Noonan Adventures

Home Sweet Home

2012-01-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

Funny how your house is always so big after a camping holiday! So nice to be back in our own beds, and dig out the Xmas loot that had to be tucked away before going on hols. Back to work this week - don't need to water the garden as it's raining just for a change. Was a very fun Road Trip down the west coast and recommend it to all. Over and out for now.

Exploring Ohakune before heading home

2012-01-14T16:10:00.000-08:00

After years of visiting the mountain we discovered there's more to Ohakune and surrounds than we knew about. Before heading north to go home we had one last adventure to do - a bush walk (and the girls on bikes) along the Old Coach Road in Ohakune to see the Hapuawhenua Viaduct. An amazing piece of construction in its time and even better seeing the new viaduct alongside. Beautiful scenery of course.

Lucky for us the rain held off in time for the road trip to Home Sweet Home...

Ohakune mountain trails

2012-01-05T22:42:00.000-08:00

Today we turned from ski-bunnies to mountaineers. Bit weird seeing Turoa ski-field empty of snow. So we turned our attention to take in the beauty of the heritage park around us. Our first walk was to the Mangawhero Falls then our big walk was to the Waitonga Falls on the southern side of Ruapheu (seems waterfalls are a bit of a common theme on this trip). Gazz found himself so taken by his surroundings that he became a “nature photographer”….no not naturist if any of you have a filthy mind. Think about it….

Lovely still evening looking out at the mountain as we cook up, drink and enjoy (the kids have ditched us to go to the dairy with one of their new camp buddies).

Tomorrow is time to make our way home but not before we tackle another walk to the Hapuawhenua Viaduct which is part of the Old Coach Road from Ohakune towards National Park.

Mountain Adventures

2012-01-05T16:55:00.000-08:00

Departed Camp AJ yesterday and headed north to Ruapehu District via Mangaweka International Airport (complete with DC3), Taihape and it's famous gumboots, and of course the army tanks at Waiouru. Best of all though, "we went shopping in Palmerston North". And there we bought the best kit for the camper and a few clothes thrown in too.

Today we are off exploring the mountain and skifields in Summer. Toodles.

Katie's Adventure Updates

2012-01-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

Oakura
On the second day at Oakura there was a carnival where they were hypnotising people. I have always wanted to be hypnotised (since I've been reading Molly Moon). At the camping ground there was a cool waterfall which was really small compared to Bridal Veil but it looked amazing.

The White Lighthouse
Through the clouds I could see the top of Mt Egmont. It had lots of snow on top of it. Before we went up to the lighthouse at Cape Egmont we went to explore the beach and found it was covered in lots and lots of rocks. Some of the rocks were shaped like snowballs. We took some with us to make decorations and stuff. I even found a sponge that looked like a rock. Then we went up to the lighthouse and we took lots of photos. Inside the lighthouse it looked grey and dusty and spider-webby and like a dump.

Road Tripping the Surf Highway

2012-01-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

Being tourists means you take the tourist route and take longer to get to your destination - well it was only 6.5 hours travel including stops from Oakura to Otaki Beach. Great road though with beautiful scenery. Stopped off at Cape Egmont and collected rock souvenirs for us girls to get creative back home. May need some boy help though (Gazz is still rolling his eyes at us bringing rocks on our road trip tee hee).

Passed some really fascinating scenery along the way - volcanic lahar hummocks around the Cape, Maui gas production plant (looks a bit scary and nuclear), cloud clearing to reveal Mt Egmont, and discovering an impressive bronze statue of Peter Snell in Opanake where he was born.

Travelling through Bulls where according to local signage the Info Centre is inform-a-bull, the accommodation is both comfort-a-bull and afford-a-bull, the food is delect-a-bull, so we decided the locals must all be quite social-a-bull. Cute. A bull :)

Arrived at Otaki Beach to set up our mobile home at Camp AJ (with the very friendly camp managers Amanda and Jess). Errol was also over in no time to welcome us sporting his lovely pink pony (formerly a pink mohawk - on his head that is) and his friendly smile (even with a few teeth missing).

Noticing a change in temperature with this move further south with the evening being a bit chilly - at least it's warmer than the 7 degress they had a few days ago! Brrrr.

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

Ours was a quiet little camp affair at Oakura with umbrellas still needed as a just in case! Soph and Katie saw the New Year in keeping the night entertainment going with board games (and drinkies for grown-ups).

New Year's Day highlight at Oakura was the surf club carnival complete with tragic beauty contests (Miss Taranki etc) and kids in the Big Dig (in the rain). And the kids made it into the Taranaki newspaper for their digging effort. We managed to make a day of it though and still got a little sunburn in the cloudy weather. A few beers in the afternoon for a nice cruisy new year's day.

Finally the sun arrived at our beatuiful location overlooking the surf beach - our pack up day and then to continue our Roadie Trip south to Otaki Beach. Tiki-touring of course along the way....

New Years Eve at Oakura in the Naki (by Katie & Jojo)

2011-12-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

The day started very rainy but turned into a bit of sun and dare we say it....dry roads...not a single drop of rain (for now). Let's not talk about the rain anymore.

Today we took a drive into New Plymouth and looked at Paretutu Rock (which Dad has climbed on a previous trip). It was a bit steep and dodgy for us this time so Sophie and I are going to climb it in a few more years. Then we went to the pipi cafe and had ice creams. Once we had finished our ice creams Sophie and I had a little play on the rocks.The water was quite cold but I liked it!

Tonight there should be lots of partying at camp...security is on and we are off to play. Last post now for 2011 at the Reefer Pub in Oakura. Happy New Year's Eve everybody. xxxxx

Katie's Adventure Updates

2011-12-30T21:40:00.000-08:00

Kawhia

At Kawhia (our first stop), we stayed at a camping ground called Kawhia Camping Ground in our camper which was nice and warm. In the afternoon we went to Ocean Beach to dig a really big hole in the sand at low tide to lie in super duper warm water. It was like a spa! For Christmas my parents gave me a new sleeping bag and it was my first time using it. It was so so warm. At the camping ground I made some new friends Emily and Nina. Nina was just one month younger than me. When Sophie, Mum, Dad and I went for a walk on the wharf, this girl pushed her skateboard off the wharf into the water by mistake and lost it!

Day trip – Kawhia to Raglan

Before we actually got to Raglan we stopped to see Bridal Veil Waterfall. Read about that next. Finally we got there (to Raglan). It looked very alike Auckland to me. I had to think about it for quite a while. The people there were very nice. We stopped at a really cool playground – it had 3 parts to it and was enormous. Sophie and I had lots of fun on it. The funny thing though is that on the way back to Kawhia we stopped to go to the toilet (at the Raglan Info Centre). When we went in this voice came on and it was like a man was talking to us. Then we had toilet music! Raglan is a really cool place!

Bridal Veil Waterfall

When we arrived and had parked the car we had to walk for 10 minutes to see the waterfall. When we had finished our little walk we approached lots of spluttering water that must have been coming from the waterfall! There was a top view, medium/top, medium and bottom view to look at the waterfall. We started at the top and then went down. The problem on the way back up was there were 260 steps! The waterfall looked amazing! From every angle I was stunned by the powerful falling water. My favourite view to watch the waterfall was from the top. It looked amazing.

Travelling to New Plymouth

We had to stop a lot to let lots of cars pass us since we were a bit slow, it took over 4 hours just to get there!!! But when we did arrive, New Plymouth was gi-normous! Like Auckland. Before we took the camper to the camping ground we had to go to the supermarket for supplies and to get a fuse to fix the radio in the camper. It was boring.

Oakura

It took ages just to get to New Plymouth and it rained most of the way. The rivers had lots of water in them and were flowing really fast. One of them was almost over the road. When we got to the camping ground, the weird thing was that the office was on the other side of the road, I found that a bit dumb. Out of the two camping grounds we have been to so far, my favourite was Kawhia because here at Oakura the waves are so so noisy and it sounds almost like it could be a tsunami! (But Mum and Dad tell me it’s not)

Hot Pools in the Black Sand

2011-12-29T16:22:00.000-08:00

At the recommendation of Rae and Ock (Camp Leaders :)) we packed our shovels, donned the swimsuits and headed off to Ocean Beach for a low tide soak in a hot pool. The only thing is you have to dig it yourself. Fortunately previous Adventurers had already done most of the hard work so really we didn't have to make Soph and Katie do too much hard labour for us. Te Puia Springs is the source of the hot water and inspiring us to run up and down sand dunes to soak in hot water in quite a surreal west coast moment (well I thought it was). The crappy bits were getting out of hot water into cold wind and black sand infiltrating

Rain

2011-12-29T02:44:00.000-08:00

Well it's been in the forecast and now the rain is sprinkling on Kawhia. We are ready to pack up in the wet tomorrow and head to more wet in Taranaki...it's a great kiwi summer. Good time to stock up on Steinies and Chardie. I think this is when we should be saying "lucky we have a camper and not a tent eh!"

The Road To Raglan

2011-12-29T02:41:00.000-08:00

It's a twisty, narrow, gravel road, and very scenic. The highlight is Bridal Veil Falls which is magnificent and well worth the drive. I just wouldn't want to be the eel that swam the wrong way along the river!

Raglan was lovely with a very nice lunch at The Shack and then an explore around town and some of the coastline before heading back along the winding gravelly road that also made my car very un-J0COOL dirty.

Destination Kawhia

2011-12-29T01:58:00.000-08:00

So we chose this destination because we have never been here (or anywhere close by) before and thought this could be very educational for the kids!! Besides, this is the Family Adventure so new places are a must have. Well what a pretty (but very very quiet) place. Lovely little camping ground on Kawhia Harbour, a bit of a hike from the Big A but taking the familiar ski roads through Whatawhata a

nd Pirongia (oh the best bakery is here too...yummy apple donuts with fresh cream, oh fatty fatty!!!) So we weaved our way along 40km or something of twisty road - I think it works out at 1km per minute - and then arrived in the cutest little town. Oh thank goodness we did the Chardie Shop beforehand.

Gotta love the Camper - a bit over half and hour and we're all set up, ready to relax. Sophie and Katie achieved record time of meeting new friends in the space of about 5 minutes (no, not Nek Minit). Emily and Nina from Cambridge are our latest camp-buddies. Well Soph and Katie's really!

Day One - Motel Bryant Place

2011-12-29T01:47:00.000-08:00

Well a little bit of a hiccup to start off this holiday meant we had our first night at home! Taking a bit longer than planned to pack (no snikkering please), our first stop on leaving Auckland was to drop Marley at All Breeds Doggie Holiday Park - but there was no way we were going to meet the drop off time (travel time = 1 hour out of Auckland) so we opted for family trip to Mission Bay for Mamma Mia pizzas, nice red wine and accommodation at Motel Bryant Place. At least we left nice and early on Wednesday for a cruisy drive through to Kawhia. We put this hiccup down to the "after effects" of the Boxing Day Wedding. Now that would be another story perhaps after these adventures...

Welcome

2011-12-29T01:36:00.000-08:00

Yeehaa...the summer adventures begin with our road trip down the west coast of the North Island. New places to be found and explored....the weather forecast is crap, but hey, we have the camper kitted out so off we go :) The travel itinerary as compiled by the Great Gazza starts in Kawhia, then to Oakura, Otaki Beach (Amanda's Pad), then back north to Ohakune and then landing back in Auckland. West Coast trips usually mean rain anyway don't they???