arawata

Hi folks! Welcome to our website.

This page is just a jumping off spot to our photo gallery, which we have moved to Flickr. Still work in progress (and probably always will be!) so check back regularly – especially after one of our holidays, so we can bore you silly with snapshots of us enjoying ourselves in some exotic location.

So what’s all this with “arawata”? Well, arawata is the Maori word (in the Ngai Tahu dialect) for a bridge, ladder or stairs. It’s the name of a river (also spelled Arawhata) in the Mt Aspiring National Park in New Zealand, and gave it’s name to “Arawata Bill” – also known as William O’Leary – a well-known bushman of the region. Many years later, he in turn gave his name to a motel in Queenstown (Arawata Motel that is, not O’Leary Motel) which my parents leased. That’s where I lived as a wee lad growing up in Queenstown. I nabbed the name for a website ‘cos it’s interesting, unique, easy to spell and above all…Kiwi:)

In case you can’t find it anywhere else, here’s a link to the video everyone’s talking about…