October

Hi friends! It seems that I haven't posted anything in the past month. We haven't taken any weekend road trips or done anything overly "exciting" so I don't have much to share. Tyler has an ongoing operation at work so he has been on call for the past month - which means no weekend getaways for us (but lots of middle-of-the-night phone calls)!! A couple more weeks and the job should be finished, just in time for summer! So we have stayed close to home and have done some hiking, biking, gardening... trying to soak up the spring sun. Speaking of which, the weather has been pretty inconsistent lately. Rainy, windy and chilly for a few days and sunny, calm and hot the next. Hopefully summer will be more consistently warm? Below are some pictures from a few tramps we have done around Mount Taranaki. You don't have to travel far to find something beautiful and photo-worthy here!

Huge, beautiful Redwoods

Dawson Falls

The only wildlife we have ever come across while hiking, is birds...until now! A mama goat and baby goat! I think we startled them so they ran off into the bush and I couldn't get a better picture. I love that you only have to worry about running into a wild goat...no bears, deer or cougars here!

A mini stream we had to cross on the tramp.

The big stream we had to cross to get to the other side. I hate stream crossings, I always think I'm going to fall in, but never do :)

This was the fist time we have hiked on the mountain on a clear day, we were excited we could actually see it up close, it's usually covered by clouds. This view is from the other side of the mountain, about an hour East of New Plymouth - it doesn't have the perfect conical shape like our regular view, but still equally as nice.

Mount Taranaki - still lots of snow up top!

The next few pictures are of East End Beach and the Sugar Loaf Islands. This beach is in town and is so picturesque! Paritutu Rock is the large one on the right which you can climb to the top of. When we were there, there were kids sand boarding down to the beach. They were using an actual snowboard with bindings - it looked fun and probably wouldn't hurt if you wiped out! There are also seals that like to hang out on the islands and apparently at low tide you can walk out to the second island to see them. Maybe next time.

This is at Fitzroy beach, by our house. During the week when there aren't many people on the beach, you will instead find the occasional horse :)

Spring also means lots of pretty new flowers are blooming! I have no idea what any of them are called but they look nice and smell good :) There is a garden festival on right now where private and public gardens are on display. We have checked out a couple and they are pretty amazing!

Fields of ____? on our bike ride.

Who says flowers are just for girls?!

While we don't have many flowers in our garden, the vegetables are starting to grow! You really don't need a green thumb to grow things here. Just plant a seed and it will grow, minimal watering or care required. It's great because I really don't know what I am doing! The lettuce and herbs have taken off but we are still waiting patiently for the root vegetables and tomatoes. The only pests have been snails which like to eat anything and everything. I think I have gotten rid of them for now!

Yummy lettuce

More mint than I know what to do with! Mojito anyone?

Sneaky snail!

November should be a quiet month as we don't have a lot planned. We will be getting ready for a couple of trips and company in December. We are going to Melbourne for a week at the beginning of the month and then Tyler's family is coming here for a Kiwi Christmas! We are so excited they are coming but it will definitely be weird having a hot Christmas with no snow. Beaches instead of skiing, lamb instead of turkey? I guess it doesn't sound that bad :)