NJ in NZ: September 2013

My "kids" were bugging me to go up the mount, so here are some pictures of them enjoying the hike.

Hide 'n seek time.

LB (Little Bear) deciding which way to take to the top.

A view of the mountain from down on the walkway by the main beach.

It was a sunny day. Two people on a log on the beach. Yes, that bump on the log is 2 people sitting together.

A couple of pictures from walking around the mountain.

Some boats near the beach.

There are fences around the mountain to keep the sheep in pastures. This next picture shows a smart idea for getting over the fences. Looks much easier than having to crawl under or through the fence.

And finally, a freighter going around the mountain out to sea, full of logs.

You get an idea of how big those freighters are by comparing them to the speed boats in this next shot. Yes, those freighters are huge!

That's it for now. Cruise ship season is around the corner so more of those pictures to come.

I took these pictures back in April. My apologies for the posting delay.

There seems to be much more freedom or leniency in building codes in New Zealand. Check out these house pictures I took in my neighborhood. These are all in the same suburb.

Lots of homes have garages, but just as many do not. Of those with attached garages, a good number have converted the garage into another room of the house, perhaps a bedroom, a sunroom, or an exercise room. Since the weather here is nice year-round, a garage is not really needed.

This house looks like it has a converted garage.

This house either doesn't have a garage or it is now behind the wall and part of their home. Good thing they live on a corner which gives them more grass to park on (very common here).

Around the corner, the house looks like this, and it is just down the street from the main drag. The main drag is about 1 block down this road. On the very left of this picture is the edge of the house in the above picture.

A good number of places have actual driveways but a lot of places do not so they just drive on the grass as you can see here:

Next is the campground at the base of Mount Maunganui (the mountain I hike quite a bit).

Around the corner and just down the street along the beach things get more upscale.

Below is another small house downtown. Yes, of course they have satellite TV here.

This place looks like at least one garage space became a room added to the house.

A single family home down the street:

Next to something larger and more unique...

This older home is pretty much smack-dab in the middle of downtown with a relatively decent yard size. It is for sale and I think the sale price is close to a million. Surprising but on an island, space is precious.