Vistitors from Oz

Here is yet another long overdue post! (What else is new....)

Going all the way back to December, we had our very first visitors to come and stay with us! (Michelle doesn't count because technically she isn't visiting...she's living here). Paul and Lisa and their little guy Lachlan came over to visit us from Australia for a few days. They were spending a few weeks in New Zealand for their wedding anniversary and stayed with us while having a look at Wellington! Paul is Ann's (my friend from Munich) brother. We've met the whole McMaster gang a few times on our trips to Brisbane and it was so fun having them around!

Here is Lachlan (he just turned 1 in January). He had to especially pack his cute little sweater for our "Wellington summer"...he probably doesn't wear it much in OZ...

We went out to the Karori bird sanctuary on the first day. Manuel and I had never been and it has just undergone a sort of facelift and with the addition of a cool new visitor center (which is still being built)...and who could resist a place called "Zealandia".

This guy was cool to watch. He would step on this lever to open his little food compartment, then fly to a nearby branch to eat...then fly back and do it again. over and over.

Lachlan having a ride on mummy Lisa's shoulders. Seriously, Cutest. Kid. Ever.

Our little nature walk was like being in Land Before Time :)

After our Zealandia adventure, we drove up to the top of the Botanical Gardens to take the Cable Car down to the city to find some Fush & Chups :)

Here's the McMaster clan with a view of what Wellington looks like on a nice day...

We made a quick stop at Farmer's to visit Michelle at work, and brag about how we were going to lunch... :)
The Cuba St. giant umbrella


The City Gallery decked out in dots for some crazy dot exhibition. If Tara owned a City Gallery, it would probably look like this.
Oh, I forgot to mention that there was a UNICYCLE convention going on in Wellington that week. Unicyclists from all over the world were in town for some really cool events including: unicycle basketball, unicycle mountain biking, and various races and freestyle events. The city was seriously filled with unicyclists.

Here are a few boys riding down the stairs on their wheels :) crazy I tell you.

It really didn't take long for Lachlan and Manuel to become best friends on the trip! They were so cute together! Manuel would just carry him around and show him different things. This fountain was a big hit, in particular :)
He was also a very big fan of Manuel's ice cream coffee :)

We stopped and played at the playground next to Queen's Wharf for a bit, which was thoughtfully covered in soft rubber tiles and not sand and dirt.

Lachey is getting very close to walking!

Back to the unicycles a moment, because this picture is really necessary!

We took a little walk to the top of Mt. Albert Park (at least I think that is the name of this place..) for a 360 view of Welly. Miramar and the airport are just in the distance here in this photo.
Near the dump in Happy Valley, there is some really cool rusty junk sculptures, including this spider car. There is also a little Mini Golf course there which we will have to pay a visit to...





Sunset view from our deck
We went to The Cheeky Pippi for brunch, just down at the bottom of the hill from us in Island Bay. They have grapevines growing in the sun room eating area and Lachlan was very interested in touching them :)
Though the weather wasn't so nice in Wellington, it wasn't too bad out in Martinborough. We took a little road trip out to visit a few vineyards and tasted wine. We also went to an Olive grove and tasted Olive oil! Apparently there is a real art to tasting olive oil, including making silly faces and embarrassing slurping noises. Our host there was great though and Manuel and I left with olive oil infused with Fennel. It's actually really yummy, even just on bread!
I'm not going to lie, part of the reason I loved the olive oil so much was because of the cool labels and branding.

Lachlan wasn't so interested in tasting olive oil he was handed around to be entertained out in the garden (which was HUGE).

This is what an artichoke looks like when it flowers. Really pretty!

The olive trees and tasting house Lavender