New Zealand 2008-09 Days 1 and 2

Day 1 - Auckland. After a long day, we finally arrived at Conifer Grove, Auckland, and stayed the night with Phil, Julie, Rich and Rob.



The Morgans have lived in NZ for five years, and they took us on a walk round their area, Takanini, which was very picturesque. In the evening, Phil cooked up a mean Moroccan chicken for dinner which was gorgeous, followed by a controversial tequilla trifle, which also tasted factastic!

Day 2 - Lake Taupo

We drove to Taupo in the morning, and in the early afternoon, met up with Jac and Graham, who were in the middle of the a three week trip around NZ. After a late lunch, we decided to hit the water and go fishing on the lake. It's illegal to sell trout in NZ, even in a restaurant, the only way you can eat one, is by catching it yourself, and then cooking it on a BBQ!

It was quiet a relaxed affair....there was some beer....


whilst we were watching the rods, waiting for a bite....




Then the fish started biting.....



Everyone managed to land one....except Dan! At least he had fun driving the boat....


At the end of the afternoon, we'd bagged enough for dinner...


put it on the BBQ, and had a fantastic night!

Christmas 2008

So here's what we got up to over Christmas 08':

Pre-Christmas dinner: Since we were not going to be cooking our own Christmas dinner this year, it felt a bit wrong not to have a turkey of our own, so we made the whole spread the weekend before Christmas-Megan came round to enjoy it with us, and brought her homemade Australian trifle. Dan got the opportunity to practice his mum's brussel sprouts with cream, bacon and almonds, and my word, those sprouts were the best we have ever tasted!






Christmas Eve had a south American flavour, as we had a BBQ with Aldo and Mon and their Brazilian family. The meat was amazing (brought to brisbane in a suitcase from Sydney Aldo's parents live), and the bean and chirizo rice was amazing aswell!



So, Christmas day, we made our way over to Sam and Paula's place in Fig Tree Pocket to have an amazing Christmas dinner.




I swear I'd never seen so many roast pototoes!!


It was so warm, afterward we had a great stroll along the Brisbane river and an ice pop to cool down when we returned! Then the girls beat the boys at a round of Cranium (which happens to be a great combination of pictionary/charades/trivial pursuit all rolled into one-on my christmas list for next year I think...!).

Byron Escape

By hook or by crook the boys took Tuesday off work and escaped to Byron Bay. On my leave form I wrote "mental wellness day", I thought that summed it up nicely.

We had a great dive, the visibility at Julian Rocks was the best we'd seen it. No sharks this time, but plenty of turtles, rays and lion fish.

Here are some of the better photos from the trip:

Manly

Steve - all thumbs

This turtle came right for us

He swam right under me




We saw a Wobegon much bigger than this one, as big as us, but the photo didn't turn out.

Ray

Lion fish, we saw a pair of these, lion fish are cool.
Fish are useless at giving directions.


Aussie Christmas 2008

We finally got round to putting our tree up yesterday (the poor thing never even made it out of the box last year, hence it had that nice fake christmas tree fusty smell....)


It seems that Australian's don't go in for the traditional star or angel atop of the tree, so when we needed a new show piece, we went for something a bit more local....


3 Christmases Later


3 jobs,
1 engagement,
6 trips home,
2 games,
8kg,
lots of sunshine,
and a few injuries

later...

Sam & Paula's Wedding - Heron Island
















A couple of weeks ago friends of ours got married on Heron Island, I'm so glad we went. The wedding was lovely and the island is an amazing place. Heron Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef, it's a 1 hour plane journey and a 2 hour boat ride from Brisbane.
Heron Island famous for turtles- between October and December each year, Green and Loggerhead turtles head up the beach to dig their nests in the sand dunes and lay their eggs. Only 1 in 1000 eggs ever makes it to adulthood to reproduce themselves (how sad!).



Spanish Dancer
Baby lion fish


The diving and snorkelling are fantastic, visability well over 20m, and you can pretty much see everything right from the beach! Shark Bay really lives up to it's name.


Snorkelling we saw too many sharks and rays to count!
Black tip reef shark

Lemon shark
bull rayShovel-nosed ray