The year is galloping to a close with school galas, school outings, holiday plans and general end-of-year mayhem. It will be our second Christmas in New Zealand - part of me can't believe how the time has raced past.
Reflecting on the past 20 months is a painless task: as new immigrants we have been blessed with the softest landing possible - a wonderful group of friends, a small and close community, successful jobs and very happy kids. We love this country. We cannot imagine calling any other place home.
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| Lunch with friends at a waterfall near Karekare near where we live. |
K and I watched a series of brilliant documentaries on New Zealand, among them "Here to Stay" - a look at several different cultural groups that have immigrated to New Zealand.
Understanding the history of NZ is important to us, as well as discovering many quaint and interesting little towns and beaches. So when we recently landed up in Puhoi, I was especailly interested in a tiny, white-washed wooden villa on the hillside called the Bohemia Museum. I'd just returned from a holiday in Prague (Centre of Bohemia) and after watching "Here to Stay", I realised that Dallies had lived there. Sure enough, we were told that a small group of immigrants from the Czech Republic had canoed up the river in the early 1900s after months of travel.
Yet again, we were reminded of the rich cultural diversity of this country - a land of immigrants. We have close friends who are Polish, Swiss, German, Welsh, Scottish, British, Czech, and yes, one family who call themselves Kiwi!
Here are a few photos from thousands from the past few months to show what we have been up to.
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| Karekare Beach |
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| Karekare Beach outride |
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| Karekare Beach lagoon |
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| Part of Anawhata Lagoon |
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| Karekare Beach |
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| Our Veggie Garden a bit too big for its boxes |
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| Anawhata Beach - a remote beach near Piha only accessible after a 30 minute walk |
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The view over Anawhata, all the way to Australia
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4 comments:
I stumbled across your blog by chance. It is 7 am and I won't have time to read it now, but I want to start at the beginning! I lived in Pinelands for a few months (in a digs with an ex boyfriend). My husband, kids and I moved to Titirangi in Dec 2009 and I too write a blog. My blog is katesrichards.blogspot.com I like the way you keep your blog anonymous and I might have to steal some ideas because I've given up writing mine purely because the public nature of the net scares me. Anyway, just saying "howzit".
Hi, are you still in NZ? Please visit my blog (katesrichards.blogspot.com) I've been reading yours and we have such similar ideas, a similar journey and we both have two kids and live in Titirangi. Would you like to become facebook friends ... or maybe meet for coffee sometime? Kate from Pietermaritzburg
Lovely blog!
I'm coming over soon too...can't wait!!:)
Hi Kate
Wow - what a small world! I had almost forgotten about my blog - been so busy and just getting on with enjoying life here.
I'm still in Titirangi. My son's at the Steiner kindergarten and my daughter is up the road at the primary school. Would love to meet for a coffee. I'll pop over to your blog and leave a message there too!
N.
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