As promised, I'm doing my best to report back on what's been going on over here in New Zealand. I can highly recommend a trip here to see it all for yourselves if you are feeling jealous ... It's been lovely to get everyone's messages/phone calls/etc and learn all about the exciting news in your lives (moving house, a forthcoming baby shower, an engagement and accepted job offer)!Monday 21st April - Kirsten had to take Will to the airport about 5.30am so he could go back to work. I wasn't up that early (thank goodness!) and it was probably closer to 9.30am when we left the hostel to explore the Bay of Islands further. My legs felt like they'd had a good workout from climbing the sand dunes on Sunday for the sand surfing. So our plan was to have a relaxing and fairly lazy day. It started well enjoying a coffee outside by the sea and writing a postcard - still not posted any yet so they will probably arrive after I return, oh well never mind, it's the though that counts!
We got a slow boat over to Russell, which back in 1820-40s was know as the 'hell hole' of the north in NZ. It's a very different place now and is even described as being a romantic get away! Kirsten and I, strolled around the town and settled for a picnic on the beach. It's a hard life being on holiday when the sun is shining ;)
Then we explored some more and saw some fantastic local arts and crafts. We had a wonderful conversation with Edwyn Scott who carves jewels from bone, paua and pounamu (green stone) at his eco friendly home above Long Beach and specializes in carved feathers. In another shop there was an artist who had blown up his photos on canvas. Now I know there are ways of doing that at home in England, so I'm hoping that I can do something similar because it'd be more personal - not to mention probably cheaper than buying over here!
We climbed up the hill and found a zig zag path to walk back down - not as dramatic as Lombard St in San Fran though! I then tried hokey pokey ice cream, which is a honey comb flavour and super sweet. We sat on the pier and I wrote some more postcards before catching the boat back. At 4pm it was still gloriously warm and sunny, so I managed to convince Kirsten that it'd be criminal for us not to swim in the sea. She tested the water and agreed it was a reasonable plan. Running into the water was a bit bracing at first, although once fully immersed it was actually quite warm. I only let out a small squeal during in the whole process. The funniest thing was watching two German men going for a swim after us and shouting their heads off as they got wet, clearly they were not as tough as us!!
Afterwards we went back to the hostel for a cup of tea and a hot shower. We then drove to Haruru Falls near Waitangi before going to Woolworths supermarket(!!) to buy food for dinner - lamb yellow thai curry cooked by Kirsten, which was scrummy. I had an early-ish night because the swim/walking left me exhausted. I slept very soundly. zzz
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