Happenings

HAPPENINGS AT BREAKERS AND COMMUNITY EFFORTS

CHECK OUT OUR BLOG ON OUR LATEST ADVENTURES AROUND THE WEST COAST AND NEW ZEALAND

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Our blog has our New Zealand adventures but we also went to San Francisco this July with our mountain bikes.  We have wonderful friends who live in San Francisco and in Tahoe so it was lovely to catch up with them.  There is some great riding in San Francisco and Marin and great riding in Tahoe also.  Making our holiday exceptionally special was the fact that we got married while we were there.  July 15, on Bakers Beach in the sand, with the Golden Gate bridge in the background.  There were 8 of us - Stephen, Jan, Nicole, Phil, their children Felix and Simon and Barb and Ryan.  It was a lovely afternoon and the wonderful Nicole got here licence so she could marry us.  We then went to a lovely little restaurant Nopa for some good food and good company and lots of laughs.  All in all a great day/evening.


SUMMER END 2011

IF YOU FOLLOW THIS PAGE WE APOLOGISE FOR NOT UPDATING IT LATELY.  WE HAVE HAD A BUSY SUMMER SEASON AND MET SOME SUPER LOVELY PEOPLE.  CURRENTLY WE ARE WORKING ON A TOTAL REVAMP OF OUR WEBSITE AND A BLOG TO KEEP YOU ALL IN TOUCH WITH WHAT WE ARE DOING - EXPANDING MORE ON THE EXPLORING WE DO ON THE COAST AND THE SOUTH ISLAND AND SHARING OUR EXPERIENCES WITH YOU ALL.  HOPEFULLY YOU WILL FIND IT INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE AND IT MAY HELP MAKE YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE ON THE WEST COAST AND THE SOUTH ISLAND IN GENERAL A LITTLE MORE REWARDING SO PLEASE BEAR WITH US DURING THIS TRANSITION.

IN THE INTERIM WE ARE HAPPY TO REPORT AT THE END OF THIS MONTH WE WILL BE MAKING OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE LOCAL SPCA AND THE WEST COAST LITTLE BLUE PENGUIN TRUST IN REGARDS TO OUR DONATION OF 50CENTS FROM EVERY ROOM BOOKING TO EACH ORGANISATION.  THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS STAYED WITH US DURING THE 2010/11 SUMMER SEASON AND HELPED CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS THESE GREAT CAUSES.

CHEERS JAN AND STEPHEN
BREAKERS

WINTER 2010

This winter has been relatively quiet for visitors to the West Coast.  A shame really as we have been having a fantastic spell of weather - 7 weeks of sunshine!  The rain has come back, needed though to refill the water tanks.  Some more sunshine was forecast again for August and it has been pretty good really.

Around the Property

We have finally finished redecorating all our guest rooms now. We have chosen neutral colours to keep the rooms light and bright and in keeping with our natural surroundings and not to detract from the gorgeous sea views from the rooms.

Most of the outside of the house is now repainted - again neutral earthy colours, complimentary to the natural scenery.  This has been a much longer process than anticipated with many hard to reach areas.  We hope to re-clad much of the house next winter season so we haven't repainted the back of the house, as the colour may change again!

As always there is plenty to do in the gardens and we have now started on our long awaited vegetable patch.  We have been clearing and cutting some scrub and are almost ready to start making planter boxes - very exciting times!

At long last we have redecorated the guest lounge and dining area.  This turned out to be a huge job as we always knew it would be.  All walls had to be re-papered first before painting.  We are very happy with the final result - feel like we have moved house - all very exciting.  As per the guest rooms, we have stayed with earthy neutral tones - in keeping with our natural beachfront environment.

We've also purchased a hot tub.  This has been a long time in the coming and it was very exciting the day it arrived.  We have yet to find the right home for it.  It is a true portable hot tub, but is more likely to be left in one spot.  It is eco-friendly, filled fresh each sitting with pure West Coast rain water and no need for chemicals.  It is heated with either driftwood or gas.  As it is filled fresh each day and heated naturally, there will be a charge for use of the hot tub and pre-booking will be essential.  More details to come.....

Trips Away

With the quieter winter months it means it is more easy for us to take some well earned time away and do some exploring ourselves.

In April we packed up the car, our bikes and the dogs and headed south to Central Otago and the little forest village of Naseby.  Fantastic mountain biking area and we competed in the Naseby 12 hour day/nighter race.  It was great fun had by all.  We then another another couple of days of riding our bikes in the forest and generally having a good time before packing up again and heading further south - first to Dunedin and then down to Invercargill to visit with the family.

Beginning of June we packed up again and headed to Northern Buller region, top of the south island and Karamea - beginning of the West Coast road.  The weather was fantastic as it usually is on the West Coast in winter and we did some fun exploring - both hiking and biking.

End of June and we headed north, this time to Motueka and Nelson.  The drive through the Buller gorge was wonderful.  This time the weather wasn't so kind to us and it rained every day except for our last day.  We were hoping to participate in a mountain bike race at Rabbit Island between Motueka and Nelson that we first enjoyed last winter but the rain kept us away.  We made up for it on our final day with some fun mountain biking at the newly created Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike park before heading back for home and back to the gorgeous weather.

Near the end of June we packed up again with the dogs and headed north to Mohikinui at the base of the Karamea Bluff in Northern Buller region.  Again the weather was fantastic.  We stayed at a little bach at Gentle Annie right near the beach.  Our friends from Franz Josef glacier met us there and we have three days of fun-filled exploring and adventure with hiking and mountain biking.  The evenings were a little cool but nothing that the heater and a warm jumper couldn't help with.

End of July and this time with the car and the dogs all packed off, we headed across Lewis Pass to Hanmer Springs for a long weekend.  Hanmer Springs had had quite a bit of rain while we were basking in the sunshine on the West Coast thus meaning quite wet trails for mountain biking.  Thankfully when we were there it was cold, frosty mornings turning into nice sunshine filled days.  The dogs thoroughly enjoyed their break away with plenty of running in the forest beside the mountain bikes.  Needless to say, we all slept well at night.  The drive back to Greymouth across Lewis Pass was spectacular.  It rained the day we left Hanmer, but this made the drive all the more stunning, with the raging creeks and roaring waterfalls and the rain forest seemed like it was alive.

We didn't get away from the Grey District over August but instead spend time exploring our own area as there is so much to see around here and winter on the West Coast is at it's best with clear sunny skies and warming up nicely during the day.  The sunsets have been mind-blowingly beautiful, especially when there are some cloud formations around!

We got out on our mountain bikes and headed for the hills doing some great back country exploration and revisiting some of our old mountain bike haunts.  Ziggy and Nico came along as much as possible and they  loved getting out in the forest.

Mid September was time to load up the van, the dogs and our mountain bikes and we headed off on a road trip down to Naseby in Central Otago.  We had a week of fun in the forest with mountain biking and hiking.  We had all weather - sun, rain and even snow.  The snow didn't settle on the trails as it usually warmed up nicely during the day.  The "boys" loved running in the forest.  We spent a day at Bannockburn checking out an historic gold slucing area and of course some wineries.  Another fun day was spent at St Bathans - an historic town from the gold mining era.  It had snowed overnight so there was plenty of snow on the ground and Nico and Ziggy ran themselves ragged in the snow.  Eventually it was time to head for home again.  First up was a stop over in Franz Josef to visit with our friends and check out a possible new site for a mountain bike race.  Nico and Ziggy pretty much slept the whole way home - I think we had finally managed to exhaust them.

The rest of September was pretty quiet for us with outdoor activities - spring on the West Coast, whitebait season and the rainy season.  October soon rolled around though and with it some glorious warm, sunny weather.  Was great to get back out into the gardens.  We also had two trips away - one to Christchurch for a 12hour mountain bike event and the other to Timaru for a 6hour mountain bike event.  Both events were loads of fun.

Community Efforts

February 2009 saw the Super Maori Fullas and their ride against Family Violence. A dedicated group of four brothers travelled around New Zealand on their Hayley Davidsons raising awareness of Family Violence and "its not ok" campaign.  We helped support this event with providing free accommodation for the team during their visit to Greymouth.  The brothers' aim was to attract New Zealanders from all corners of the country and all walks of life to the Super Maori Fulla way of life.  This was a hugely success campaign and if you would like to learn more visit http://www.areyouok.org.nz

June/July is breeding season for the Little Blue Penguins and Jan will be cleaning the traps ready to trap and help protect the penguins during the breeding season.   The stoat traps also catch rats and as such we noticed an increase in native bird life.  Currently we hear the calls of the Weka and the Kiwi at night and we have also heard the Penguins calling early in the morning.  For more information regarding the West Coast Blue Penguin Trust visit http://www.bluepenguin.org.nz/  As part of our commitment to the environment and to the West Coast Blue Penguins, we will be donating 50 cents from every room booking to the Trust from 1 October 2010 onwards.  At the moment we have a donation box where our guests are welcome to leave a donation.  We attended the latest AGM of the West Coast Blue Penguin Trust and were proud to be able to give $149 from the donation box.  Thanks to all our guests who made a donation.

A Day at the Beach was an environmental initiative held during the month of September in 2009 by a passionate group of young West Coasters who travelled the beach from Karamea to Franz Josef to highlight the environmental impact we have on our beaches and to participate in native tree planting and general beach cleanup.  Breakers sponsored this event with an accommodation prize during the festival, had reduced rates available for anyone participating in the event during September and hosted Ruud Kleinpaste the "bug man" who came and gave a talk on the night the group travelled through this area. 
Jan and Stephen were also down on the beach cleaning up rubbish on the Sunday the group passed through. For more information visit http://www.adayatthebeach.org.nz/

A Day at the Beach is currently in the process of organisation for the 2010 cleanup and we hope to be actively involved again this year in helping keep our beaches beautiful.

Most Exciting News

Our most exciting news for the new season  and I guess this should be at the top of the page, is our engagement.  A wonderful Xmas day surprise for Jan - very unexpected.  No dates set yet - we are currently still just enjoying the moment. mmmm, almost a year later and we are still enjoying the moment.  Hoping to "tie the knot" next year in our off-season.