Update

Hi Folks, Well it seems like I have never been away. Launched straight into Christmas preparations but have caught up now. Had lots of ups and downs. Said goodbye to our Leader at Guides a sad but happy occasion! Christmas parties attended and survived. Been given a present already by my work colleagues - the cold! Just in time for Christmas oh joys!

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas will enjoy catching up with most of you over the holidays and looking forward to a New Year - could this be the year!

Back to Normal!

Santa Parade!

Rugby League World Cup

More Santa Parade!

Mini Golf

Well back in the UK. The Santa Parade was fab and we got sunburnt sitting watching it! We had a game of mini golf before going to the airport our last bit of sunshine and fresh air for 36 hours!

The flight home was better managed to do a lot of sleeping and arrived in London quite refreshed. Which is more than can be said for the toilets in London Heathrow it took me three attempts to find one I felt comfortable using why is it all toilets and cities abroad are so much cleaner than ours?

Anyway we arrived at Edinburgh and my daughter was waiting for us pleased to see us home and our luggage arrived too, always a bonus. Home for a lovely soak in the bath, tea and bed. Can't say it is great being back nice to be in contact with everyone again but finding it hard to settle. But as I have not done any Christmas preparations before we went have had to launch myself into that but it does seem right now that there has been some snow on the ground.

What a welcome back that was on Tuesday having three inches of snow and a two and a half hour trip into work followed by a three hour trip to work on Wednesday. Welcome home me!

A sad day!

Our Last Breakfast!

Christmas Decoration NZ Style

Peter and Tyson

Jean and a Tall Ship!

Auckland Harbour

Our last day, we have now checked out and just had our last NZ breakfast sitting outside in the sun waiting on the Santa Parade - it just doesn't seem right all this sunshine and Christmas Decorations hanging everywhere and what's Santa doing in the sunshine!

Its only 12 noon and some people have taken up their positions on the street to see Santa it doesn't start till 2pm. We were lucky enough that our street where we were staying is where some of the floats are starting from so we have seen some of them already minus their occupants.

We took a lovely walk down by the harbour one last time and up some streets we had missed before settling to watch the parade.

A rather nice way to spend our last day!

Auckland - Day 3

The Luge

Another scorching day - we woke to our next door neighbour shouting down the phone at 7am this morning - as he was not speaking English we could only guess. So up we got and set off for the Luge which was 1/2 hour outside Auckland - great fun coming hurtling down the hill this took up all the morning and we caught the sun again.

Back to the hotel for our afternoon siesta and then out for tea a lovely steakhouse - just put my trousers on for travelling home and guess what - they are now tight on me! Back to the diet soon but not before my last ice cream tomorrow in NZ! Busy doing our last wash before hitting the sack for the last time in NZ.

Tomorrow we don't fly till late in the evening so we are out of our room at 10.30am but as Santa arrives in Auckland tomorrow the roads are closed we can't get our car out of the car park till 6pm just in time to make our way to the Airport. So tomorrow is a long lie leave the room at 10.30am and head off for breakfast before watching the parade.

Auckland - Day 2

Auckland Harbour from Sky Tower
Me having a calming cup of coffee

View from Sky Tower through the glass floorAnother through the glass floor

Spot the Jumper!

Up to find it had rained during the night but clearing to be another lovely day. We hit Sky Tower today - amazing views from the top I wasn't brave enough to walk on the glass floor but Peter was in his element we watched a few idiots jumping before going back down to terra firma! There was a small market nearby with lots of kiwiana so we did that before booking tickets at the cinema for this afternoon to see the new James Bond movie.

James Bond movie was fab - out for something to eat and then home to bed!

Auckland - our last stand!

Auckland Zoo!Sky Tower as seen from our hotel street
Our Hotel as seen from Sky Tower

(Its the one with the blue and green stripe in the middle of the picture!)

We woke after a bad night - although the site was quiet we had one of those air freshners that scooshed every so often in our room and a flashing light and a ticking clock - need I say more. The weather was fine in the morning and we set off to Auckland not such a long journey this time and no side roads would be taken.

We were arriving in Auckland bypassing the zoo so a decision was made to visit the zoo on our way in. It was scorching hot and the zoo I have to say was disappointing - smaller than we thought and alot of the exhibits were under refurbishment almost to the point where we should have got our money back. But I did get to see one of the hot keepers I had seen previously on the TV! And 2 of the elephants!

We then tackled the traffic of central Auckland and managed to find the hotel without too much stress really easy in fact. We checked in to a slightly disappointing room in that it was quite small and no cooking facilities and only a shower but hey we are in the centre of Auckland walking distance of all the attractions and it was cheap but clean!

We did a sorte before showering and heading out for guess what - food again!

Matakohe

King of the Kauri's - so big it didn't fit in the picture
Sitting inside a Bog Kauri Root

Spot Peter!

At the Kauri Museum, Matakohe

Cabin for the night at Matakohe

Road to Nowhere!

We had an interesting trip down to here. We thought we had seen the last of the untarred roads - how wrong were we - we had even worse ending in the road to nowhere we came to a dead end at the top of a mountain and had to turn and come back the 10kms or so to find the correct road. No wonder the local postie gave us a funny look! Anyway after finding the correct road we made good progress and the weather was kind and the view from that mountain top was awesome. We arrived in Matakohe late ish after noon to find it nothing more than a hamlet with a super museum all about the Kauri tree. We checked into our chalet which was lovely and clean and bright and welcoming it had to be there was nothing else there! We visited the museum which passed the time for us and after retiring to the chalet we ventured out to find something to eat - fish and chips our first of the trip and they were not bad !

Think you will have noticed something by now - it all revolves around trying to find our destination and food! We had an early night.

90 Mile Beach

It just goes on for ever - as far as the eye could see!

Well the rain stopped at 1am this morning and we have had a beautiful day just as well as we have covered some miles today. We are beside a lovely beach again and been for a paddle in the Tasman Sea caught the sun too! Amazing what a change in the weather can do for lifting the spirits. We tried to get to Cape Reinga the last lighthouse in the North of New Zealand and the most northerly point us visitors can get too - we knew the last part of the route was untarred road but it was a bit rough but we ventured on thinking it can't get any worse as we had passed campervans! - Well it did it was a road under construction we stuck with it for about 7kms thinking it will end soon - but it didn't so with only about 9kms left to do we took the decision to turn round we had our hired car to think of and I think we made the right decision have bought a postcard of what we should have seen! As we are in the middle of no where today I have had to cook - pasta quite tasty just been for another walk along the beach and catching up before catching some zzzzz's one more day on the travel before we land back in Auckland.

Whangarei -Birthday Girl!

Whangarei - Cabin
Whangarei Beach

We set off bright and early - my birthday. Peter has already bought me a lovely new ring for my birthday so I am a lucky girl. Mum had given me a card to bring with me and my friend in NZ had given me a card too and Lynn had instructed her son to get me flowers for my birthday from her so I was not forgotten even if I am on the other side of the world! Unfortunately the rain has not stopped and it has been raining all day and in this part of the country we really needed sunshine very picturesque or so we are told. The rain has not stopped it is belting down as I type - what a day for my birthday - however we have done the usual quick nip around town and bought lunch. The cabin is lovely but only one room and really a bit clostrophobic for an all day sit in. We will venture out perhaps later to keep ourselves sane but there is hope tomorrow is to be sunshine and showers!

Orewa

Windsurfers - Orewa
Orewa Cabin!

We set off from Hamilton to travel just north of Auckland - weather was ok. We didn't like hitting the main roads near Auckland it was like joining the rat race again but only for a short time thankfully. We found our next destination and unfortunately the rain found us too. We managed a quick walk along what would be a beautiful beach on a lovely day the wind surfers and kite surfers were in their element. Off to the cabin which was average but clean. Into town for tea at an english pub next door to a shop that sold english food - Walnut Whips, Jaffa Cakes and Midget Gems and the like. We spent the evening in the cabin as it did not know when to stop raining hopefully our next day will be better!

Hamilton

Hamilton Cabin & Bessie
Old Friends!

Waitomo Caves

We set off to Hamilton via Waitomo Caves for the uneducated these are glowworm caves! They were awesome. You are taken through some caves and put on to boats to travel through the darkness to see the glow worms there were millions of them- beautiful and then on to another cave to see the formations. Stalagtytes and Stalagmytes both were great. Out to scorching weather and then on to catch up with an old friend - Bette - fortunately we managed to find her we stopped at a police station for directions and we were only minutes from her home and she was in. So we caught up and had a cuppa before getting to our destination in Hamilton. The motel was super and had a bath a huge spa bath - big enough for two - need I say more! They also had an indoor heated swimming pool. We headed off into town to do a recky and out for tea before spending the next day there. We took to the botanic gardens to find a Pipe Band Competition in full flow - spooky or what. We watched for a while but as it was finishing and the sun was beating down on us we headed back to that swimming pool - bliss and then to top it off a spa bath! Out for tea and a good sleep!

Friends

Liz's Garden - our wedding venue a few years ago!

Mount Egmont - Taranki
Mount Egmont at Dusk


Lake Magmahoe - Inglewood

Wind Wand New Plymouth

Cape Egmont Lighthouse

Friends

We didn't have a long journey to get to my friends (Val) so we took the coastal route as the weather was awesome and managed to get to Cape Egmont the most westerly part of the North Island and that's pretty much all you can say about Cape Egmont! Off to the town did a bit of walking around and getting acquainted with the place before heading off to Vals. Arrived to find no one in but her son Adam did appear within 5 mins.

At last a Bath! Boy did we enjoy it. We then visited the friend of Val's who allowed us to get married in her garden 4 1/2 years ago. Liz and her husband Lee. They are very welcoming peeps. We had a lovely relaxing evening meal and the wine flowed - too much perhaps! As Val was busy Liz arranged to meet us in the morning to walk around the nearest lake - all I will say is only one of us made it at 9am the next morning - I wonder who that would be!

The walk around the lake was lovely and an excellent cure for a hangover! What lovely friendly people they are. Back to Vals and met up with my other half and off to the nearest town and did the coastal walkway as the sun was beating down. Before this we decided to have breakfast but neither of us to could finish it - I wonder why!

Val did us proud with a lovely roast dinner at her Dads and her and I caught up on old times before hitting the sack ready to move on the next day.

Wanganui

Black Swan
View from Elevator in Wanganui

Elevator - Wanganui

Leapfrog - Wanganui

View from cabin at Wanganui

Left Ohakune and headed south a bit to Wanganui where the weather improved for us. We didn't have much driving to do so we arrived too early to get into our cabin so did a bit of sightseeing. We visited Durie's Hill which is a super vantage point of the town. There is a tower to climb with 176 steps and we both managed. There was also an Elevator which I sent Peter up to take the pictures! After this we went to our cabin more like a chalet with a beautiful outlook over the river and my own whirlygig! Just had to do a washing! After chilling for a while we found a lovely lake - Virginia lake set in winter gardens which we walked around which took just over an hour in lovely sunshine with lots of birds to see. Back to the cabin to chill on the verandah with a drink whilst our Chinese takeaway was delivered to our door. How cool is that. I have to say I have not cooked since being in NZ. Only one night here and off to my friends in the morning.

Managed eventually to make contact with my friend to discover her Mum had died and we had missed the funeral by one day - shame she was a lovely woman but have many fond memories of her.