On Sunday we had brunch with Sharon, Mike and Aaron before taking Mike to the airport. We bought a cabbage tree for our lounge - okay I know they grow real big but it is a little one and it might just be happy in a pot for a year or so - it was too pretty to ignore with those long yellow and green leaves. We then went back to the airport to pick up Anne in the evening. We've had two earthquakes this week - well four actually but we only felt two. One when we were in the dining room and the other at work. Christchurch has certainly made people react faster and we were all in doorways or under desks within seconds. I can understand why our fellow Cantabrians feel nervous. It was also birthday week and so we had a birthday dinner on Tuesday night - I am getting a bit carried away with trying new recipes - canelloni and thai veges go better together than one would think. Chocolate overdose was ok as well.
During the week we also took Gina to Karori - we saw the house she lived in for the first two years of her life and our little house just down the road which is painted a dark grey which doesn't really suit an older style villa. We reminisced over stories like Jonathan wandering up to our place when he had got into trouble and stopped by to say hello to Jill, Graham, Clare and Mya on the way back.
It was also Christmas lunch at work - and after the meal we completed a scavenger hunt in the botanical gardens. The fun or embarrassing part depending on how you look at it was dressing up as zoo animals - my team went as giraffes. Tail, mask and ears were the order of the day and with a cruise ship in town and a tourist bus at the rose gardens we got lots of weird looks and questions with many taking photos and videos of the Wellingtonian wildlife!! Not sure if the Minister of Tourism would consider this a good sign or not.
On Friday we drove up to Rotorua. The third birthday to celebrate this week - Wayne was turning a big 'O'. The trip went well and dinner was a picnic at the view point on the Desert Road. The hills were a mass of yellow lupin and broom - very pretty with the mountains and power pylons in the background. I don't think we've travelled this road much during summer but it certainly is the time to do it if you aren't looking to ski.
We arrived in Rotorua and found our little motel without any trouble. It was a bit run down and with two others for sale on the street we could see there isn't much money in the city to do accommodation up. They had painted the rooms but not to our standard - no hot points or light switches taken off so paint was on them, peeling paint had been glossed over, and the hot pool which we enjoyed (a mere 40 degrees) was also in need of renovation. But it was quiet and clean and cheap. Why was there a hot point and switch on the ceiling - we wondered if it was to charge your cell phone so if it rang in the night it would be beside your ear!! Others have more boring suggestions like a wall mounted tv, fan, air conditioning unit - and there were other suggestions I just won't repeat in a family blog. In the morning while standing in a bakery wondering why there were no vegetarian rolls we had a text from Sharon and Aaron inviting us to breakfast at their hotel where they were celebrating another special persons birthday (I won't say how old he is but he is inching closer to another big 'O'!!). So, we left the bakery without buying anything and settled for rather a yummy breakfast in Holdens Bay (little side tour to see the motor camp where I used to take Michael and Sharon for our holidays - its been subdivided now which makes it look quite different). We were going to drive straight to Tauranga - but then thought better of it and spent an hour being a tourist in the wonderful grounds of the museum. So, here's some pictures and history of the very special place - the area called Tawharakurupeti - the site of a huge battle a couple of centuries ago. It has a few famous places and buildings like the:
The carvings at the beginning of the paths - were given by the people of Ngati Whakaue to commemorate their original gift of the land in 1880.
Blue Baths - built in Spanish Mission-style - but to us look like art deco (about the same era). This is one of the first places where families could bathe together for fun - at other spas there had to be a therapeutic reason. The building was closed in 1982 but reopened 17 years later after restoration. We wandered into the tea rooms, but like last time the pool was closed for a private function.
Then there is the Rachel Pool - which had a lovely name Whangapipiro until it was renamed - get this - after Madame Rachel who was a British con artist in in the mid 1800's. She ran a beauty salon which had a personal guarantee of everlasting youth to those who used creations eg a magnetic rock water dew from the Sahara Desert (discovered later to be made of water and bran). She married three times, sold clothes, was jailed, and sold cosmetics advertised in a pamphlet entitled "Beautiful for Ever". The shop was a front for blackmailing wealthy clients - where she offered up to sixty preparations of make up including face powder. She was involved in prostitution, fraud and blackmail, arrested numerous several times and jailed in 1878 for five years where she died. Just remind me why our lovely pool is named after her.
Te Runanga tea pavilion - where tourists and invalids could relax, read, drink or mineral waters on the veranda or just look over to the Blue Baths and the steam of Rachel Pool. For a while it had a life as a bowling pavilion but then was restored in 1993 and opened exactly 90 years after its original opening. Unfortunately closed for tea on the day we visited.
The Gardeners Cottage - which was built in 1899 for the head gardener. Lovingly restored to its
original colour it overlooks the bowls and croquet greens - what a place to have lived.
The Croquet pavilion - built in 1907, with a pagoda type roof it was originally a ‘tennis’ pavilion. It was moved to this site in the 1920's, had a terracotta roof added about 30 years later.
Government House - a wonderful building which now houses the Rotorua Museum. In the early part of 1900's it was Rotorua's Bath House and became our government's first investment as the tourism industry began to grow.
Finally we left Rotorua and drove along State Highway 36 to Tauranga. Up hill and down dale where we saw a wonderful array of summer wild flowers and shorn alpacas that looked like scrawny sheep with long necks and legs. Who says NZ doesn't have history. This little road has it all. Besides being the only road for many years between the two cities - first horses and then cars travelled this windy road. Then came WWII and it was thought that the Japanese just might invade. They certainly came close to it. The home guard built lots of road blocks (over 1200) so that any tanks that might invade couldn't get far. On this road two tank traps were built - and the remnants are lying around beside the road (huge concrete slabs).
Mount Maunganui was a picture of blue sky and seas, pohutukawa in bloom - just the right place for fish and chips on the beach (though a bit over priced - I guess the extras such as a plastic fork, serviette and lemon slice added up!!). After a gentle walk around some of the Mount for photos, a peer into the horizon for the stricken Rena, and some thinking about the impact of the oil slick on bird life and the coast (it has been cleaned up amazingly well). We enjoyed Wayne's party - Harry caught up with people he hadn't seen for decades and I met some new people.
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