Wellington again 12th November

Back to Wellington again today to collect Fran who is going to stay with us for a couple of weeks. It was lovely to see someone from home after all this time and I hope she has a good time. I suspect she will find the North Island somewhat tame after visiting the beautiful South Island first.

Wellington was freezing cold as usual. Very windy waiting for the arrival of the Cook Strait ferry!

Taihape

This weekend we visited Hannah and Marcus on their farm near Taihape. We had never met them before, but Hannah is the daughter of a school friend of Andy's, Des McHugh. Andy has known Des for nearly 50 years and I have known him nearly as long, so it was lovely to meet his daughter and her family, who made us very welcome. We had lunch, and this was followed by a trip around the farm on a quad bike, a first for me! The picture below is a bit of a cheat as I didn't drive it. Marcus drove with Hannah behind, and Andy and I clinging onto the sides for dear life! You can see the beautiful river and beach which forms part of their land.

The views from the farm are beautiful. We travelled up and down steep slopes, through fields of cattle and sheep. We learned what a hogget is (any guesses?). A hogget is a year old sheep. They go on to become a two-tooth at a two years old, a four-tooth at 3 years, a six-tooth at 4 years and a full-mouth after that. So you determine the age of a sheep by how many teeth it has, if you are brave enough to check of course!

Finally, Marcus treated us to a display of the skills of his sheepdogs, which were all trained by him. Each dog has its own whistle, with different sounds for left, right, lie down etc., so Marcus can use several dogs at the same time all doing different things. Absolutely amazing! We had a really lovely day. Thank you both.

Bees!

Next door's bees escaped and swarmed in our garden this week. Craig from next door got suited up and came to rescue us!

Auckland and the flight home

Our flight back from Vanuatu landed just before midday and we had a five hour wait for the flight to Wanganui so decided to take the bus into Auckland to have a quick look around. We were impressed. After the 'wild west' feel you get from towns like Wanganui, Auckland was at last what we would recognise as a city. We hope to go back for longer perhaps in January, but this time we just had time to visit the waterfront, where a huge cruise ship was docked, and to enjoy lunch in the sunshine.

Then, were treated to some lovely views of the 3 large mountains of North Island on the flight back to Wanganui.

This is Tongariro I think

And this is Ruapehu

Vanuatu

Well, first impressions were not that good, but I think it's safe to say that, halfway through the week, we are warming to the place. 

Port Vila, the capital, is not a pretty town, but the coastline is beautiful so the potential is there. Food is expensive to buy and eating out is equally so, yet there is a sense of poverty everywhere. We hired a car one day and drove around the Island hoping to find a beach to explore. Unfortunately, there is a habit of selling off portions of the coastline to private owners, and other portions are sold along with building plots for holiday homes. This means that if beaches ARE available to tourists, you have to pay to use them. Such a shame. Andy tells me this is to do with French colonialism, so he will have to add details later to explain. Still, we are lucky in that our resort has its own short stretch of coastline for us to enjoy, along with a lovely pool.

Yesterday we took a tour to a local river and hired kayaks. A team of 3 guides took a group of 12 of us on a 7km trip along the Rentapao river. The scenery changed from a narrow river winding through tropical rainforest to a wide and beautiful river passing through the mangrove lagoon areas to the coast. Really enjoyed the trip. I didn't find kayaking at all strenuous. This may have had something to do with the fact that I was in a 2 man kayak with one of the guides? The Luksza family, who have first-hand experience of my rowing skills, will appreciate this! At the end of the trip we were invited to use a rope swing to launch ourselves into the river for a swim. I decided to be the official photographer, so unfortunately had to miss out on the swing. Still, I have a picture of Andy in action which I will add to the blog when we get back to New Zealand and I can download the pictures.

I can't really believe it, but I counted up today, and it is only 8 weeks until Paul and Joe arrive and 9 weeks for the Lewises. Really looking forward to seeing them all. However, that means that it's just over 9 weeks until Christmas, so this is a heads up to you all!

View from our room

A custard apple (I think) which we found in the fruit market. Very strange, but quite tasty!

9th October

Getting ready for Vanuatu on Sunday.

Feeling very rich, but actually this is worth about £6.50!

Taupo

Last weekend we drove to the centre of North Island to stay in Taupo, a town on the edge of the lake of the same name. Lake Taupo is beautiful and vast, being about 160km around. Apparently there is an annual cycle race around the lake, with some competitors going around several times - mad or what? We stayed in a very nice bed and breakfast, next door to a pub called the mole and chicken, which did excellent meals - another bad weekend for the diet!

The weather on Saturday was iffy, but we managed to visit the Huka falls, the craters of the moon - an area of bubbling mud pools and steaming geothermal landscape - and had a dip in the thermal baths between showers. Sunday was a much better day and we went on a fishing trip on the lake with our B&B host. Lake Taupo is only stocked with trout, both brown and rainbow, and Andy and I managed to catch 8 rainbows between us. We were very pleased with our efforts. We put all the fish back, mainly because trout is a pretty dismal fish to eat, but a good day, we enjoyed it very much. On the way home we got some lovely views of Mount Tongariro (I think, could be Mount Ngauruhoe) with snow on the peak.

We think we will stay around Wanganui next weekend, as the following week we are going to the pacific island of Vanuatu for a little holiday!

Huka Falls

Lake Taupo 

A snow-covered peak!