It’s unseasonably still winter season.  While there are breakthrough gorgeous weather days sprinkled in with the rain and wind,  we still bundle up and prepare for the elements.  On not so nice days a stroll on the walkway is a good leg stretcher.  Big set wave smack the boulders and ocean sprays add to the outdoor experience!

Kai is now a Nga Motu Marine Reserve Society volunteer.  The organisation educates about our local marine life and gives guided snorkelling tours in the summer.  His first contribution was a short video to raise awareness about fur seals resting on the rocks.  Des came upon this little guy or gal and almost stepped on it!

 

The sun peaked through on Friday for a couple of hours.  Kai agreed to pose for a few shots after school. He takes a short cut through idyllic Puke Kura Park on his way home. Nice commute. 

The waves have been either blown out or huge. Not much surfing lately but the sunsets  at Back Beach below are still magic.

Here are some photos of the main boat harbour and the jetty a few days ago.  Mt. Taranaki remains snow covered.  Jen is sporting her “Russian housewife” look– layers of jackets,  just missing a good scarf.

A mountain bike ride is usually happening around here if it’s not raining.  Des and Kai left our neighbourhood for a ride north along the coast to the town of Bell Block.  It was super windy (40-55 km/hr sustained) and they made record time on the 20km “downwinder”. 

The last two Saturdays have been fantastic.  A sunny, surfing day below.  Go Des!  

Pin Action!  We hosted a bowling/games/movie night Birthday party for Kai on Sept. 13th. Rather tame for teenagers but it was a super fun 5 hour hang out.  Co-ed social life has picked up. They have their usual hangouts, make artsy custom-painted shoes, play basketball, take boxing classes together, and roller skate on Friday nights.  He’s made a few new friends as well.  Two girls, Abi and Ella,  have their own”indie style” rock band and a track on Spotify.  Dylan (champion sweatshirt)  has lived all over- Vietnam, Fiji, Oman, and NZ -and is fast becoming a steady companion and chemistry tutor!

That’s all for now.

Tomorrow we leave for Australia for 10 days.  We can’t wait for the warm weather and hearing those Aussie accents!

We celebrated Kai’s birthday last Tuesday.  He laughed and couldn’t really believe he’s 17 either!  He says, “Thanks for all the birthday wishes, cards, emails, and shout outs.”   A “family cake and ice cream night”  morphed into a fun drop-in party: 3 Moores, 5 Connellys, 1 Sam (that’s enough), 1 Kane, and 1 Brittany.  I missed a photo op of 6 teens in Kai’s tiny 8 x 9 ft. room!

Kai and Des are frequent Thursday and sometimes Sunday regulars at the Mangamahoe Mountain Bike Park and still haven’t ridden all the trails. Even in the drizzle and cool weather the riding is top tier and ridiculously picturesque.  Last week Sam Bae joined in. Here are clips of the main road to the trails and a lookout point along a scenic ravine.

Bike clean up back home. Kai was already in the shower!

 

There was big surf a couple of weeks ago at the Fitzroy Super 8 Surf Contest.  The waves were breaking hard really far out.  With difficulty, I captured a few shots of a classmate of Kai’s.  Tommy who won the U18 division. He’s apparently fearless and a nice guy who’s quite vocal in class according to Kai.  Tommy said, “I like Kai, he’s good at physics.”  Looks like Tommy has a solid intuitive understanding of the essential laws of surfing: gravity, hydrodynamics, and acceleration! 

School uniform shots and casual stroll downtown.

The 2nd Ultimate Frisbee mini league is over.  The nights are slowly warming up and it stays light til 6:30ish. They won’t have to play in the rain, mud, wind, cold and dark  for the next league series.  ” But that’s what makes it so fun!” A “Who’s Who in Rap” book is in the works.  Kai is speed sketching lately as the number of artists is exploding and his book might never get finished.  Below is a quickie illustration of a rapper named Future. Per the author, Kai, when you think Trap, think Future… Whatever that means.

I wish I could take credit for this beautiful drone video but it’s a promotion for our region’s moto, “Taranaki – like no other.”  The famous WindWand sculpture bends and sways over the downtown coastline and looks amazing in the setting sun. The red ball on the top is alight after sundown.

This is a catch up post since almost 5 months have past since the last newsy one.  We haven’t traveled that much but socialising with friends and daily life here in New Plymouth is quite nice.  I’ll try to take more photos going forward.

It’s winter and that means rain, but it’s not all doom and gloom.  Almost daily rainbows and intermittent sunny skies add intensity of colour to the neighbourhoods and beaches.  The often wet skatepark is slowing Kai’s skateboarding progress but that’s probably a good thing.   Here’s a sunset shot Des took on the way home from the Hospital and a scene from East End Beach and skatepark.  No camera effects needed.

Des and Dan at Back Beach headed out for a surf.  It’s short board territory and Des is courageously testing out all kinds of equipment.  Dan holds his 27 liter “potato chip” sized shorty.

I enjoy chatty visits with Candy and Yvonne.  They are both docs at the hospital. Candy is a psychiatrist and Yvonne an anesthesiologist (or anees-thuh- teeest) as they say here).   Here we are on a short trek to Oakura’s “dog beach”, a pretty idyllic spot.

We along with another friend, Helen,  completed an adventure race at the end of March. It was a first for me.  The Spirited Women Adventure race is an all female event in which you navigate a course on foot, mountain bike, and kayak to find checkpoints and hopefully finish before dark.  This year it was in Gisborne on the east coast of the North Island. Gorgeous as!  We had a blast and finished in the middle of our age category (combined ages over 200 years!!)  We competed in the short course and spent 6 hours working our butts off for 35 km.  Lots of fit women in NZed.  I’ll say it again, fit as.

 

Kai is a reluctant subject these days, but I snap one or two here and there.  He is finally  out of braces…  finally.  After 2 1/2 years he now spends a bit more time looking in the mirror!  He’s trying ultimate frisbee on Monday nights. Cool group of players and they huddle to celebrate individual efforts after the games! 

Kai is following the Swedish saga of a favourite rapper, A$AP Rocky (drawn below).  It is quite a surreal circle of characters. If you haven’t read about it,  you might want to… gotta keep up!

New Plymouth hosts the annual World of Music and Dance Festival.  It’s known as WOMAD and the music line up is impressive.    We were thrilled by the Gypsy Kings performance but also loved the Brazilian and Taiwan groups.  Food is super high quality as well. It’s like a smaller, cleaner, family friendlier version of ACL with more dancing.  Costumes are encouraged and the light up jelly fish girls were standouts. 

Our good friend Keun is back visiting from South Korea.  She and Sam are hard at work finishing out Sam’s flash sprinter van.  It is a mirror image shell of our former home on wheels. Sam’s van has sliding door on the left and the steering on the right.  Still so odd. This brings back so many memories for us!  Sam is extremely ambitious.  Water tanks and pumps for kitchen and shower, huge and heavy batteries for a rather complex electrical system, and a concrete floor are all installed.  Don’t forget the convection stove top and giant IMac hanging from the wall. Super lux. They both play piano and have put one in their van.  The keyboard cover will double as a desk.

Candy donated a very nice keyboard to us, so we are all playing a bit at our place. Keun is teaching me piano in her spare time.   In Korea she learned to call the notes  Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do instead of C, D, E, F, G etc.  But her accent makes Do sound like “Toe”.   I know the basics but couldn’t figure out where or what a “Toe” note was.  She was emphatic,  instructing me to “start with toe, toe!!”.   Confusing but we’re getting in sync now.

We just finished watching Tour de France. It was so exciting this year!  We rooted for Julian Alaphilippe and of course, The Great Peter Sagan. His wheelies up the mountain top finishes are epic.

 

No TV but we got the projector working. Thank goodness for Tunnel Bear and online streaming sports packages.