Hotel Whitianga

... firewood and then attacked the visious and relentless Jasmine plant. It climbs and strangles other plants and it had a pretty firm grip in some areas. We took a tea break and made tea using a ridiculous Kiwi invention. It is a hollw cyclinder with a larger, water-filled cylinder around it. A fire is started in the middle syclinder and in the bottom, which heats the water. It's a terribly clunky, somewhat dangerous decive, be we got our tea nonetheless. We then dug a ...

... in the popular Art Deco style of the time. So every year thousands of people travel to Napier in February for the Art Deco Weekend event - a celebration of Napier's Art Deco heritage and history. <br><br><br><br><br>Thankfully the next morning when we were leaving Napier the weather was fine. As the bus<br>that we travel on only goes to some places on certain days we only had one night for Napier or we would end up missing places that we wanted to go to.<br><br><br><br>On ...

... on Wednesday afternoon and moved into the bach (pronounced batch - means summer home or flat) below the restaurant. My first impression of the place is that it's going to be a great couple of weeks. The cafe is run by a ...

... look set about our main reason for staying here - the magnificent Cathedral Cove. We were entertained near the car park on top of the cliffs by some silly B who had nearly gone over the edge when trying to park on the roadside. Luckily, some Kiwi had a 4x4 with a winch. It is quite a hike to get to Cathedral Cove (about 45 minutes) and it was a boiling hot day but it was a lovely ...

... seriously BIG!! From here we continued along what had now become a very narrow, windy, gravel road - something there appear to be quite a lot of in New Zealand, along with single lane bridges over the rivers - all of which makes for 'interesting' driving conditions at times. It was along this road that we experienced our first of thankfully relatively few examples of reckless driving as, on the whole, New Zealand drivers seem pretty laid back and polite ...

... lot of time to enjoy it since we needed to get back to Hot Water Beach). We took a little dip, then sat out on the white powder sand and enjoyed the view. Occasionally a group of kayakers on tour would row in and pull their boats ashore on the beach, or a new group of beachgoers would arrive from the hilly path and get their first glimpse of the beautiful beach. But otherwise it was quiet and peaceful and beautiful. We discovered that even the ...

Mangatarata (Thames) We have now completed our extended placement at farm stay number 2! We originally booked to stay for the week but stayed on longer to help Jude finish landscaping the garden, luckily we had a four day unfilled slot so were delighted to stay. Jude is a great person; she lives alone now having lost her husband a few years ago. Until recently she has been running the dairy farm single handed, but after decades of early mornings and seven day weeks ...

... loved his job in Waitomo and they told him if he came back in September for the start of season he would have lots more work along with a full time job, but we would be in the South Island by then. Tom came back to Auckland and I had one more week left at work, so Tom sorted the van with new foam which was much needed for our bed and chilled out with our house mate Jo. We had been staying with Jo and Phil while we were in ...

... in town, and in the evening Piet made a very nice curry. Friday 25th April We spent the morning moving potted young plants around and weeding the vegetable garden until our tea break. Then after that we dug up lots of soil to cover up the base of the new fence. Once the area we've been working in is completely predator-free they are planning on using it for kiwi re-introduction so I'm really happy to have played my small role in helping it on its ...

... and loose sand and rocks. Finally, I made it to the crater, some 80-100m deep, where I stood on the rim and tried to take a picture with Ring on my hand. But the Ring had his own will and the wind blew it from my finger that it fell into the crater. I felt miserable for the pollution, honestly. R: I had been walking on, up a peak with a deep red canyon next to it. The colours were amazing, patches of all different ...