Our first public holiday weekend
Trip Start
Aug 13, 2007
1
25
91
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Napier,
New Zealand
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The rest of the week was a fairly quiet one, apart from Thursday night when we both went out for a colleague's leaving do. It seems to be fairly common here for partners to be invited to works events. Graham has met most of my work colleagues now as he has come to a couple of social events.
On the immigration front, we have been selected out of the pool, and we are just waiting for preliminary checks to be carried out before being invited to apply for residency.
Te Mata Peak
This weekend was our first long weekend, with Monday being Labour Day, and a public holiday in New Zealand. We drove up to Palmerston North on the Friday night, and then early Saturday morning, we drove to Havelock North, in Hawkes Bay. There was 7 of us in total going for the weekend, and we had hired a cottage called Casa Del Ponti which was just absolutely stunning.
On the Saturday afternoon, whilst the boys went off to play golf, the girls went on a tour to Cape Kidnappers to see the gannet colonies. We used the company Gannet Safaris but there are a couple of alternative options if you want to see the gannets. I have to say the tour was well worth the $55 spent on it. You get really close up to the gannets and spend a good hour there just watching the birds in their natural habitat.
In the evening we had a BBQ and played board games, and then on Sunday we got up early for the rugby world cup final. Two of the group, Bertus and Chantelle, were happy as they are South African. The rest of us weren't so happy! We then headed out for an all day wine tour courtesy of Vicky's Wine Tours. It was an fairly good tour, but still not as good as Grape Escapes, the tour we'd been on in August. Admittedly, we only did the half day tour back in August but the tour guide then was much more friendly and informative
Cape Kidnappers
.After the wine tour it was time for another BBQ, and then because it was Paul's birthday, we had birthday cake and birthday drinks! On Monday we had a quick visit to the Silky Oak Chocolate Company, as this was meant to be included on the wine tour, but for some reason we didn't have enough time apparently. There is a museum, shop and cafe. We didn't go into the museum but we did got to the shop and buy some chocolates. You can usually watch the chocolates being made, but as Monday was a public holiday there were no chocolates being made that day.
Following a quick Cajun chicken sandwich we headed back to Wellington, a long 4hr drive. Luckily, the others only had a 2hr journey back to Palmerston North.
