Life in Te Puke

Te Puke is a peaceful with low population small town. It only becomes lively when reaches kiwi fruit season.  During kiwi fruit season, the town will be full of people such as working holiday permit holders, working permit holders, students and residents from the neighbourhoods to work as kiwi packers, kiwi graders and kiwi picker jobs. Kiwi fruit season is last for 3-4 months (Mar-June each year), the best choice for accommodation is to search for home-stay at that period.  You can find room-for-rent notes at the supermarkets’ notice board such as New World and Countdown, or asking the people around the town, backpacker house or lodge. Everyone in the town is kind enough to give you a hand on searching for a suitable accommodation.  The average rental price at the town is NZD100 per week per head included room with bed and blanket, water and electricity usage and internet access. 

We were so luckily that we met a super lovely home-stay family, Ivan & Robyn with their children, cutie grandchildren, and grandparents during our time there. They have a smart and big black dog named Boofie staying together with them, too. Ivan and Robyn treated us as part of their family and we are free to do whatever we wanted, as well as swimming (we didn’t swim because we can’t stand the cold weather). We enjoyed the dessert (ice-cream) from Ivan, bacon and egg pie baked by Robyn, and crazy moment when playing WII together with them. Beside, Robyn taught us the best way to cook steaks as different meats have different methods to cook in order to have the best taste, this is the best tips ever we have! Ivan always share the family photos and told us many stories about them, it was gorgeous! When the children and grandchildren came to visit them during weekends, they welcome us to join their family day; it was the warmest moment we had in our working holiday period. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Ivan and Robyn for your hospitality and we enjoyed every moment staying with you and your family, the house is really nice and warm. We will never forget you all, and the yummy farewell dinner prepared by Robyn and Ivan. ^^

Sharing with you our happiest moment in Te Puke, enjoy ^^

  Have a walk nearby the house

 I like the weather, windy and warm

This is the house of our home-stay family, and that was our car :P

 1.Living room, 2.Kitchen with cute Liam,

3.Our room, 4. With kiwi fruits and swimming pool

 Robyn and Ivan, our home-stay owner, miss you^^

 

Start our day by reading newspaper. 

Yeah, you can get Chinese newspaper at NZ (We got it when we were at Auckland)

Celebrating the grandchildren, Madison's bday. There are so cute:) 

 

1.Kiwi fruits we got from our pack house, it's free^^, 2. Misshaped Kiwi fruits >.<

3.Kiwi fruits again, 4. Gold and green kiwi fruits ready to be served! 

 Picking Mandarin Oranges at friend's house *fresh*

1. Avocado tree at friend's house, 2. Thanks Fiona and Max for the Avocado *Yummy & Fresh*

3.Picking Feijoe at roadside, 4. Feijoe taste like guava but its softer *nice*

Yummy dinner cooked by ourselves: 1. Fish and Chips,2. Steaks

We have tried many yummy snacks at NZ, all of them were nice especially Bluebird potato chips, Vanilla and Hazelnut Yogurt, L&P soft drink, Nut Bar and Cookie Time's cookie. We are totally addicted to them, you must try them when you are in NZ!

1. Bluebird Grain Waves 18 Snack Packs and Kiwi As

2.Vanilla and Hazelnut yogurt

3. Bluebird (Thick Cut, Honey Baked Bacon, Original Cut)

4. Our snacks! You must try L&P soft drink which taste like lemon juice, Nut Bar, Cookie Time, Cadbury, MORO and Picnic chocolate.

5. Hot Cross Bun for Easter day, thanks Robyn :)

6. Hokey Pokey ice cream, famous in NZ, thanks Ivan :)

7. Kiwi fruits ice cream, thanks Tim and Siew Yee

8. Boysenberry ice cream, thanks Ivan again :P

Our NZ trip mates :)

Our housemates

Can you tell me there are how many Micky in total? :P

Baking Egg tart with Max and Amy

Farewell lunch and birthday celebration with friends we met at NZ. Nice to meet you all and thanks for the yummy food^^

Farewell dinner prepared by Robyn and Ivan. The food is very delicious, thanks^^

Gifts from Robyn, very appreciate it, thanks

Living in this small town was really a great experience for us. We will miss Te Puke, Robyn & Ivan family, friends we met there, and Trevelyan pack house forever.