Author: jcmcdiarmid@gmail.com

Yesterday, we departed from Westport and began our month long journey back to Cambridge (we return August 15).  It was quite an extraordinary year for us and a special place that we got to call home for almost a year. As part of our farewell process we wrote a short piece for the local paper…… Continue reading A Bittersweet Farewell to Westport

You may recall our November post about how some (or all) of us would have to hit the garage door button and “make a run for it” to get outside before the door closed to the ground.  Since then, we were given a garage door opener for the car, so this practice fell by the…… Continue reading Reprise: Making a Run for It

It all started on an evening when we looked like this: We attended the annual Mid-Winter Gala at the Solid Energy Center (the local fitness center) which held an auction to raise funds for the NZ Leukemia Society.  One of the items up for auction was a packaged trip to spend two nights mountain biking…… Continue reading The Old Ghost Road

Riding home after just another day at Kindy:

Over Queen’s Birthday Weekend, we embarked on our first family overnight camping trip.  Teaming up with the Irvings and Blankensteins–two great families we’ve befriended during our time here–we made the trip to Abel Tasman National Park at the northern tip of the South Island. Our marauding band of 13 people took the park by storm,…… Continue reading Abel Tasman Overnight

Following her big sister’s lead, Rose decided she wanted to get in on the country music action (with a little help from Hazel).  

Last weekend, crooners young and old from across the South Island converged on Westport for the 29th annual “Best of the West” country music competition. While entrants competed for prizes and scholarships, it was mostly about seeing a slate of talented amateurs belt out their favorite tunes.  Hazel signed up to compete in 2 categories: Junior…… Continue reading A Country Star Revisited

Just south of Westport, the small town of Charleston hosts a series of caves and former mining tunnels that have interested us since our arrival.  We’ve explored a bunch of these spaces on our own with varied results–some spectacular and some just spectacularly wet and muddy.  With Jeremy’s parents in town, we decided to take…… Continue reading Grammie, Pop-Pop and the Metro Cave

We were so lucky to have a great visit with Memom and Stuart (back in February!) We met them at the Auckland airport where we picked up our Hertz people mover and headed over to the Coromandel peninsula. We started off with a train ride up to the Eye Full Tower, where a local potter…… Continue reading Memom and Stuart’s Visit