Return to Auckland

Completing the 'Grandparent Tour of New Zealand' we shot back up to Auckland to welcome Jenni home from Canada.

Elsie with her Oma

Elsie finally gets to meet her adoring Oma Jenni and Maggie

Maggie and Elsie

We were lucky to be able to spend such good quality time in with Jenni and Maggie over the Easter break. These are some shots from a nice walk we all took down to the Point. 

Maggie and Jenni , Point Chevalier Beach

Maggie and Jenni , Point Chevalier Beach 

Seeking shelter under a tree as the weather changes abruptly

Max and Marjan were also in Auckland over Easter fishing (again) with my Uncle Bill and Aunty Ineke. I headed over to their place one afternoon where Elsie got to spend some time with her 92 year old Great Grandmother.

Elsie and Great Grandma Roest

Grandma, Elsie and I

Elsie Bear

My beautiful Grandmother

Uncle Bill sent me away with a large supply of fresh snapper for Jenni and Maggie. Here are some of the results...

Joel's Thai snapper with soup

Snapper Sashimi

After my afternoon visit I headed out to West Auckland to meet up with Joel at Sam and Nik's place in Glen Eden.  They put on a great spread and we were all surprised by an impromptu visit by Kit, Liss and their only days old daughter, beautiful Maia. I couldn't believe how small and delicate she seemed. I literally can't believe that Elsie was ever that small (and Elsie was two pounds lighter!). Nyoooom! It's already going so fast.

Kit with the lovely Maia

Jenni spoilt us with her hospitality all week long. One particularly memorable meal was these Vietnamese Prawn cakes that Jenni made for us. Great food, great company.

Taranaki 1

After stopping for the night in Auckland we continued our 'Grandparent Tour of New Zealand' heading down to Taranaki on Saturday morning.


The drive didn't quite go as planned. We planned to visit Jonty and Rachel on the way down in Pirongia - our approximate halfway point. This was planned with Joanne-style military planning to fit in with naps and feeds and everything else. Well we left Devonport at 11am on schedule, hit Auckland traffic (yes it really is as bad as everyone makes out) and didn't even make it to the end of the motorway before we needed to stop for our first feed. Breastfeeding in a petrol station. The glamour.


When we finally got to Pirongia we had a great visit with Jonty and Rachel - it was awesome to meet their two gorgeous kids, Cowan and Frankie, and to admire another MASSIVE house as everyone seems to have in New Zealand.


Driving down to Taranaki was a bit of an emotional affair for me. There are a lot of familiar milestones along the way, one of which is the Awakino Gorge.  We had a strange experience when we hit The Gorge. The Gorge isn't really anything more than a moderately windy road these days but back when I was a kid it was a notorious stretch of road often becoming unpassable after the ubiquitous 'falling debris'. Whenever, I drive through The Gorge, even today, it carries an element of foreboding for me. On this trip as soon as we entered The Gorge all the following things happened simulaneously:

• The skies darkened (seriously)
• It started raining torrentially
• Elsie started screaming her head off
• We got stuck behind a truck (this is very bad news when you have perpetual 45 km/hr corners ahead of your for the next 15km..)

It felt like we were in a scene from a B grade thriller movie. Very strange.


Once we were through The Gorge the rain passed, it got a bit lighter (even though it was dusk) and Elsie stopped crying. Once you are out of The Gorge the road comes out on the coast. At this stage not only can you see the ocean (obviously) but you can see all the way down the coast to Mt Taranaki. It's an amazing view the point on the journey when you feel like you are going to make it home. I must admit to getting a bit choked up. I was so pleased that we got to see the coast just before the last light faded. We stopped in the nearby beach settlement of Mokau to feed Elsie, parking right down by the sea. There was a massive swell and in the dark it was really cool to hear the waves crashing in the stormy weather. We took Elsie outside as we were moving her into the front of the car to have her dinner. I wonder if she noticed the smell of the sea and the sound of big west coast waves? Her first time for both.


It was great to see Marjan, Max and Uncle Bones again in New Plymouth. We rushed down to Taranaki to catch the last few days of the school holidays so that Joel could get in some fishing time with Max. There were good times had and a ready supply of gurnard, snapper and kahawai was enjoyed equally but differntly by all. Bones demonstrated his fried snapper scrambled egg one pan wonder (damn tasty), Max and Marjan went with pan fried snapper fillets in a classic butter sauce, Joel and I enjoyed the kahawai sashimi style (much to everyone's disgust), and I made fish pie with the kahawai that dad smoked in his re-purposed ex-dishwasher fish smoker. Much to our horror all the lovely fresh kahawai was either smoked or chopped up as bait before we got to eat any more Sashimi.


Taranaki cemented our notion that New Zealand houses are bl**dey cold. This was helped along by a decent dump of snow on the mountain. Very pretty but freezing!

Mount Taranaki

However it didn't stop Mum and I from getting out and about on some good walks. Not that Elsie was having such a great time right at this moment. We were walking her along the coastal walkway in order to help her get some much needed sleep...it wasn't working.

Elsie definitely not sleeping on the New Plymouth Coastal Walkway

On Thursday the 21st of April we left New Plymouth to head back to Auckland for Easter to meet Jenni who was returning from Canada. While we were packing the car Uncle Bones was walking around the property looking after Elsie. She fell asleep in his arms and I love this shot of them sitting in the wheel barrow together. 

Elsie safe and sound with Uncle Bones

Devonport

Carl with Otis and little Lottie

We stopped in Auckland for one night to break up the drive from Northland to New Plymouth. In the morning we headed over to Devonport to catch up with Carl and Ana for morning tea. It's a far cry from meeting down at the pub!


It was great to meet their delightful new daughter, Lottie and to reacquaint ourselves with charming Otis. Otis is a master at the guided tour and proudly showed us all around their home. Otis was very professional with his tours but demonstrated a great work life balance by kicking back with some wrestling and rolley pollies in his down time.

Lovely Lottie

Northland

Once we had spent a few days adjusting to the new time zone we plonked Elsie into her jaunty new car seat and headed off the Northland to commence the "Grandparent Tour of New Zealand".


We are loving the gingham and stripes combo (thanks to Plunkett NZ who rented us this carseat)

Who needs a baby sensory class?

We've had a wonderful time in Northland with John and Carroll. Their home is beautiful and we've found it such a calm and relaxing place to spend time. Furthermore Elsie was an angel! Day time naps, check. Sleeping through the night, check. Feeding, check. You wouldn't guess that she had just been dragged halfway round the world.

Feeding Elsie in Northland

John produced some mutton and the boys spent one afternoon in the kitchen conjuring up this wee delight. Delicious.

This is the sunset from John and Carroll's place. So far so good on our Perpetual Winter World Tour

Sunset at John and Carroll's Lifestyle Block

Just before we left John and Joel picked all the olives from John's trees. Last year John had these pressed into home grown olive oil but the yield wasn't very big this year so to the preserving jar it may have to be. Elsie wasn't overly impressed with the spoils...

Uncle Bones

Elsie with her Giant Uncle Bones

Stephen (Bones) stopped by for lunch on his way down to Taranaki from Northland. It was great to see him and Elsie loved her big friendly giant of an Uncle.

Pt Chevalier

Once we arrived in NZ we stayed at Jenni's house in Pt Chevalier (Auckland) for a few days. It was very unfortunate timing that Jenni had left for Canada the day before we arrived but actually it was really nice to have some space to ourselves in order to settle Elsie down after the long flight.


 It was weird to be back in NZ. The strangeness is always exacerbated by the fog of jet lag. It had been so hectic getting everything done on our way out of the UK that it just felt like we had been telepported to the other end of world. Joel and I kept looking at each other, cracking up, and going 'what are we doing here?!'. Then one evening we went for the obligatory stroll down to the point and suddenly we realised why we were here. There was an insanely picturesque sunset on a classic NZ beach that could only be in NZ (Pohutakawa trees...a family eating fish n chips at a picnic table...) We were home.

Feeding Elsie at Pt Chev

Sunset at Pt Chevalier Beach

We went for many walks down to the point enjoying the view of the harbour bridge and the city but we didn't venture into town once or contact many of our friends. Shell shocked in Point Chev!


I ventured out on my first run since I was 4 or 5 months pregnant. It was an amazing feeling to be out jogging again. I felt an initial rush of freedom coupled with the elation and excitement of the next 9 months in NZ stretching out ahead of me. The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, life was beautiful. Then I reached the point and turned back. Well it turned out the it hadn't been flat but actually slightly downhill all the way out. It also turned out that I was totally unfit.  What resulted was an unsightly slog all the way home. The route was all of err 4km? It took me around 30 minutes and my weirdly skinny legs hurt for days afterwards. To call it a run is a tad ambitious - but if anyone saw a strange barrel on legs shuffling around Pt Chevalier in a large amount of pain that was me.

View from Pt Chevalier

It was really warm and humid so we got to spark up Jenni's BBQ and enjoy a few evenings out on the deck. We knew we were on borrowed time weather-wise so we made the most of every bit of late summer that came our way. I even relished my first mosquito bite! The novelty soon wore off...

Our first BBQ of Autumn

 Elsie got to experience her first day wearing only a short sleeved vest!  She also had to wear the obligatory sunhat. This is Elsie enjoying her bouncer on Jenni's deck

SunSmart!

Flight and Arrival

We left the UK on April 6th 2011 and flew pretty much directly to NZ. I was really scared about the flight with a 3 month old baby. Terrified that she would get a bout of colic and just scream for 12 hours or something. Everyone said that 3 months is a really sensible time to travel with an infant (as all they do is eat and sleep) and it all made sense but you always think that it will be your baby that disproves the hypothesis!


Emirates were A-MAZE-ING. I can see why they are so recommended when travelling with children.


We rocked up to Heathrow with over 75kg of check in luggage, plus three carry on bags, a buggy and a baby.  Even getting out of the taxi and into the terminal required military planning. Joel had to steer two trolleys while I contended with the buggy, the front pack (of course Elsie didn't want to lie in the buggy at that moment!) and a wheelie suitcase. I can't believe we have become the kind of people that have two trollies full of suitcases. We used to travel light!


Even before we reached the check in desk (we weren't exactly zipping around the terminal) a staff member from Emirates came to us and said "Are you flying Emirates? Come this way". I still have no idea how they knew we were Emirates passengers. Perhaps it was the screaming child and the 75kg of luggage?..  Anyway, they led us straight to the front of the queue and to the business class check in desk (no we weren't flying business class unfortunately). We had Russell standing by in case we had to quickly edit our luggage due to beig grossly overweight - but they didn't even care. So far so good.


The first leg went really well. I had spent the previous weeks doing 'operation milk supply' that involved a serious diary farm arrangement between me and my breast pump.  Consequently I had loads of milk for Elsie on the flight.  It was a 10pm flight and so I waited until take off to feed her the 'dream feed'. No screaming on take off. Good start.  Elsie got all sleepy so we tried to transfer her into the bassinet thing. Nup, wasn't going to happen. I don't think it helped that the whole thing was on a steep angle due to our ascent. No she had her sleep on my lap instead.  Six hours later we were descending into Dubai so I fed her again on the way down. No screaming there either. First leg down. No incident.

Dubai Airport

Once we left Dubai we got transferred to an Airbus A380. This was amazing. Loads of leg room. Plenty of elbow room for breastfeeding. And best of all a big communal area where you can loiter while jiggling your baby while socialising with the middle-aged people doing their anti-blood clot leg exercises and of course the drinkers. The drunks were all very interested in the baby. Poor Elsie!


Elsie still wouldn't go into the bassinet, so she spent the remainder of the flight sleeping on me. Anytime that she made a peep she got fed. Mmmm snacking and napping. Baby heaven.


Thirty hours later we arrived in NZ. Well, add an extra half hour because somebody's NZ passport had expired Joel!


So once we cleared immigration we headed to MAF. We were very organised and had a list of things to declare. As we rounded the corner there were three MAF desks. You could see the looks of horror on their faces as the volume of our luggage became apparent. We selected the poor guy in the middle (it seemed democratic) and tried to declare all sorts of wool products. They weren't the slightest bit interested in searching through all our stuff. Sweet.


So we were home! Mum met us at the airport with a surprise companion Aunty Val. Just what you need after a 30 hour flight. Surprise visitors. Actually we felt pretty good and we headed back to Vals for some good old fashioned kiwi hospitality (tea and biscuits) while we killed some time before mum's flight back to New Plymouth. Elsie was sound asleep when we arrived at Aunty Val's. Whoopsy, Mum and Val accidentally woke her up when transferring her from the car - so they had to give her lots and lots of cuddles. Aaaw!

With Grandma Marjan at Aunty Val's immediately after arrival. Elsie is a stunned mullet!

Weirdy apple in Aunty Val's fruit bowl. Joel and I thought this was amazing - but we were pretty tired....