Acton Estate Gisborne

... man at the Pinnacles Hut had told me about Mt Maunganui (it as where he & his family were from) so we decided to stop there. It was beautiful & the beach fantastic. We made the most of the coastal drive & stopped whenever we had desire. Also stopped in Gisborne the final night, but really didn't see much of the place. By adverts & literature, it seemed to be quite a hot spot for surfing. Some of the waves we saw on the East ...

... So fab! So a total of 4 nights in the car. We decided we would treat ourselves to an actual bed and a warm shower...and some Thanksgiving food! Well, sort of. We got a roasted chicken from Pakn'Save, a cheesecake, and some pineapple slices for me. There were also some Canadians at the YHA (Youth Hostel Association) we were at who made some cranberry sauce! YES!!! It was a very lovely meal. A little different to spend Thanksgiving outside, but it was nice!

... a good thing that we stocked up with jumbo coffees. We were well rewarded for our wait and watching the transition for dark to light over the ocean was amazing. I took about 300 photos of which I now need to choose just a few so as not to bore everyone with seeing every millimeter of the sunrise. Other great news was that we both became uncle and aunt for the second time today. My sister Natalie gave birth to her second, Ruby who Gabriel and I have also named ...

... in palm trees and with the beach nearby, it gave the complete sense of what it means to live in such a small island nation. There were heaps of shops and plenty of surf. The last morning we got up and went to go watch the sunrise, being the first people in the world to see the sun that day. Not very many people get to say that they were the first..but on January 13th...we were.

... Nobody left the be*ch,, we *ll were w*iting e*gerly to see the se* rise...In the end it never did, m*ybe for the best! If only we would h*ve st*yed one more night in Gisborne... It w*s cool *nyw*y. Après ce weekend p*ssé à N*pier *vec nos potes, on f*it * nouve*u nos v*lises et on reprend l* route. Destin*tion: Gisborne et l* boucle de l* côte Est. M*lgré l* voiture rép*rée, quelques jours plus t*rd, à nouve*u il semble y *voir un problème *vec l ...

... bad. We went to see the glowworm caves (while mommy crawled around in the dark somewhere under us) and Mike was totally enthralled. He still talks about glowworms, and made a glowworm cave out of a shoebox. You walk through the caves and at the end you ride a boat out in the dark. The glowworms are on the ceiling. Glowworms are actually maggots that lack any way to take a ****. So they burn up the waste chemically, glowing green from the process. Only in NZ would you get ...

... Of course since the alarm went off the fire department was there with two fire trucks. The wandered around the house, found the pillow, and shortly after gave us the all clear to go back inside. Other than that excitement, the only thing we really did was go to where Captain Cook first landed in NZ, took some pictures of his rather nice statue, and then go to an art fair they were having in town. Besides all of that, Gisborne is the first city in the world to see the light of the new day...

... This idea in and of itself would be clever, but wait, there's more. They then opened the Shawn the Prawn park, where people pay for the pleasure of watching them do their job. Then people pay again to eat their prawns in their restaurant. They produce about three thousand pounds of prawns every week, and over ninety percent of the prawns are sold right on the premises, so they don't even have to pay for shipping ...

... maar vermakelijk genoeg aangezien het buiten toch regende. Even later brak de zon door. Ik besloot het museum te laten voor wat het was en eindelijk weer eens naar het strand te trekken. Maar ai... een paar weken terug hadden ze vloedgolven gehad, waardoor het hele strand vollag met aangespoeld wrakhout en andere troep... Nou, surfen zou het dus niet worden de komende dagen. Ze waren bezig met opruimen, maar waren nog niet echt ver.<br>Maar al dat aangespoelde had ...

... towns where the main attraction was a pier! We were also going to go to Whangara where they filmed Whale Rider but there was a Tangi going on so we couldn't get anywhere near the place. It is also sacred anyway so we wouldn't have been able to go into the village. When we finally got to Gisborne, we did a bit of shopping and then went to the surf lodge. It is really nice, almost like a house. I have made myself comfortable, checked my e-mails and done my laundry.