Photos in new place

Just in progress of making my life easier and more dynamic. :)

Our doings photo album now in Flickr

Blue Lake walks at Rotorua

Nature lessons for Mia's 11th month birthday.

What happened from April to August

And time went by... did I loose the keys to my blog? or no overseas travels to find a reason for putting photos up? or some other smart reason... Meanwhile: Winter came, I captured it (if "snow" can be the synonym to "winter") on the picture. Then we discovered that our little daughter truly likes cafeteria culture. Then celebrated Mother's day with a motor show that stopped the whole Waiuku village, show was called "Wheels and Steel" - how motherly!. Then I discovered that riding bicycle indoors can also be fun... in winter!

Mother's Day celebration in Kiwi style at Waiuku, filled the village with vintage vehicles to allow mothers to enjoy all that iron beauty. "Wheels and Steel" 1

"Wheels and Steel" 2

"Wheels and Steel" 3

Cafeteria time, Mia trully likes all the cafeteria entertainment 

Aerodrome exercises 

Velodrome exercises 

When the weather got colder it was time to move the bathing actions from chilly bathroom to a lot warmer kitchen. 

Front door winter morning views

Cafeteria fun 2

Searching the winter. Snow was there, just a bit higher and further away. Tongariro national park Mount Ngauruhoe

Once again I ran so fast that made it on my own photo

The tundra like landscape in Tongariro

Mia checking out if parents will join her in her discovery tour to the back rooms. 

4 hour mud mask

This is how I went out to take a 4 hour whole body mud mask. Somewhere in February I decided to sign up for 72km mountain bike race around the Coromandel peninsula with promised spectacular views to the ocean throughout the race, well it turned out to be an amazing 4 hours of soaking in mud with views close to none.

As Coromandel is one of the THE places in New Zealand the idea was to combine it with our family's first overnight weekend trip away from home at New Zealand. All the questions of how Mia will cope with long drive, sleeping in different bed and etc. etc. still to be answered at this stage. 

On the morning of the race there was a beautiful mushroom rain coming from the sky, this meant: constant re-applying mud all over the body. Also involved ice slippery track, couple of crashes; heaps of adrenaline and absolutely no views to the spectacular ocean, that was somewhere below in thick fog.  

Good for the skin!

Discovering Coromandel from top

Cathedral Cove in its amazing beauty, the most beautiful swimming hole I have been and seen - can be that I have said the same also in past. At the moment this place feels like the ultimate place to go for the perfect swim.  

Rotorua base

Already 4 months passed since moving to little Rotorua, the rotten egg capital of New Zealand. It is a nice Maori culture driven town, that has been blessed of heaps of volcanic activity. On daily basis - when volcanoes are not going off - this means a lot a steam and geysers all around the town with a side effect of the very distinct sulphuric smell.
So this is what we have managed to see in this tourism crazy town.


Some big trees around here, attracting lots of tree huggers, literally!


Then there are all the different types of ferns around, hundreds.


Thermal activity, boiling water, splashing mud, and last major volcano eruption in 1886




Not pollution, or at least this is what we are supposed to believe. All the underground activity brings some amazing colours to some of the water holes.


Our home lake - Rotorua Lake


I believe Maori guys. Or Pacific Islanders.


Market day


Local style fences


Strong feel of colonial style architecture, this one is very little decorated and in shady state. Usually the houses are well maintained, even though the overall construction quality is shocking - no isolation, single windows, wind blowing through cracks. Lets see how the winter will be.


Another style of living - in stationary caravan


Some German style presented, initially built as mud bath, nowadays Rotorua Museum.


Our little house looking over the town.


15 meters of underwater drop, 10 degrees C water emerging from rocky hole, of course some crazy guys found it as a suitable water jumping hole.


One of the reasons of selecting Rotorua as the base - possibly the best mountain biking tracks in New Zealand. Back on the sports bike after almost 6 years of break.


And the heavy mountain bike climbs can be sometimes very rewarding. 1hrs of climb and views like this.


One more little curious girl has joined here, even forgetting the food, if there is possibility to have a quick look around  

Bird watch

From November 2013 when the spring was still turning into summer and water was not that warm to swim, I did my first walks around Rotorua. Today couple month later I went out to have a swim on exactly the same lake... and what a good occasion to finally put these pictures up. This is Lake Okreka, it was a big waoooo moment when suddenly all this bird life was there, even small lookout huts for true bird fans.

Pukeko

As a very experienced bird watcher my conclusion is that most of Rotorua area birds are lacking vivid colours, preferring to dress in discrete black with small elements of other colour. And they are rather good at leaving swim beach evenly covered with bird dung - discovery from today.

Drying line

When nappies leak through, somebody always suffers. This time rabbit-bear finished up on drying line, though he had nothing to do with all of this, he just happened to be nearby when the disaster stroke.

So much about my photos of nature and travel.