints its eyes within a weatherbeaten face, gazes out to sea and says a shrug, Oh yes, we're well aware that we're inside one of the many small miraculous pockets nature has created; please do come and spend some time with us but just keep in mind that we have to get up early tomorrow morning. 

    

In addition to faeries, we checked for hobbits at Hunua

The post-adventure position

When we start out on adventures, the boys look like this.

On the way home, they look like this.

And if it's been an especially big day, like THIS.

We found another waterfall

This one is out in the Hunua Ranges to the southeast of the city, on the Wairoa river.  It was a nice satisfying drive through the forest, and the falls were conveniently located about 200 metres from the carpark.

Although of course we did need to visit the potty first.

We followed the trail and got our first glimpse of the falls.  Someone cleverly erected this picture frame in just the perfect spot.  To take this photo, I stood in the little depression in the grass that had been worn by the feet of thousands of previous picture-takers.

Then we got closer and I did a little look-around.  Man, I guess we really HAVE been getting some rain lately-- just compare what we saw with previous photos.


Then we went around to the other side, over the creaky suspension bridge.  Arram held tight to my hand, but Amiri wanted to jump and make it bounce.

There was another good vantage point from the middle of the bridge.

We got up close to the pool.  The boys wanted to go wading but I didn't think that was such a hot idea.  They were not willing to stand still for a photo shoot, but conveniently, a cooperative little Bear and Gremlin turned up so I got them instead.

 

Amiri's new acrobatics

Chanel No. Barf

Oh dear.  I left the boys unattended in the bathroom for five minutes after teeth-brushing.  They closed the door and were awfully quiet.  I went in to check and was nearly knocked over by the smell.  They must have sprayed each other twenty times with my perfume.  Like lovely floral skunks, they are.  Think I should dip them in tomato juice?
 

There's not much to see here, but listen to the cuteness

The backstory:  these goldfish are awesome bath toys; they light up in the water, change colours, and float.  Turn the overhead lights off in the bathroom and the glowing fish transform the room into soft, shifting shadows.  We can even make dim shadow puppets on the wall.  It's Magic.  All magic.
 

Here we are!

We're in a car!

♪ ♪ ♪ We're driving far, to Myanmar, I'll hold this bar, I'm the czar, and a star, that's what I are, lah di dar...
 

A pizza and pasta feast

So THAT'S what all the noise in their room was about!

Giapo!

Here, the boys enjoy some gelato from Giapo's after a movie (they saw Puss in Boots at the IMAX, wowie wow!  They still point out the PIB ads on all the buses around town). 

Giapo's has the best gelato in town and has flavours like garlic and blue cheese chocolate.  No, I'm not kidding.  Yes, it tastes just like that, except sweet and creamy.  Yes, it's really good!

The boys were having just plain ol' chocolate and vanilla, though.  No gustatory adventures for them this time around.

Let me take a moment to grouse

With all the photos I've been posting recently of our gorgeous outdoors, you must think that NZ is this playground of perfect weather.  Well, in fact it's been quite changeable recently.  Early summer is like that.  The REALLY nice weather is in February.  We've just been taking advantage of it when we can.

There are also spells where it's not so great at all.  Here's what it looked like as I was stopped at a red light the other day.

It's not so much that it's raining, as much as the wind makes it come down sideways and in big buffeting gusts.  It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but what we have here are not one, but TWO umbrellas in a garbage can.  As if their owners had gotten sick of fighting with them or realised that they were in a losing battle with the elements, and disgustedly cut their losses, deciding it was easier to go without.

We went looking for a waterfall

First we visited the Lower Nihotupu reservoir.  It's a large, peaceful lake and much of the city's water supply cascades serenely down these slopes of the dam.

Then after a bit of trial and error, we ended up at the Upper Nihotupu Reservoir (the Lower vs. Upper designation being the key to reading the map).  The trail took us into the rain-forest bush.

Come on, hurry up!  This is going to be great!

Oh my.  It was truly gorgeous, even just a few steps in.

I just love those tree ferns.

A majority of nature trails ('tracks') in NZ are steep, long, and require a fair level of adult physical fitness to traverse.  We sought out Upper Nihotupu because it's only a little over a kilometer, and essentially flat.  I figured this would be within the abilities of our little guys and indeed they scampered along happily, looking for faeries and elves in all the thickets.

Although periodically we did need to stop and rest.

But the fact that there were interesting bits of metal lining the trail did keep us moving.

We arrived at a prelude-waterfall.

And then we pressed onward and discovered our own secret magic lagoon.

We ventured yet deeper into the primordial forest.  We were fascinated by playing with a vertical moss-covered wall that dripped cold spring water from the cliff above.  We caught the drops on our fingertips, and when we leaned our backs up against the soft spongy wall our shirts were immediately soaked.  The sudden chill felt amazingly refreshing in the warm humid air.

We took a few more steps, pushed through the branches, and arrived at the falls.  It was silent except for the rush of the water.  We felt like the only people in the world.