Quick Catch Up of second half of 2013

2013 was busy with things other than tourism. I went home to visit family in the states and had such a good time, coming back a lot less home-sick from the states after a good dose of it. Erik grew the hairiest beard EVER, attempting to look like a real Viking. Maggie nearly died of pneumonia and spent 4 days in a Christchurch hospital. Then, once she was better she had her 3rd birthday and started preschool full time. Benjamin enjoyed learning to read and doing basic math in first grade. He also really loved the Maori dances and Christmas carols his class performed at two different evening performances. Caty and Ben got to attend separate night time discos at their school and Maggie and I chaperoned Ben's dance, getting to boogie as well. Caty completed her first year on the alto sax and can play Ode to Joy pretty well now. She finished 6th grade and gets to wear the "Senior" jacket at school for 7th and 8th before going off to High School in two years! Time is flying. The doctor says she grew 5 cm between March and December! Her braces go on in Jan/Feb. We'll see how that affects saxaphone practice...
Anyway, below are a few photos to bring us up to date before I publish pics from our Christmas camping holiday.

Ben and Maggie have really been playing together a lot this year. They seem to have a new level of relationship, more buddies and Ben has been showing a protective streak for her.

 Caty's school hockey team did very well this year. Playing in a couple tournaments.

 Maggie's pink cupcake third birthday.

Grace, Caty's friend, was able to come for dinner and cupcakes. This is one of the few photos we have of Erik's shaggy beard.

 Disco time!

 Maggie found a friend to dance with...

...and then Ben cut in.

 Our back yard. :)

 Ben has left trains behind and he's really into a video game called Minecraft. Here, he's holding a stuffed "creeper" character from the game.

 We had several weeks where everything was a "tea party".

Maggie and I went to see Ben at his school Athletics Day. They are very strict about hats at school because of the ozone hole here. But Maggie refuses most days to wear a hat. She is, however, wearing SPF75 or above.

 Ben in the dark blue sweatshirt doing the relay.

Ben doing the high jump.

 Caty likes to climb the rocks at our beach.

 More beach.

 We love our beach!

 This is Nape Nape beach. We went again with friends this year. It's a couple hours from Christchurch and quite deserted.

 World's largest marshmallow roasting stick.

 A hat on Maggie!

 Family photo!

 Caty and her friend Joe at Nape Nape beach.

 Caty and Grace BOTH lost teeth at our house during a sleepover. Within about 90 seconds of each other.

 When the weather is nice, Erik likes to go up to Godley Head for a hike.

 Maggie likes to be carried.

 The kids love these little stiles where you go over steps to get over the fence. Keeps the sheep in.

 Halloween isn't that big of a deal here but we tried. Ben went as the main character from Minecraft.

 Maggie is Cinderella and Caty is a vampire. I'm just in disguise. :)

 We trick or treated with Ben's friend Leon, who was a pirate.

 At a neighboring village they had a school fundraiser where you could get a pony ride. Maggie was in heaven.

 I got a job as a "Senior Geospatial Analyst" doing mapping and analysis for Transpower, the NZ electric Grid. My first week was in Wellington at HQ getting some training. It was a lot of fun! Back to work part time isn't so bad.

 At the Wellington airport food court. That's Gollum catching a trout. It's quite realistic and very creepy to sit under it.

Wellington is a bustling city. A real city. It's easy to forget they exist when you live in a village at the outskirts of Christchurch, a provincial town missing it's CBD after the quakes.

Mountain Biking the Queen Charlotte Track - By Erik

My first go at one of the many trails in New Zealand turned out to be harder than I thought, amazingly beautiful, and an overall great time. 

In November I went with four friends to the Marlborough Sounds at the north end of the south island to ride the Queen Charlotte Track.  While the Queen Charlotte Track is regarded as a classic new Zealand walk, it is also considered to be New Zealand’s best single track mountain bike rides.  The track runs in and out of coves, up and over mountains and along the summit ridge along much of the 42-mile length.  Elevations along the train ranged from sea level to up to about 1,500 feet. A general map of the area and trail location is provided below.

We did the trip over three days, having a tour company move our equipment from site to site so that we didn’t need to carry our own gear, other than a day pack filled with snacks and plenty of water.  We stayed at hostels along the way, with one only accessible by trail or boat.   

From Picton a water taxi took us to a place called Ships Cove, which is the place where Captain James Cook first landed in NZ during his explorations of the area.  This is where our ride began.  Overnight stays were at Punga Cove and Portage Bay.  We concluded our trip in Anakiwa, then took another water taxi to Picton.  

We weren’t the only ones in for the ride.  Our water taxi was filled to the max. 

First stop at the James Cook memorial, the beginning of our trip.  

Some sections of the trail were so steep that we had to push our bikes.

It was cloudy the first day, but that didn’t stop the scenery from showing through.

The Weka bird was everywhere we went.

On the second day the sun came out.  What a nice day.  See that ridge line along the left.  We rode from here along its entire length.

The scenery didn’t stop.

Some places along the trail were a bit treacherous, with many locations with steep drop-offs.  This spot was wet from a small water fall on the uphill side of the road.  The loose rocks on the trail didn’t help either.

Good place for a break.

On the last day, all of us tired, we stopped and had a dip into the water at Davis Bay.  It was about as warm as it could be, still cold by my standards, but well worth the short soak.