Author Archives: Chadharrison

“School’s Out for Summer!” – as always I broke up for the holidays with this song bouncing around my head and a nice end to term with various staff meals out, the usual end of term sing alongs and Christmas quizzes. My proudest moment (!) was beating the Year 9s at a “Disney Princess” Kahoot!Continue reading “Road Trips, Rain and Relaxation…”

In classic New Zealand fashion we seem to have moved straight from Winter to Summer with hardly any Spring rainy weather to show for it, and we’re now firmly back into the seemingly endless 20 degree sunny days. After a tiring first week back at school after the October break Em had to work theContinue reading “Life’s a beach…”

Counting down the endless days till the next holiday was helped by more sunshine and fresh snow to play in at Porters Pass which is rapidly becoming our favourite NZ ski resort, not only because it’s the closest to home at about an hour and a quarters drive, but also because the kids have gotContinue reading “Springtime in South Island….”

Well we left you last half way through the winter school holiday psyching up for a few days of daddy daycare, a clever way to play it is to ask the kids what they want to do and pick the best option! Ethan suggested crazy golf, Iona her usual play-park choice and Sara biking soContinue reading “#NZHellhole…”

Our first proper rainy weekend in Christchurch meant the usual Harrison wet weather double of biking and bouldering and this gave us a good chance to check out Uprising, Christchurch’s excellent bouldering wall. Not surprisingly the mini team raced up and down the wall at breakneck speed – had to pretend little Iona was 5Continue reading “Walking in a Winter (& Wet) Wonderland…”

After a month of lockdown we reached Easter and we were starting to run out of local ideas for adventures, only so many walks and biking trips you can go on before fatigue starts to set in. Saying that the usual haunts of Sumner Beach, Taylors Mistake, Mount Pleasant and Godley Head never disappoint andContinue reading “Winter is coming….”

After plenty of busy weekends with Em’s parents visiting and some very overtired children it was nice to finally reach a weekend where we had no plans and could relax and get back into normal habits. The forecast looked too nice not to go away though so we headed two hours north to Kaikoura andContinue reading “Learning to Love a Lockdown Lifestyle…”

Have reached the half way point in Term 1 so time for a quick update on the New Zealand lifestyle. Feeling much more settled now with a (fairly) fully furnished house, kids enjoying school and daddy continuing to enjoy his busy job at Villa Maria. Staff are very sociable and try and get you toContinue reading “School Daze…”

The Harrisons have been in Christchurch for a couple of weeks now and it’s been a tough few weeks all in all, while travelling of course we started to long for a home again but the reality is being on holiday is definitely preferable! It also seemed we had a choice of places to chooseContinue reading “Back to the grindstone…”

Thanks to all the great weather in Fiordland we had a couple more days to play with than we’d thought so an extra loop south was planned taking the long route back to Christchurch for the end of the road trip. First stop was Te Anau for a promised play park session and a lookContinue reading “Scenic Southland – Waves and Wildlife…”