Anchor Lodge Motel Orewa

... on the holiday season. Christmas at the beach anyone? You'll notice Mark standing in front of New Zealand's own Christmas tree, the Pohutukawa, with it's red "bottle brush" like flowers.

The gannets (or takapu) themselves are fantastic to watch, and seem not too bothered by humans at the viewpoints along the tops of the cliffs. Fuzzy chicks were already half the size of their parents, but we didn't get close enough (nor have a ...

... to the guy in the holiday park thismorning and he said we had gone through the toll and would be fined if we didn't pay the fee within 5 days. Phoned them up and tried to use my Welsh charm but to no avail - $8 (£4) down the pan. The campsite is beautifully located, we about 20 meters from the beach with a costal path running ...

Gertie and I have seen a kingfisher!

We'd just stopped to ahve a break from driving the campervan and to have some lunch and there it was.

Sorry the photo is a bit fuzzy. I haven't worked out how my new camera works yet. I would like to say that Gertie took it but as everyone knows ruber ducks can't work cameras!

... really sure about my driver, as we wobbled on the road often and was yawning quite a lot during our stops. I did make it to Cambridge.

Out of New Zealand

I spent a day and a half with my Cousin and Kelley and Isla, relaxing, going out to a movie with Matt, and taking one of the dogs to the park, the border collie Wiley. Oh, I forgot to mention their awesome Chihuahuas. Yes, I said Chihuahuas, which are usually little *******s. These ...

... and finally Hunters Valley (very nice indeed and again stopped for a glass :). All in all a great tour and great scenery and weather to top off the day. With Jess fully asleep in about 0.2 milliseconds we headed down the east coast to Kaikora. The weather turned and it poured down the whole way (with greg driving) but the landscape was amazing.... from vinyards to almost wild west rocky mountains and a rough sea hammering against the rocks. We spotted quite a few ...

... intention of doing all 4 days of the walk, but these canny New Zealanders have set up all types of excursions from 4 days walking or 4 days kayaking, to a half day kayaking or 1 hours walking on the track. On top of this they have water taxis that go along the coast showing points of interest! and I bet you can't guess which one we did? ................. It was a half day walking with a half day Kayaking, and we were taken to the starting point in a water taxi, where we were shown all ...

... person kayaks, so he paired each of us with a partner. I got paired with a young woman from Stockholm, Sweden named Nina. We shoved off and gathered just off shore and then began kayaking towards Cathedral Cove. The water was quite clear, and as we kayaked into Wanganui A Hei Marine Reserve, we could see a school of blue maomao fish swimming along underneath the kayaks. This marine reserve was established in 1992. No fishing is ...

... in the middle of Auckland. The next day we went Canyoning, 45 min directly west of Auckland. A day of cliff diving and repelling down waterfalls in a beautiful rain forest started our adrenalin crave. So the next day we went bungee jumping off the Auckland Bay Bridge. The jump sits under the bridge 43 meters (142 ft) from the water which gives you about a 3 second free fall, very sweet.

The next day we left early, people were comming to the sea to put their boats into the water and got really loud. It started at 6am and so we drove first close to Goat Island to have a look. We didn't cross the water and went to a nice caffe to have breakfast. Next stop was Sandsplit but wasn't really worth to spend time there so we went back to Warkworth where we stopped at a pretty vineyard called Morris & ...

... weer een schitterend huis, gelegen aan een kleine beek, van een of andere filmmaker hier in NZ.
De volgende dag ben ik, met een lichte kater, begonnen aan de vloeren. Vegen, schrobben, boenen... Opeens werd ik door Luke opgehaald. Zij waren de hal aan het verven en Grizzle was door de bak met verf gelopen! Grizzle zat onder de verf en voetsporen liepen overal! Hihihi... dit keer gebeurde het dus gelukkig niet bij mij.... Zij hadden Grizzle gewassen ...