A weekend in Hawera

It was my Mum's 60th birthday a few weeks ago so Rich and I headed up to Taranaki for the celebrations.

We chose to stay in "town" as there were various people staying at Mum and Dad's place that had traveled further than us to go to the party so it only seemed fair.

On the day after the party Rich and I had some time free as everyone else was busy at home so we decided to "play tourists in Hawera".

Although my parents still live in the province where I grew up, they no longer live in or near the town I grew up in. I grew up in Stratford, that's obviously Stratford upon Patea (because the council thinks its great to play up that angle) rather than Stratford upon Avon.

Anyway back to Hawera - I haven't actually spent much time here, but its the second biggest town in Taranaki (the biggest being New Plymouth - which is actually a city so I guess Hawera is the biggest town!). The population is 11,000. Did I ever mention that pretty much no-one lives in New Zealand?

There are actually quite a few pretty old buildings in Hawera (well old by local standards!)

We decided to go an check out the Hawera Water Tower - if you know me in real life, or if you have followed this blog for a while you will know that if I see a tower and I can climb to the top I will.

Despite growing up in Taranaki - this was my first chance to climb to the top of the water tower.

There was a warning on the door of the tower saying that there were a significant number of steep stairs - but it was actually a pretty easy climb. Naturally I raced to the top, Rich took his time and whistled creepy tunes to freak me out.

As you reached higher up in the tower, there was more street art (or perhaps tower art) - this piece was particularly relevant to me, although my look is perhaps more appropriate for The Cure than The Smiths.

When we made it to the top - the view was actually more impressive than I thought it would be!

 It was also much windier at the top of the water tower than I was expecting!

The water tower was pretty fun - but we still had some more time left to kill, so we went and checked out the town gardens. I forget what they are called - maybe Kind Edward? Something royal anyway.

They are quite traditional gardens and it looks like they are very well taken care of, but to be honest, my biggest memory of these gardens as a kid was falling off the pirate ship in the play ground (that was a bad day).

Rich and I thought that the gateway to the Chinese garden looked like something out of a Hobbit village.

 This weird sculpture was a memorial to one of Hawera's mayors - it was pretty weird and very non-New Zealand. It includes a whole bunch of animals that don't even exist in New Zealand and looks like its half way between a homage to Hans Christian Anderson and some kind of Gaelic folk story. At least the rabbits were cute.  

These blossoms were in bloom and were really pretty - although they were falling to the ground at a pretty alarming rate due to the wind.

After this, we met up with the family for more, well family times. I am a strong believer of being able to find at least something interesting in even the smallest town and that there are no boring times, only boring people. So if you do get caught in a small town and think there is nothing to do, take a look, there will be SOMETHING of interest -there always is xoxox

Waikanae Weekend

So motivation for blogging is still fairly minimal - I'm hoping at some time it will return. I know I have like a million posts to read, at some point I will catch up (who knows when!).

Anyway onto today's post, a few weeks back Rich and I thought that it was a good idea to get out of the city and have a relaxed mini break. As you my have guessed - I'm not so good at relaxing, or taking actual breaks. So I always knew it was going to be a bit of a challenge.

We decided to book a "cabin in the woods" which was more of a cottage on the edge of a reserve up the coast in Waikanae.

There were some interesting bits and pieces around the house and in the garden. This clown was slightly creepy though, although I don't like clowns - give me a zombie any day.

 We arrived on Friday night on after work and had a quiet dinner out - on Saturday morning we decided to take in some nature and walked along the Waikanae River.

Until we finally reached Waikanae Beach - the island is Kapiti Island (just so you know not everything around here is called Waikanae).

We had a spot of lunch at a cafe at Waikanae Beach and then found a cute retro shop - it was an amazing store, can you believe I didn't buy any fabric or patterns? I was pretty amazed at my restraint!

We were a bit tired from our walk, so decided to head back to Waikanae on the local bus - which was small, cute and so cheap!

Our last stop of the day was to visit the Kapiti Museum - the museum is run by the local community and is pretty cute. It's full of "the way people used to live" type displays. I liked the sewing and clothing displays (obviously).

After our visit to the museum, the skies turned black, there was a storm expected, so we thought it was a good idea to turn back to our cottage.

However, we did manage to have one final walk before returning to the city after our weekend away.

Bye bye Waikanae - I miss the beach and the bird calls and the sunshine!