So I've been living in Auckland for about 6 years. I was temped to work an Australian version, but then I thought that it was about time that I found out some fun facts about where I live. And this is what I can up with.

I'll start off closer to home. I live in a pole house - I call it my treehouse. It's so high up that it looks over the canopies of the reserve below. As well as Tui's we have a regular feisty fantail visitor. So I thought I'd feature him sitting on a Pohutukawa branch.

Some fun facts about Auckland that inspired my pattern

With two major harbours and surrounded by water, Auckland has the worlds highest boat ownership per capita in the world, and is often called the City of Sails.

Eggbeaters where invented by the Kiwi Ernest Godward.

Australians and Kiwi's are still arguing about who invented the pavlova, so I decided to throw it in, seeing as though Kiwi's did invent the eggbeater. What would we do without an eggbeater people!

Apparently here I live used to be strawberry fields (back in the 50's). So I've put them on the pav along with some kiwi fruit.

The Mﾄ｛ri name for Auckland is Tﾄ［aki. Among the many versions is Tﾄ［aki-makau-rau (Tﾄ［aki of a hundred lovers), referring to the desirable, fertile site at the hub of a network of waterways, taking travellers north and south, east and west.

Auckland is home to 50 odd volcanoes! One Tree Hill is a green hill near the city centre..still used as farmland with sheep wondering around the base. It also has the best views across the city. 

Agriculture is still NZ largest sector, with dairy, wool and meat. Auckland also produces world class wine.

Yellow-eyed penguin are thought to be one of the world's rarest penguin species and are found along the Auckland Islands.

Auckland’s boast a Coast to Coast Walk. A16-kilometre route takes hikers from the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean to the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea in about 4 hours.

Great Barrier Island (Aotea) was the first place in New Zealand to have a regular airmail service, by pigeon post. In 1897 the first pigeongram winged its way from the island to Auckland.

Kiwis live and breath rugby and sports in general. Everyone knows the All Blacks, I've never watch a game but they would run past my last house twice a week for training. 

I have no idea how to sew, but I like the look of the plushy...so I'll add this as soon as I figure out how to put one together.

Thats about it people.

Some of m really rough ink sketches