Gallivanting around the Nth Island (Pt1)

As promised, I am trying my best to post before we head away again tomorrow. I had hoped to post the complete (if summarised) rundown of our holiday in one hit, but have sadly come to the realisation that I was being utterly unrealistic! In fact, as I write, I have HOURS of work still to do to get ready for tomorrow’s departure. But I am taking a break to post or it will not happen. What this means, is that I think this holiday recount may take up more posts than I anticipated initially! My apologies. I will blog on the holiday until I reach the end, or until you get sick of it and tell me to STOP!

Anyway! We decided these holidays, that we needed to introduce the boys to their native land and some of the ‘kiwiana’ attached to it. I will try to summarise it all into a few memorable moments and photos.

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We began our trip southwards, with a stop with our friends at their bach (use ‘crib’ in Australian, and ‘cabin’ in Canadian!) at Taupo.

Lake Taupo is NZ’s largest fresh water lake and is about the size of Singapore!

Memorable moments were being able to spend time again with good friends, K helping John with building the deck, going boating and fishing on the Lake (and I must advertise the fact that I think I caught the ONLY Rainbow Trout in the Lake! Oh, and this sort of fishing is for me - no horrible worms, all very clean! If I was a Rainbow Trout, I think I would've liked to have gobbled up my cute fluorescent pink fluffy glowbug with the boggly eyes too...) .....

clear, clear blue water .....

discovering pumice at the many beaches .....

spectacular views everywhere .....

beautiful sunsets .....

Twas such a lovely time.

From Taupo, we headed to Napier to spend time with the Grandies and Cuzzies.

The summer heat was amazing.

The boys became instantly tanned from spending time in and out of the water. If you like the sun, this is definitely where you need to come. Napier is the Art Deco City of NZ. Our time here was primarily to spend time with family and that was indeed a bonus.

And this is where I’ll have to leave you for today…..I looked at my photos from Napier and there are THOUSANDS I would love to post here…..unfortunately, I’ll have to pick some and resize them – a job that isn’t going to happen tonight with all that has yet to be done!

However, I will leave you with evidence of the fruit of some of my labours today – a picture of breakfast for one morning – a huge batch of homemade muesli a la Ange! And now I must tootle. As E put it so well today – “all this preparation for a few days of camping, is like the preparation it takes to go away and stay in a hotel for 2 weeks!” He’s right! And now you know why my idea of camping usually includes a lobby!!! Catch you when we return….