Ninety Mile Beach

This weekend we headed up to Ahipara with Darryl, Alistair & Paul to stay at Alistair's parents bach. Unfortunately the weather conspired against us as proceeded to pour down with rain once we got there. A short walk to Ninety Mile Beach and we could see how bleak it was out there.




One fisherman braving the elements, but we decided to give it a miss this time.

It's All Gone Ginger...

Charlie and the neighbour's cat have become good friends, terrorising the neighbourhood together in their gang colours... Not so much terror going on here though.

More FM Winery Tour, Villa Maria

Today we headed to Villa Maria winery in south Auckland for the annual winery tour. The venue is a fantastic spot with a natural amphitheatre in amongst the vines, we picked a great spot under the trees for some shade and looking over the crowd to the stage.




The first band of the afternoon was Opshop, who have recently hit the charts in NZ with some very popular songs.





They were followed by Anika Moa who entertained the crowd with both her songs and witty repartee.






The headline act was kiwi icon Dave Dobbyn who has been around for about 30 years and he did all his classic hits with singalong from the crowd.




A top way to spend an afternoon, relaxing drinking local wine and listening to great live music.

Devonport Food & Wine Festival

Today we headed to the Devonport Food & Wine Festival with Darryl and Alistair. A nice small festival with about 20 food and 20 wine stalls, and very popular as you can see from this photo!




The entertainment was also excellent with upcoming kiwi acts starting off the day, the highlight of these being Annabel Fay.






The next act was Bjorn Again, complete with dodgy Swedish accents, doing all of ABBA's hits.






The crowd were all up dancing and singing making for a great atmosphere. A great day with an opportunity to try some of the lesser known kiwi wines.

My First Snapper

Well I finally seem to be getting the hang of this fishing lark. Up early this morning and at Army Bay by 7am for a couple of hours fishing. Not much action but I did manage to catch my first legal sized snapper. We spent the rest of the day enjoying the sunshine at Shakespear Regional Park with friends before heading home to cook the fish.

Waikato River

After the forest, we then headed into Taupo where Anna & Tim took us to a couple of swimming spots on the Waikato River. The first stop was Cherry Island, this is where the Taupo bungy jumpers launch themselves (in the background of the picture).




The last spot for the day was the Huka Spa Park where there is a natural hot spring leading to the river, and a free bath for all!

Lake Maraetai & Pouakani Forest

Today is Waitangi Day and a day off work, so we headed down to see Anna & Tim in Taupo for the night. We met up about 40 mins out of Taupo at Lake Maraetai. A popular lake for waterskiing and wakeboarding.




We managed to find a quite spot by the edge of the lake for a picnic lunch.






From here we headed to the Pouakani Forest and a short walk through the bush to find the famous totara tree.






A pretty big tree, with a trunk girth of 11.5 metres and just under 40 metres tall.