Snow on the North Island

Ruapehu takes its name from the active volcano Mount Ruapehu (rua meaning 'pit' and pehu 'to explode') and is the highest mountain in the North Island - Ruapehu is New Zealand's most famous volcano and it is considered to be sacred by the local Maori. The only glacier in the North Island is found here and the volcano's crater lake is one of only three in the world which is surrounded by snow and ice. The volcano is actually still active and the tourist guide books assure us that there are very sophisticated risk management procedures and early warning systems in place - it looked fairly safe last weekend so we took a closer look!

We were returning to Hamilton from Wanganui which is on the West coast of New Zealand and decided to take a slight detour so that we could see this spectacular 'mountain'. The Bayview Chateau which you can see in the pictures, is a four star establishment and we would imagine would run to a few hundred dollars per person per night - a bit beyond our means at the

moment!

Candyland Sweetmaking Demonstration

Once you are armed with your ticket, this little tin soldier slides into the woodwork allowing you to enter the factory. Tiered seating arranged to one side of the factory floor lets you see the lassie with her microphone and protective gloves who talks about the goodies on the table beside her. The big blue bag on the table is Cadbury's chocolate, acquired in these big 24kg blocks - evidently much cheaper to 'import' from the experts than to make from scratch. There are 12 blocks in each pack and they have the Cadbury logo on them just like the little slabs which we can buy in the shops - only a whole lot bigger! This is melted down and used to coat nuts, raisins, kiwi fruit - whatever takes your fancy really.

The table that this guy is working on is heated so that the goo stays gooey while he adds colour and flavour - on this day, the flavour he was adding was passionfruit and he divided this lot into yellow, orange and red.

Plenty of mixing and faffing about while the lassie with the microphone talked about the biggest lollipop in the world and the Guiness Book of Records and so on. From the hot table, the lollipop goo gets placed on the stretchers - first outside the cage and then inside on the white machine with 'arms' that you can see there (the picture of the stretching process on the machine didn't come out very well so doesn't appear here!)

This table is also heated, otherwise it all cools too quickly and becomes brittle. The stretching continues once the coloured stripes have been added until you end up with a long sausage shape. Once the whole caboodle is thin enough, some of the mile long candy is fashioned into good old fashioned candy canes - some straight and some with their Little Bo Peep hooks on the end - and the rest is handed to the enthusiastic audience to make their own lollipops with. Because you have to work so quickly, most of the kiddies need a bit of assistance from the big people, but for the most part, everyone ended up with passable lollipops.

This is a model of the huge lollipop which was part of the Guiness Book of Records story - it was made and donated to the Auckland Childrens' Hospital, where it stood outside the main entrance for a couple of months until it was decided (for health and safety reasons) to remove it, since it was not only becoming covered in all sorts of undesirable beasties and bugs, but also had loads of little teeth marks at about pre-schooler and toddler height!

It was great fun being a kid again for an hour or so and once that was over, we reverted to being big people again and worked on consuming the Baileys Fudge within the required three weeks! Dis al!

The Candyland Shop

The wall outside the Candyland factory is clearly painted to attract little people! Once inside, there is a lovely display - all fairytale style and gingerbread house look with the caption "The sweetest place on earth" - we won't argue.

There is definitely some allowance made for those of us who are taller than 1 metre - the Baileys fudge pictured here is clearly not designed for the kids and on sampling it, we decided that in spite of the price, we should try our utmost to try to 'consume within three weeks of purchase' - it wasn't easy I tell you!

We are quite convinced that there is scientific proof that chocolate is in fact very good for you - we have all heard about the positive effects a decent chocolate can have on the most gloomy of moods!

We browsed around the shop at Candyland while we waited for the tour to begin - apparently, this factory is one of the only working examples of the old fashioned sweet making factories left anywhere - this particular site was a cheese factory until some time in the seventies. When there was talk of demolishing the place, the present owner bought it all up and refurbished it with sweet making machinery - apparently that took two years to acquire all the right stuff - and Candyland has been going strong ever since.

Watch this space! - (give us a chance mate!)

Nou ja - nou is die kat uit die sak - net toe ek dink almal wag met groot afwagting vir die volgende 'blog post' en nie 'n idee sal he waaroor dit sal gaan nie - daar weet julle nou almal, die volgende 'briefie' oor die lekkergoed fabriek moet gaan!
Ons het verskriklik baie fotos daar geneem en omdat dit alles so interessant was en omdat ons so SKULDIG oor al die swieties voel, sal ek dit alleen op die blog sit!
Ons voel nie oor swieties skuldig nie - net die wat gekoep en gevreet is!
Soos die titel aandui - watch this space!
Dis al!

Not the whole truth

Ek sien niks word gese oor die besoek aan die lekkergoedfabriek, Candyland, net voor die Woodlands besoek nie, en ook nie oor die $20 (R100)se lekkergoed wat jy (oops!) gekoop het nie. (sorrie dit was nie jy nie but I was forced by the voices in my head) Mmmmmm.

Was /is baie lekker!!

Woodlands Estate - just outside Hamilton

Saturday began with promises of cold, wet and gloomy weather and so we decided to take a little trip out of Hamilton and visit the Woodlands Estate just outside the city. The gardens surrounding the old homestead are truly spectacular and for the most part, are donning the Autumn shades which are so prevalent in New Zealand at the moment. We wandered around the gardens of the estate and took a couple of photographs to give you an idea of how pretty it is there.

This old bench stands sedately beside the lake and although it really looks as though it must be on it's last legs and will surely crumble into a heap of woodchips very soon, Jo tried it (a little gingerly, I admit) and assures me that it is surprisingly sturdy and strong in spite of it's appearance! Some of the trees in the gardens are clearly extremely old and some of them sport plaques giving their botanical names and so on - the titles of these plaques is something to the effect of 'outstanding tree' - and we found many of these dotted around the gardens.

The lake at the estate has it's quota of ducks - they were all paddling about in blissful ignorance of the fact that the duck shooting season had opened in New Zealand - just a day before we were there! although we would assume that these guys are pretty safe from big and little boys skulking around armed with 'duck whistles', retriever dogs and guns! The gardens have meandering paths which twist and turn and on rounding one corner, we came across this clipped piece of garden art. It's clearly not a maze but perhaps it's a remnant of days gone by when this estate was in it's heyday.

Evidently, there are two full time gardeners who work here at Woodlands Estate and there is one 'paid part- timer' and a whole team of volunteers who spend hours in the gardens creating the serene and well maintained acres - there are literally hundreds of high maintenance sections - plenty of roses and huge areas of trimmed lawns surrounded by manicured hedges - some of which are at least three metres high. The flowers on the right above, are surely some sort of lily reminicsent of the inca or tiger lilies which I know - they are a bit past their prime, but still pretty spectacular.

Hopefully, if you click on the picture above left, you can read about the history of the estate.

We took this picture below left for all of us who have Scottish connections - don't these little guys look amazing all kitted out in their kilts, sporrans and velvet jackets! Below right is the main house, which was being prepared to host a Bridal Show - there were ladies buzzing about inside setting up videos, tables of tempting delights to consider when planning a wedding and of course masses of amazing floral arrangements in every room. We were particularly struck by how large and spacious the 'entertaining areas' of the house are in direct contrast to the upstairs which houses two bedrooms and a nursery - pokey and cramped in spite of being so attractively decorated.

In the drawing room, there is a little old organ - the pump variety and when I was offered the chance of giving it a whirl, didn't have to be invited twice. For the size of the instrument, it produces a surprisingly rich and big sound!

There is a cricket oval in the grounds of the estate and the victorian clubhouse sports a cafe/restaurant which we visited for a bite to eat and something warm to drink. The restaurant has a baby grand piano as part of the interesting decor and it was of course not enough to just check out the make of the piano - the owner of the restaurant chatted away to us about pianos in general and this one in particular until we both had a go on it. The artwork displayed on the piano is certainly varied - who would have imagined that you could place three noses beside a hinged horse and a little gollywog boy?

The restaurant is not the sort of place that one would visit on a regular basis - very avante garde and expensive, but has a lovely atmosphere, a talkative friendly owner and good cuisine!

Dis al!

For the Forrest family!

Here and there we see things that seem so incredibly familiar - like for example the name of this street just outside Cambridge. This photograph was specially commissioned after we had stopped beside the sign on Saturday, all set to take the snap, when the camera decided that there was no way that a single photograph was going to be added to the eighty something that we had already taken that day. Needless to say, I was very disappointed, since I have been aiming to get this onto film for this blog for quite a while now! Every time we have been in the area, we have either registered too late that the street is still there (!) or alternatively, we have not had the trusty camera with us. On that occasion, having the batteries die on us was very frustrating and once again we came home without the picture. Yesterday, Jo was in the area in the course of his work travels and stopped specially - armed with the work camera and took the photo - a matter of self defence I think, since he must be so tired of me whining on and on about how much I want to post this on our blog. Thanks Jo!