Chestnut Picking Season In New Zealand!

The day is getting shorter, and temperatures are starting to drop in Auckland.

That means... Autumn is here!

Autumn means all sorts of yummy autumn harvests will become available... including chestnuts!

So we have been looking around for chestnuts, and found some places we can go to pick fresh chestnuts.

When is the Chestnut Picking Season in New Zealand?

Chestnut picking season in New Zealand is autumn, around mid-March to mid-April.

It may change depending on the weather for the particular year, but usually mid- to late-March is a good season for them in North island.

And... chestnut picking season is actually quite short compared with other fruit like citrus, only lasting about a month, or sometimes only a few weeks.

So if you want to pick your own chestnut, you got to be keeping close eyes on these chestnuts trees once the end of summer approaches... otherwise, they might all fall and be gone before you even notice them!!

If you want to go pick your own chestnut at established chestnut farms, starting collecting information once March begins!

Where to Pick Fresh Chestnut: Local Parks?

So where are chestnuts trees.... ?

Some people have chestnut trees in their garden. You can also find some chestnuts trees in public parks and reserves.

We found some chestnut trees in our local, west Auckland park: Tui Glen Reserve！

Tui Glen Reserve is an awesome park for children with a lot of outdoor play toys.

But this park also has a few chestnut trees, and they were starting to drop chesnuts around February.

This is a bit early than typical chestnut.... may be due to warm Auckland weather?

Some of chestnuts are really small, but some are edible size.

You cannot find that many, but if you are lucky enough to find some on the ground, they are sweet and yum!

Some small chestnuts found at the Tui Glen Reserve

You can always checkout the foraging map available online (see walnut article http://en.japakiwidaisy.com/2018/02/fresh-walnuts-picking-season-in-new.html).

There may be some known chestnut trees in nearby parks and public domains.

Chesnut Picking in New Zealand: Farms?

If if you want to pick your fresh chestnuts, in a large quantity enough to enjoy them... the best place to go is your pick-your-own chestnut farms!

There are a few places around, where owners have opened up their chestnut-farm for people to pick chestnuts and purchase them.

There isn’t a chestnut forest in the middle of Auckland... but comes close! Some places are only about one-hour drive from Auckland.

Here is a few places I found on the internet...

In Clevedon：Chestnut Charlies

http://www.nzchestnuts.co.nz/

Address：291 Monument Rd, Clevedon, Auckland 2582

Phone: 021-182-3030

Between Auckland & Hamilton, near Rangiriri：Chestnut Ridge Farmstay

http://www.chestnutridge-nz.com/index.html

Address：40 Moorfield Rd, Te Kauwhata 3782

Phone：027 250 0941

Could not confirm this place is still operating, but there’s one in Waiaupa: Chestnut Farm

169 Percy Millen Dr, Waiau Pa 2679

There may be other places not listed on the internet.

Many places sell chestnut you pick, at a good whole sale price (some times as cheap as 2~4 dollar per kilo!) .

Most places also ask you to bring your own bags for chestnuts.

Chestnut shells are very spikey so you might choose to bring gloves and good shoes, and even a tong to pick chestnuts with.

When you are making a plan for chestnut-picking, make sure to contact chestnut-farm first, to ask them about their open days (when chestnuts are ready), cost, and what to bring.

Once you know where and when to go chestnut picking, keep a good manner at the chestnut-farm, and happy picking!

Chestnuts in shells – spikey!!

You will be so happy after picking big chestnuts... yum!

Buying Chestnuts

If you do not care about picking up your own chestnuts, you can always purchase them.

Some Asian fruit & vegetable shops tend to sell them around chestnut season.

They are sold at much higher price than when you pick your own though.

Some chestnuts sold at shops may have been stored for a while and become a bit dry.

You need to carefully check chestnuts for how fresh they look, how dry they are or if they have any mold on them, before buying them.

In addition, sometimes people sell chestnuts from their farm/garden at local market or on trade website like trademe.

If you are lucky to find chestnuts for sale in these occasions, you can buy fresh chestnuts at very reasonable price.

So it is worth keeping eye out for chestnuts for sale around March ~ April.

How to Store Chestnuts

Freshness is very important for chestnuts; they are perishable food.

Chestnuts can be stored in the fridge for a few weeks easily; storing chestnuts for two weeks after picking them is said to actually improve the flavor of chestnuts.

But after that, gradually chestnut will go bad...

So what if you picked heaps of chestnuts and want to enjoy them over a long period of time?

Well for a long term storage, you may wish to freeze them in the freezer.

There are a few different ways of freezing chestnuts,

１．Freeze as is (in hard shell)- not very recommendable

First is to throw chestnuts in the freezer as is, with hard shells still attached.

While it is easy just throwing chestnuts in the freezer, it may be hard to peel them after they defrosted.

So I personally do not think this is a good idea...

２．Peel shells first, then freeze them – recommended

Many people freeze chestnuts after peeling outer shells and inner skin.

Peeling chestnut is a bit of tough work, as chestnuts shells are hard.

But once you peeled them then freeze them, it is much easier to used after you defrost them.

Over a long time of storage, your peeled chestnut may start to dry out, or change color.

To prevent this from happening, some people sprinkle in a bit of sugar in the same freezer bag as peeled chestnuts before freezing.

Sugar will lightly coat the peeled chestnuts, and help them stay good in freezer.

３．Cook Chestnuts in Syrup & Freeze – recommended

My favorite way of storing chestnut is first cook chestnuts in syrup (with a lots of sugar), then store chestnuts with plenty of syrup in freezer bag.

Even if you store for a long term in a freezer, chestnut will not dry out as they are inside syrup.

Thick sugar-syrup prevents ice crystals from forming and keeps chestnut in a good condition.

When it comes to eating, you can simply defrost them and enjoy them as is!

So We Picked and Ate Our Chestnuts!

So we already enjoyed some chestnuts we collected by going around parks...

First, we peeled shells off from chestnuts we picked.

Chestnuts skin is really hard, so it helps if you first soak chestnuts in hot water for a while; this softens outer shell.

I boiled a jug of water, and poured hot water onto chestnuts (raw), and left it until the hot water cools down enough for me to touch.

Then peel chestnuts with a sharp knife.

Still mostly raw – just softening skin by pouring hot water over them.

Once you peeled chestnuts clean, you soak them for 15-20 minutes in water with a pinch of salt.

This helps remove a bit of alkaline flavor (bitterness) from chestnuts. – an optional step (as chestnuts taste good as is), but supposed to make them taste even better.

Peeled chestnut

This time, I cooked chestnuts in a syrup.

In brief,

1. boil chestnuts in a pot of hot water with 1TBS of added vinegar – for about 15~20 minutes at low heat or until chestnuts are cooked.

2. drain and discard water – cool chestnut in a bowl.

3. place chestnut in a pot with water just enough to cover chestnut.

4. add sugar, approximately half the weight of chestnut (200~250g for every 500g of peeled chestnut)

5. cook at low heat for about 10 minutes – sugar will dissolve and water will become slightly thicker. Be careful not to burn the chestnut – or brown the syrup – cook at low heat!

Oh no, Burned it for the first try... still yummy though

Try again, this time successful sweet chestnuts in syrup! Yum!

Chestnut Picking in New Zealand Summary

• Chestnut picking season in NZ: Mid-March ~ April
• Chestnuts trees in parks/ or chestnut farm!
• Freeze them to enjoy them longer!
• Chestnuts in sweet syrup ... yum!

Hopefully 2018 would be another great year for chestnut picking....

Happy Chestnut-picking & eating!

Visiting Mossop the New Zealand honey specialty shop!

New Zealand is famous for its honey, especially Manuka honey.

Well the other weekend, when we went to Bay of Plenty region and stopped off at a local honey-specialist shop named Mossop in search for awesome honey and honey-bee encounter experience.

Mossop is a specialized shop for New Zealand honey

Mossop is a family business located in an area called Tauriko highly specialized in producing and selling honey and honey-related products.

The business has 65 years of history and know-how of producing honey has been built over the time and passed down the business.

In the shop, various types of honey are sold including the famous Manuka honey.

Check out their official website here ⇒　http://www.mossopshoney.co.nz/

Tauriko is in Tauranga, Bay of Plenty region. The Mossop shop is located on the state highway 29, and is easy to find.

If you live or travel from Auckland, It is a great place to stop off to checkout locally produced honey, on your way visiting Tauranga or Rotorua.

Awesome display of New Zealand honey bees! 

We have repeatedly visited Mossop over time, and the reason is not just honey products they sell: we like to see the honey bees that produce the honey!

There are many shops in Auckland or other cities where you can pickup honey or honey-products, but there are not many that has display of live honey bee inside their nest.

At Mossop, they have an indoor display of honey bee nest. There is a large glass panel, and on the other side of this glass is a part of the honey bee nest.

So over the glass, you can see many honey bees moving and doing work. 


Honey bee & bee nest display


You can see honey bees working real close!

You are not seeing the whole honey bee nest box, but this type of display has some advantages like it is safe for little children, and you can really get close to the bees.

Next to the live bee display, they have panels full of information about honey bees. There are pictures of work bees, queen bees and drones (male honey bees) on the panel, so you can compare these pictures with the actual bees in the glass display.

You can even try to spot drones and queen bees – you might find them if you are lucky.

This is an awesome way to get to know bees for people who are interested in honey bees, especially kids. Our children love them too.

You are allowed to take some photos by the bee display, so you could get a nice shot of yourself or your kids with honey bees – a good memory of the trip.

Range of New Zealand honey and honey products

At Mossop, they sell various types of honey and honey-related products. In addition to honey that are packaged in a bottles, there is also a bucket-size sale where you buy honey per weight.

You can purchase Manuka honey that way too. The price is very reasonable; 1kg of Manuka honey for NZD47.9, NZD103.7 for 2.5kg according to their website online shop.

http://www.mossopshoney.co.nz/shop/honey/manukahoney.html

You can taste-test honey first before deciding to purchase them. They also sell honey-comb honey, great for a souvenir.

Sweets made using honey like honey fudge, cosmetic products like honey skin cream, and cute honey-bee toys perfect for kids are also sold here. 

We purchased “bee-wax candle set”. We have never seen something like this before; a sweet smelling candle sheet made of bee wax!


Mossop is a perfect place to pickup anything related to honey!

Have a break with Manuka Honey ice cream!

After watching some honey bees and doing shopping, we decided to have a short break with icecream. At Mossop they have a counter with icecreams sold at NZ$2 per kids’ size scoop, or NZ$3.5 per regular size scoop.

Ice creams come in various flavors but there was one in particular, Manuka honey flavor, so we had to try. New Zealand ice creams are the best! Our children were really happy too.

Mossop shop information

Overall, Mossop is a small shop but is a great place to be if you are looking for good quality New Zealand honey and honey-related products, or a bit of honey-bee encounter.

They are open for business seven days a week except Christmas day and New years day, so why don’t you stop by when you visit Bay of Plenty!

Shop name：Mossop
Official homepage：http://www.mossopshoney.co.nz/
Address：761 State Highway 29、Tauriko、Tauranga、Bay of Plenty、New Zealand
Shop hours
April ～September : 9am - 5pm
October～March: 9am - 5:30pm
Closed days
Christmas and New Year’s day
Shot days
December 26th and January 2nd: 10:30am - 4:30am
Phone number for enquiries: +64 7 543 0971
Phone number for shop: +64 7 543 0032

Fishing in Auckland with Kids 1: Okahu Bay Wharf

Our 8-year-old son loves fishing, and wants to give fishing a go on a sunny weekend. Being new to the area and having no prior fishing experience ourselves, we started off by looking for potential fishing spots with my children.

  

Fishing in Auckland with Family

New Zealand is a beautiful country surrounded by the sea, and Auckland being the “City of Sails”, fishing is a popular hobby. We see many people with their own boats and fishing gear enjoying fishing.

There are also various fishing boat charter services providing half-day or day-fishing tours. We would love to give these a shot one of these days.

But for now, our son is only 8-year-old, and we feel it is a bit too early to go on a whole-day cruise to catch a snapper. He might get too tired during the trip, or worth sea-sick. These tours are quite expensive too.

So we have been searching for a local wharf where we could get some fishing experience first. Ideally, somewhere easily accessible and safe with children. This time, we tried “Okahu Bay Wharf”, which was described to be a popular spot around Mission Bay, on the internet websites.

Tamaki Drive, Okahu Bay Wharf in Auckland

On the day, we traveled from Auckland CBD towards mission bay on Tamaki drive. The target location, Okahu Bay, was on the left hand side along the stretch of the Tamaki drive. It was right opposite to the car parking area of the Auckland’s famous Kelly Talton’s SEA LIFE aquarium.

We parked on the road along side the Okahu Bay wharf and unloaded our fishing gear, food and drinks.

At the Okahu Bay Whar, there is a long stretch of walkway out to the sea, about 150m in length. At the other end, the walk way splits up to T-shape.

It is fenced all the way, but with plenty of gaps so I would not take an eye off little ones. But we our primary school age-son was quite comfortable there. Overall it looked like a nice spot where family with kids could give fishing a try.

Okahu bay wharf

Okahu Bay Wharf is a Popular Fishing Spot

On the day we visited, it was cloudy with some wind and occasional shower. So it was cold day.

When we arrived Okahu bay wharf just before lunch time, there were already three groups of people enjoying fishing there. At the far end of the walkway, there was a group of young man who were enjoying swimming! Oh how nice it is to be young…..

After we started fishing, people with fishing gear kept on arriving every now and then. A lot of people came passed us just enjoying walks too, some with kids and some with dogs.

The wharf had visitors on even such a cold cloudy day, so I would imagine that on a sunny day of early summer, a perfect fishing day, this wharf will be quite busy with people trying to do fishing here.

At the end of walk way

No Fish for This Day!! (Danm It!)

We tried fishing for about two hours on this day. But unfortunately we could not catch anything ourselves. A guy who was fishing before us, had caught something that appeared to be Kahawai, a locally seen type of Arripis. It was quite large, not fitting his small chilly bin, as he was taking it home.

Other than that, no one else caught anything while we were at Okahu Wharf. According to some website or fishing forum though, you could catch some snapper by casting your line as far as possible in summer.

We did see some “hard-core-fisher” people who had really nice fishing gear and setting multiple of them along the wharf. So there is little doubt in us that this is a good fishing spot that attracts a lot of people.

We did not have any luck this time, but we would love to give it another shot at Okahu Bay Wharf.

Bring Your Own Fishing Gear (and Food!)

This Okahu Bay Wharf is a public domain and there is no entry fee for fishers. But it also does not have any manager on site or shops nearby. So you will need to bring everything you need with you, including fishing gear, bait, drinks and snacks.

We picked up our fishing bait at a petrol station between Auckland CBD and Okahu Bay. You can normally pickup bait and ice from a petrol station located within short range from a coast. They are often kept in a freezer outside of the shop with a lock, and you may need to ask the shop staff for them.  

So that was Our First Fishing at Okahu Bay Wharf

Unfortunately we were unable to catch anything, but we did enjoy the experience there. It seemed like a nice spot and we will definitely give it another shot! 

It is near mission bay so we could plan a whole day outing with kids; some fishing at Okahu bay wharf followed by icecream and playtime at the mission bay.

Chipmunks visit!

Chipmunks visit!

Earlier in the week, I took my children to a large famous indoor play centre, the Chipmunks!

What is Chipmunks?

Chipmunks is a franchise brand name for large indoor kids play centres. It is a play centre combined with café business, where you pay entry fee for kids to play, and once you enter parents could enjoying a cup of coffee and other café food. It is a great place to be, to entertain kids on those rainy gloomy cold days.

On the left is the play area; right is the café area with purple and yellow chairs.

Where can I find Chipmunks?

According to their website, they have 13 locations in the North island of NZ, and 5 more in the South island (checked in 2017). Out of those, 5 are located in Auckland region. They also have locations in Australia and Indonesia.

You can check on their homepage for more information.

è https://www.chipmunks.co.nz/

On the above website, you can also find administration fee information, and also send enquiries about holding birthday parties there.

The place is busy on Saturday and Sundays…!

For this occasion, we went to the Chipmunks in Tauranga. It was cloudy day looking like it could shower any time, and it was Saturday morning. So we expected that the place would be rather busy, and we were right!

We entered the premise around 10am and at that time, half of the tables were empty; the place did not seem all that busy. However, we noticed that there were reserved table. Later we found out that there were three birthday groups on that day, and the place got busier and busier!

Inside is huge! Enough space for kids to bounce and run!

The kids play area is very spacious. When you enter, straight away you see a large air-filled slide where children could bounce and roll.

Hard to see in this picture, but there is a huge slide at the back! I would love to give it a go but no adult is allowed, sorry!

Main play area has a large slide and three story climbing area too.

Air-pressured sponge shooting gun – super exciting for all boys and girls!

The favorite area for my boys is the shooting arena, where you can use one of air pressure gun to shoot out soft balls made of sponge-type material. The ball is about the size of kids’ fists, and it is soft. You pickup those balls, put it in a air gun, and push a button. Then you hear the “Shhh!!” sound and your ball will get shot out flying.。

The air-gun looks really large for kids and looks really cool!

Balls fall in the area underneath, and there little children are usually running around collecting some balls into a bucket or a bag.

A lot of fun just picking up balls too!

What to watch out for at the Chipmunks

Chipmunks is a café business, and it is not allowed to bring your own food and drinks. Instead, you have to purchase food and drinks there. They sell chips, nuggets, pizza, muffins and other variety of food you could eat for lunch.

They serve coffee too; a mum could probably enjoy a cappuccino while her child is playing in the play area if he/she is old enough to play by him/herself.

On the other hand, if you are bringing a little one, like preschool age, then you probably don’t want your eyes off them as it can be a bit dangerous with larger kids running and playing wild.

They do have an area especially for kids under 5, but even then a close supervision is required as it could still be dangerous if 2 year-old get bumped by a 5 year-old. Staffs are busy at the café and they do not have staff on watch for the play area.

Under 5 play area! They have a ball pool and some more toys inside!

Birthday party at the Chipmunks!

One of those days, I would love to plan a birthday party at the Chipmunks! It requires booking ahead of the time, so you will need to know when you want to hold it, and how many other kids you will invite.

That is a bit difficult for us as we don’t normally know which weekend we want to hold birthday parties, so we haven’t got around to using this service yet. But it would be an awesome party without doubt. You could organize food and gift packs, and even a visit from the famous Chipmunk!

How much does it cost to use Chipmunks?

The administration fee on entry is dependent on the day – e.g. if it is on the weekend, or if it is on school day, and the location (each location seem to have slightly different price plan).

The Tauranga franchise we went to;
1～2 year olds　 $9.90
3～11 year olds　$12.90 for non-school day,

And　1 – 11 year olds  $9.90 for school day

Supervising adult don’t get charged. The entry fee is one-off payment at the start, so it would be more for the money if you come in early and play for the whole day.  

Recommendations about Chipmunks

We have been to three Chipmunk locations, but all are busy on the weekends. Especially on the day with bad weather, all parents seem to think of the same idea….

But even on those days, it is quieter in the early morning, so my recommendation to go first thing in the morning as they open up.

It gets really busy around 11am-12pm, but some families who came early in the morning will leave without having lunch there, so it does calm down a bit in the afternoon compared with the peak time.

This time, we spent good three hours. Kids had chips and hot-dog munch meal sets, and I enjoyed my latte. It seemed though that even that was not long enough for my kids…. They were ready to play more!