Back from a wee break- Melbourne; Part 1

Real-time

Yes, it really is me. I have returned. TWO whole months without a blog, I can't believe it! That certainly wasn't in my plans when I said I'd be gone for a few weeks. But to be honest, I have enjoyed the extended break with no pressure to write or take photos...if you don't count Dad (#1 fan) asking every second day when there'll be a blog. He gave up after 3 or 4 weeks.

Melbourne

And I've actually needed the extra time this past couple of weeks as I've had not one but two heavy winter colds, the second one a real doozy. We tend to usually miss the winter ills when we're on the road because we don't mix with the masses too often. But after three winters my luck finally ran out.

I left you in the last blog with a photo of us parked up beside Mum & Dads' in suburban Napier. And that is still where we are, although us and the rig- separately & together- have vacated the concrete pad several times during the last two months.

It started with a two week trip to Melbourne to meet our latest grandchild, a very sweet & chilled out little man called Otis.

Can you believe it, I took my camera but it hardly saw the light of day. I mostly used my phone camera (until someone spotted a cracked lens), and then David's phone. It was lovely to just relax with the family and enjoy some quality time with Lizzie, Jake & Otis. David celebrated his birthday while we were there, here's Otis with Poppa, don't you just love the look he's giving David..... "Poo, was that you Poppa?"

We stayed in a hotel just 500mtrs from the family's townhouse which suited us all fine; we had our own space, they weren't tripping over us 24/7 and it was just a short walk there and back each day, or several times a day. This was the view of Melbourne city from our hotel window, it reminded me a little of the opening shot of the TV programme 'Coronation Street'.

We took the tram & train (both just a couple of streets away) into the city on several occasions; more for a wander around and to have lunch overlooking the Yarra River than to shop though. 

Southbank

Most days were overcast until early afternoon when the clouds parted and the sun shone down although it was bitterly cold every day, you couldn't go outside without a jacket. It is much colder than winter in the North Island and the top of the South.

The Preston Market was just a short walk from Lizzie & Jakes' home and we often pushed Otis in his stroller down there, had a coffee and a pastry and then bought fresh veges, fruit, meat or seafood for dinner. David & I thought the Seafood Market was amazing, so much fresh fish and variety available.

Jake is an excellent cook and we were extremely lucky that he wanted to cook dinner for us most nights, and this was after his long day of work and fighting traffic.

Pork Belly

Crispy Skin Salmon

On the weekend we squashed ourselves into the car (the baby seat took up so much room!) and drove out of the city, up and over the hills and into the Yarra Valley an hour away, stopping for a wine tasting at the kid's favourite winery, TarraWarra Estate...

...and then we had a long lunch just down the road at Healesville, a very popular country town and gateway to the Yarra Valley wine region. Then it was onto Four Pillars, a gin distillery, for a gin tasting! 

After smelling the aromatics, we tasted the gins. Who knew there were so many flavours of gin available, from right to left; Dry, Navy Strength (58.8% ALC!!), Spiced Negroni, Chardonnay Barrel, Sherry Cask & Bloody Shiraz. Can you guess which one I liked? No not the Chardonnay one surprisingly, it was the Navy Strength that got my vote.

We hadn't seen any wildlife except for a few kangaroos in a paddock as we drove home from the Yarra Valley so I talked Lizzie & David into heading to the zoo for a visit. I'm not a fan of zoos (although I know many have their place in conservation) but I recall enjoying a visit to the Melbourne Zoo some 20 years ago so off we headed. Wrong move. Not only was the zoo quite tired looking, it was school holidays and the place was packed solid with laughing, screaming, yelling, crying, running kids. The queues were long and we bypassed several exhibits.

I did enjoy watching three young male lions; one reminded me so much of my cat Lily when she ambushed her brother Clay. This one spotted his brother on the other side of the enclosure, ambling along the fence line...

...and then as the brother headed towards him he prepared to pounce, wriggling his backside likes cats do, as he shot over the log and onto his brother's back right below my window (hence no photo!).

I was also fascinated by this beautiful snow leopard, there are three at the zoo but just this one was visible. She looks like the cat that got the cream with her fat cheeks here. I think she might have been calling just as I took the shot. Their tails are very long and fat, it helps with balance and as she climbed down a very steep rock face from her perch I could see how she used it.

It started raining as I was watching her and something else caught my eye and hers, a big fat rat scampering along the edge of a small stream that ran through the enclosure. It disappeared under a rock and out of sight before she moved.

Before we knew it, it was time to say a sad goodbye and head home. We had an awesome time and absolutely loved spending time with the family and especially getting know our happy little bub Otis. 

To be continued.... Part 2

Invercargill's Heritage Buildings & More

The light was just right later in the afternoon of New Years Day, bright with no sun to cast deep shadows, so I took the opportunity of clicking a few photos of the beautiful heritage buildings located around Invercargill city. And an added bonus was that there was virtually nobody about & hardly any vehicles to clutter my photos, the only negative being Christmas decorations that still adorned some buildings & streets. With Invercargill being a very small city I only had to move a block or two & then a street or two before stopping for the next photo, I would estimate that all these buildings are located within a 3km square. And they are pretty impressive for an often maligned southern provincial city. 

 

St Mary's Basilica- opened in 1905 & once described as Australasia’s “prettiest church” the neo-Classical architectural style Basilica is a dominant Invercargill landmark with it’s copper clad dome.

 

The Basilica is located across the rail line from the Otepuni Gardens where a lovely meandering path winds its way down the side of the creek & through the formal gardens.

 

 

Fleming & Company Flour Mills- opened in 1886 on the site of a wooden flour mill that was destroyed by fire, it remained operational until 2006 & is on the NZ Historic Places register. The mill is just a street away from our camp ground & just along the road from the Basilica.

 

 

Civic Theatre- The Civic Theatre is one of the most significant historical buildings in Southland & is designed in the Edwardian Baroque style. It was built in 1906 as municipal offices & has undergone a $15.8million upgrade to turn the rather tired “grand old lady” into a beautiful performing arts & events centre.

 

 

 

St Johns Anglican Church is next door to the Civic Theatre & designed in the Gothic Style by the same architect.

 

And just a block further down the road is the First Presbyterian Church which was designed in the Italian Romanesque style. The First Church contains over one million bricks, it was opened in 1915 at a cost of £18,181. This is one of the premier examples of church architecture in NZ, the bell tower rises 32 metres above the street & draws attention to the elaborate patterns of brickwork. Imagine following that while you're laying bricks metres off the ground. You would only have to get one wrong for it to stand out like a sore thumb.

 

Railway Hotel- Built in 1896 this beautiful building incorporates elements of Victorian, Edwardian & Baroque revival architectural styles. The hotel is one of the last remaining in NZ still being used for it’s original purpose.

Bank Corner & Trooper’s Memorial- the memorial  was erected to remember those that served in the African Boer War.

 

The former Bank of New South Wales stands on the site where Invercargill’s  commercial activity began in 1856. 

 

 

On one corner is a feature wall which has been constructed  to represent the Maori & Celtic roots of the city.

 

 

Historic buildings & facades of Invercargill City- there are many styles of heritage buildings within the inner city precinct from Arts & Craft & Nouveau/Deco to Victorian.

 

More bright & colourful city buildings including the Grand Hotel which certainly looks grand on the outside but a bit dubious on the inside!

 

 

 

I suppose we should be grateful that they don't demolish these old buildings but I can't for the life of me understand why the powers-that-be allow such garish paint jobs & advertising on such a lovely building. It'll be that all important dollar that does it.

 

WEA Building- The three storyed WEA building was built in 1912 as a Coffee & Spice Mill for David Strang & built in front of the original (& recently rediscovered) 1885 mill. Strang invented & patented soluble coffee powder.

The impressive Invercargill Cenotaph, c1986. This city doesn't do things in small.

 

Water Tower- This is a much better photo of the Water Tower than the one I posted a few days ago. The busy main road that runs along the front of the tower is closed to traffic at the moment (major road works) but I was able to pretend I was a resident & park there while I took photos.

 

The foundation stone for the tower was laid in 1888, the cupola was removed in 1934 & replaced in 1988 with the assistance of NZ Aluminium Smelters. The tower contains 200,000 common bricks, 80,000 red pressed bricks, 15,000 yellow pressed bricks & 4,000 pressed black bricks.

 

Southland Masonic Centre- The Masonic temple was opened in 1926 at a cost of £14,116 and is in the Graeco-Doric Style with a red brick & smooth plastered portico, supported by 6 fluted columns. The Lodge is regarded as one of the most impressive lodges in the Southern Hemisphere  & received a silver medal in 1934 from the NZ Institute of Architects.

 

And the final photo is one of the abandoned church that we can see over the back fence of the camping ground. I haven't managed to find out any history on this yet although there is someone living in there as I've seen a light on in the middle of the night. The windows are boarded up and the grass needs to be mown.

There is one more grand neo-Georgian style building I need to shoot but that will have to wait until we visit the park with the family. In the meantime I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour around lovely Invercargill City.

Family & Invercargill

Well it’s been a few days since my last post & while we don’t seem to have done much it’s felt like we’ve been very busy!

We are ensconced in an inner city camp ground here in Invercargill just a short walkable distance from the family(not that we’ve walked yet). The small camp ground is perfectly adequate, set back off the road with tall shady trees, very good amenities & with a few semi permanents down along the back fence which is where we are parked at the moment.

 

 

The hosts are fairly new to the campground and are in the process of beautifying the grounds with plenty of plantings. It’s a very busy park with lots of people passing through it nightly. We yet again got caught out with our satellite dish & TV reception when we first arrived. We backed in to our site straight but unfortunately the neighbours trees blocked us so we had to pull out and reposition, hence the odd angle we are on.  A caravan next door (on our right) left this morning and we’ll be shifting in there for the rest of our time once the lawn has been mowed. 

 

And wouldn't you know it, it's like coals to Newcastle. Right over the back fence is an old abandoned church!

 

 

The family, David’s daughter Rachel, her husband Cameron & the children, Ollie (6) & Ruby(4), were pleased to see us and we were thrilled to finally see them again after 8 months & also see their “new” home & city nearly three years after they shifted down here. It was reassuring for David & great for us to see how well they have settled into life in the deep south, they used to live half a kilometre from us in Tauranga so it was a big wrench for us all when they left.  I love that the kids are rolling their rrrrs just like true Southerners.  

 

We spent the first few days catching up with them, relaxing & getting the van back into ship-shape order. We also did the necessary appointments; hair & dentist (David broke his tooth, & I chipped one) and finished our Christmas shopping. Not long after arriving Rachel & Cameron took us out for a welcoming coffee at the award winning café The Batch (shouldn't that be The Crib?), very pleasant too and then on a mini tour of Invercargill pointing out all the landmarks & places we could visit when we were ready.

 

 

We checked out E Hayes & Sons, a Southland institution & an early version of the department store or as they claim “the ultimate bloke’s tool shop” with something for the ladies too. Located within the store are plenty of old motorbikes, cars, tools etc on display with pride of place being taken by The World’s Fastest Indian, Burt Munro’s bike which  broke the land speed record in 1967  at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA.

 

 

We also visited Ollie’s school and Ruby’s kindergarten. Twice. The next day we went to see Ruby’s Kindergarten Christmas show, what fun that was, sitting on the small chairs with the rest of the parents watching the littlies perform “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree”. All dressed up as one of the items in the song or holding props that they’d made themselves which represented some of the others.  It was super cute!!

 

That's Ruby in the red twirling her pois

For my overseas readers here’s the lyrics, a pukeko is our native swamp hen, a ponga is a tree fern, kumara a sweet potato….you get the idea (I’ll let you google the rest)

On the first day of Christmas
 My true love gave to me
 A pukeko in a ponga tree 
On the second day of Christmas
 My true love gave to me
 two kumara
 And a pukeko in a ponga tree 

On the third day of Christmas
....
and so on, until... 

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Twelve piupius swinging
Eleven haka lessons
Ten juicy fish heads
Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five - big - fat - pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumara
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

I’d have to say Invercargill is a lovely city. There are lots of heritage buildings from the Victorian, Edwardian & Art Deco eras, with plenty of beautiful old villas & houses too. There are also loads of green spaces including, what must be the jewel in the crown, the very large Queens Park right in the centre of the city. Fortunately for Invercargill, when the John Turnbull Thomson the Chief Surveyor laid out the town in 1857 he had the foresight to set aside 81 hectares (200 acres) of land  for the park. There’s now an 18 hole golf course, animal park, aviary, sculpture park, formal gardens, band rotunda, fitness trail, children’s playgrounds and the Museum which is located near the grand entrance to the park. The city itself is easy to navigate around as the area is very flat and the roads criss-cross each other at regular intervals. So once you get your bearings (David is still working on that one) it’s only a matter of turn right, right, right & you’re back home.

The historic 40 metre high Invercargill Water Tower dominates the skyline, it was built in 1888/89 to support the city’s first high pressure water supply tank. It is still used as a backup for the city’s water supply and able to provide enough pressure should the electric supply to the modern pumps be interrupted. Sadly public admission to the top of the tower was stopped in early 2012 due to the earthquake risk.

We did have a good laugh during the week when David locked himself out of the van while dressed only in his dressing gown. It’ll take awhile for him to live this one down.  I had gone off to town to get my hair done & locked one of the doors while David was still in bed. When he got up he checked & of course it opened from the inside so he thought it was now unlocked. He went off to the shower locking the other door & it wasn’t until he returned that he realised the door I had locked was still locked, from the outside!

There he was with just his dressing gown on, no phone, no key, no undies, and on a very windy day. He sheepishly went to the office & called Rachel from there to see if she could pick the key up from me in town. Not possible, Cameron was out with the child seats in the car & she had the kids. Lucky for him Doug our campground host offered to drive into town and collect the key. You can imagine my surprise when Doug suddenly appeared beside me in the salon- a very flash salon- where I was sitting with colour in my hair and looking like I’d stuck my finger in a power socket. I thought to myself “hmmm….this is not quite the establishment I’d have thought Doug would get his hair done” Doug has wild hair & an even wilder beard! But the funniest thing was that David had to hold the fort in the office while Doug was out. He was wishing like hell that nobody turned up to check-in (or out) while he sat there in his dressing gown stark naked underneath!! 

We had the kids overnight on Saturday while Rachel & Cameron celebrated an anniversary. The kids were also very keen to stay overnight in the “kamprvan” (Ollie wrote this on the fridge diary) and it was hard to contain their excitement. It nearly didn’t happen, on that day at least, as the weather was shocking; cold, heavy rain & lashing winds overnight but it cleared a little in the morning so that was good. First they wanted to take us to the museum to show us Henry(a famous tuatara) & the other tuataras too. The museum has an active tuatara breeding programme & we managed to spot quite a number in amongst the undergrowth. The rest of the museum displays were very well done too & we all had a great time.

Back at the fifth-wheeler we settled in for the night with plenty of DVDs (thank God for DVDs) and the kids had a ball & were very good. We transferred the sleeping kids from our bed onto the beds in the lounge once we went to bed & I laughed when Ruby was telling her Mum the next day that she got a fright when she woke up in the night & “I was in bed in the kitchen!!”

Budding young birdwatchers

Yesterday we all went out to the farm, about 30 minutes away, to put up the tent for Rach, Cam & the kids ready for Christmas night. The farm, a large dairy farm, is where we are going for Christmas Day and belongs to David’s nephew James & his wife Darnelle with their four children. This is also where David’s sister Jackie & husband Bob (James' parents) are parked up in their motorhome (you’ll remember they surprised us at the Newhaven Holiday Park in the Catlins on their way south). We are taking the fifth-wheeler out there to join in the festivities too.  The only fly in the ointment at the moment is the weather, it was very hot the first couple days after we arrived but since then it’s been raining & windy off & on most of the time, and quite often very cold. The forecast says clearing & sunny so we shall see.

After we left the farm we did a side trip out to the coast to a familiar spot, Fortrose, it’s where we had lunch on the Friday we left the Catlins & just before we arrived in Invercargill. As it’s turned out we drove right past the road to the farm and didn’t know it. We wanted to check the freedom camping spot out to see if it was suitable to visit with the family next month for a few days. It was blowing a gale & bitterly cold totally different to the day we had lunch. We drove up onto the headland where the estuary & river mouth entered the sea & it was wild.

We also got a huge shock when we realised we were right on the cliff edge, an edge that looked like it regularly broke away. It was scary & exhilarating all in one standing there getting buffeted by the wind.

The trees tell the story......

As this’ll be my last post before Christmas I’d like to take the opportunity of thanking you all for reading, following & commenting on my blog & hope that you have enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy) your virtual tiki-tour. David & I would also like to wish you and your families along with all our family & friends a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Happy & safe travels wherever in the world you may be.

Merry Christmas my friends