Ohinemutu

Ohinemutu is a Maori village on the side of Lake Rotorua. Here there is the typical Maori marae - Tametekapua Meeting House - with the wooden carvings.







Whilst towards the lake is the historic Maori St Faith's Anglican church.

Tirau

Our trip down to Rotorua took us through the rather strange township of Tirau. This town is famous for its corrugated iron... The information centre and cafe next door are in the shape of a dog and sheep, with numerous other examples of corrugated iron art around the town.

Tawharanui Regional Park

Today we headed north to Tawharanui Regional Park, a place we have been before and thought to be an ideal first experience of a New Zealand beach for Mum & Dad. We pretty much had the place to ourselves.





Mum & Dad managed a quiet walk on the beach.







Before the fabulous weather allowed a picnic lunch on the beach.

Dad's Birthday

To celebrate Dad's 70th birthday, Mum & Dad have come to visit us in our new country. The first full day (his birthday) was spent exploring the North Shore. This is of the three of us at the top of North Head looking over to Auckland.






In the evening we went to the French Cafe, one of Auckland's top award winning restaurants which was very good.

Powderfinger Concert

After waiting 4 years we finally got to see Powderfinger in concert and they didn't disappoint. The best band in the world!!

Sheepworld

As part of Royston's birthday weekend we headed north to Sheepworld - a great excuse to behave like children! The farm area provides plenty of opportunities to feed the various animals.






As well as the obvious sheep, there were also donkeys, miniature horses, pigs and this rather hairy goat.







We then went to watch the sheep show, which firstly involved a brief history of the different breeds of sheep, followed by the sheep dogs rounding up the sheep into a pen.






This was then followed by a demonstration of sheep shearing.

First BBQ of Spring

As the weather was good Sunday morning, we decided to risk a BBQ for lunch, well more of a sausage sizzle actually, but it still counts.

The weather started to get more cloudy and grey as we lit the Barbie, but that's to be expected.

We managed to finish cooking lunch just before the rain started and set in for the day. It was great to have our first BBQ of the season.

Here's to many more throughout spring and summer...