Life in Kiwi Land

Hello again,

Just a few stories to keep you entertained:

- I drove to Masterton today (about 30 minutes away) to go to an osteopath appointment for my back. I'm feeling much better by the way, this line of treatment seems to be working. Anyway, I'm driving along and come round a corner and there were literally HUNDREDS of sheep in the middle of road. HUNDREDS. I have never seen anything like it... the farmer was moving them to a different paddock but it was just completely hilarious to me that all traffic was stopped to let these sheep wander along the road & into their new field.

- Phyll has signed me & her up for the Great New Zealand Trek in March and we began training on Saturday with a bike ride up in the hills on a friend's farm. Needless to say, it was very challenging but I love riding and the views were unbelievable. We rode through paddocks of sheep & cows which I also found really funny for some reason. They're just part of everyday life here I guess... You wouldn't think I'd be that surprised after living in Ireland for two years though... Here's a pic of the view from the top of the hill:

- My list of things to do for Phyll is getting longer and longer every day, even though I'm ticking stuff off... haha. It's slightly chaotic here with all that's going on, Phyll juggling business-woman and mother. It's been really interesting staying first with Celia & now with Phyll, who both have children but are also basically full-time working women. Makes you think about life in the future, but don't worry I'm not having kids anytime soon (living with them has also helped me decide this haha).

- Britt & Mackenzie (Phyll & Clive's 2 girls) are completely hilarious and it's great to be around them & get to know them better. Britt is a very keen horse-rider, she's been riding for about a decade now, and she's only a few months younger than me. It's fascinating to see what she enjoys doing and hear about how she grew up living in the middle of nowhere. They are completely different from my experiences, and different from those of most people I know. To grow up in a country where the weather allows you to spend most of your time outside, and you are constantly surrounded by animals, and you don't have the distractions of cinemas & shopping malls or most shops in general, it must be so liberating! There are pros & cons with everywhere you live, of course, but I'm realizing what a big impact your environment has on you.

- One of the things on my to-do list that I find most entertaining is "play matchmaker with the socks in the sock amesty drawer". Let me explain: as you all know, when you put a pair of socks in the washing machine, you are very likely to only find one sock at the end. Well, all of these single socks here go into a HUGE drawer in the lounge, and when it gets so full that you can't fit another one in, it's match-making time. It is apparently very rewarding to reunite all of these lost couples so they can be side by side on their owner's feet again :) haha it just cracks me up...

That's all for now,

rach xx

End of Australia and on to New Zealand!

Hello everyone...
I am now in Martinborough, New Zealand staying with my Uncle Clive & Aunt Phyll for two months, so now's a good time to catch up with my stories!

So after that Pinnacle's weekend I had another week with the twins & working at Artemis. I got quite good at arranging swaps with some of their friends' mums so that I got a few hours off here and there, and then looked after the twins + a friend on a different day. That weekend, we went down to the "Choo Choos" near Hamelin Bay in the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park, about 3-4 hours away from Fremantle. It was definitely an experience... but great fun too! The atmosphere and the spirit of the land there was magical. The noise of the birds and the wind through the trees and then insects was eerie and calming at the same time. When it wasn't too windy, you could hear the ocean too...


One carriage has a stove, cupboards, mini fridge, table, and chairs in it, and the other one has mattresses down on the floor as a bedroom. We also set up a big tent in the back corner of the site (basically staight ahead past the carriages in the picture), and the girls & I slept in there. We went to a beach called Deep Dene on Saturday & Sunday which was incredible. It's only accessible via a 4WD sand/dirt road and it was DESRTED both days. We were the only people on the entire beach. The water was an amazing turquoise color, with fantastic boogie-boarding waves and the sand was so fine it felt like velvet. There were also some rockpools that filled up when the tide come in, which the twins loved playing in. Here's a pic:

So that brings us up to Australia Day- Jan 26. We drove back to Fremantle & watched the fireworks from Bryn's balcony, across the street. We took Poppy with us and tried to keep her calm while the fireworks were going on. Then it was back to normal with 2 days with the twins and 2 more at Artemis.

The following weekend was yet another busy one, with some shopping in Fremantle with Malindi & her friend Kara. We met Calypso & her boyfriend Nick for lunch, and behind Calypso's back created a milkshake consisting of ketchup, salt, sugar, lemon juice, and sour cream and convinced her it was strawberry milkshake. She's too nice to refuse a taste, but you should have seen her face :) Hilarious... She forgave us though & we headed home to get ready for her 18th birthday party. She had it on a 2-story boat cruising the Swan River! It was incredible, gorgeous sunset and then fantastic dancing thanks to the DJ (a fencing friend of Malindi's), and I got to meet a lot of her friends which was fun. It was fantastic to have a night out with people my own age... the next morning Calypso, Nick, Malindi, Kara, George & I went to the beach for a swim and hung around the house before watching the Australian Open Finals Match between Federer & Nadal. Nerve-wracking as usual :)

Speaking of Malindi's fencing, did I mention that she's really really really good at it? She competed at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in January, winning 7th place individual and 2nd place team. Completely insane... and most fencers are close to or taller than 6ft, and if you haven't seen Malindi, believe me when I say that she's nowhere near 6ft. Incredible.

And then all of a sudden, it was my last week in Perth! The girls went back to school on that Monday, in separate classes this year which they were both happy with. They carefully packed their schoolbags (which are about twice the size of them) and had a great first day learning about dinosaurs. On Tuesday I dropped them off at school and got to look around their classrooms. I also got to see the dinosaurs they had colored. There were two boys sitting next to Maddy who were having a very heated discussion about how to color their dinosaurs. One of the boys began drawing huge red splotches and declared, "Myyyyy dinosaur got into a huge fight and is bleeding all over!!". His mother looks over at Maddy's picture and says "Maybe your dinosaur should be friends with Maddy's dinosaur, he looks like he needs a friend" and the boy replies "No mum, all my dinosaur's friends are dead! And now he's going to die too!". The mother's expression was so funny... all the girls are decorating them with flowers and rainbows, and the boys are creating dinowars. Typical right?

Also on Tuesday, I got the train with Calypso into Perth and wandered around there for a while. I had heard from just about everyone that there's nothing to see & it's not really worth the trip, but I couldn't go all that way and not visit downtown Perth... but to be honest it was pretty lackluster. I had a delicious roast vegetable panini though which definitely redeemed the day :)

I had a couple of chiropractor appointments as well that week for my ever-problematic back. It was in very bad shape when I went to see him, so he did what he could and told me I should probably be seeing a physiotherapist as well... SUPER. He (the chiropractor) asked me if I'd had a very stressful trip, lots of heavy lifting? If the twins count as heavy lifting then I'm in big trouble for the rest of my life I think... and as for stress- I was practically on holiday! I mean, I was and am on holiday! Compared to last year's stress at school, this is nothing, so why does my back choose now to get so damn out of place? Oh well... physio here I come.

We had a fantastic farewell dinner at a little Indian restaurant in Fremantle with the Haggetts too... delicious meal & nice to get everyone together again. Maddy burst into tears in the middle of it and came on sat on my lap & told me she was going to miss me at which point I almost burst into tears too. It was so special spending time with those girls and getting to know them.

Friday I flew out of Perth to the Gold Coast, after a bit of drama regarding my incredibly overweight check-in bag and subsequently heavy carry-on bags. I needed a 'wide-load' sign as I boarded the airplane, not kidding. My cousin Lisa (mum's oldest brother Keith's daughter) met me at the airport and drove me back to her little appartment. She finished her master's last year & just got a job as a dietician at a hospital in Brisbane... very exciting. We had a great four days together, seeing the sights around the Gold Coast and a day atop Tambourine Mountain, famous for its vineyards & fudge shops. No guessing which one of those I was more excited about ;) She's completely hilarious and we spent most of our time just making fun of each other and making fools of ourselves...

After a full day of serious packing strategy and trying to pack things so that they wouldn't weigh as much (I swear it made sense in my head), I flew off to Auckland. My bag was still overweight, even though I left about half the contents of it at Lisa's place. I'm getting very good at not getting attached to my possessions.

Uncle Keith and I played an unofficial game of hide-and-seek when he came to pick me up from the airport: I was waiting inside and he was looking outside then vice-versa, so we didn't see each other for about 45 minutes then asked "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?" before feeling very stupid. I had five days in Auckland which was fantastic. Barb taught me some new meals & shared her cooking brilliance with me, Keith told me some hilarious stories of my grandparents (his parents), who we call Marmar & Poppa, Carl successfully made my computer run at about twice the speed etc. etc. We also got two visits to see my brand new baby 2nd cousin or 1st cousin once removed, or whatever it is, Tyler (Keith's grandson). He's just 2 weeks old and the cutest thing ever! Pictures will be up soon I promise. Absolutely teeny tiny, and Mark & Kelly's first baby so very exciting. Keith & Barb are first-time grandparents too, and Keith in particular was beyond excited. During our last visit there, Tyler was sleeping, and as soon as Mark & Kelly left the room, Keith said "right how are we going to wake him up? I want a cuddle! Pinch his toes!"... cheeky cheeky.

And now, dun dun dunnnnnn, I'm at the AtaRangi Vineyards in Martinborough with Aunt Phyll! Air New Zealand is much more generous with baggage allowance so I was UNDERWEIGHT this time (round of applause please). I got a train from Wellington airport to a town called Featherston where Phyll picked me up. The weather is absolutely miserable today- gray gray gray and lots of rain :( But the train ride was gorgeous, along the coast and around lakes and underneath a huge set of mountains. Stunning. Since arriving at the vineyards, I have toured the winery, sampled 4 different kinds of wine, the names of which I cannot remember and two of which I actually liked (for those of you who don't know, I'm not so keen on wines- all to be changed in the next two months I think), organized the wine labels cupboard, and went into Martinborough to the local movie theatre & saw the Italian film, "My brother is an only child". Oh and I made myself a cup of tea and put salt in it instead of sugar. YUCK. Surely the wine didn't get to me that much?

And now I'm all caught up, without much detail (sorry) but hopefully a fairly good overview of what I've been doing for the last month?

Now I'm off to bed, which is in my very own guest cottage opposite the house, complete with sofa, ensuite bathroom, double bed, and kettle! Luxury :)

Like I said, pictures will come soon!