Taupo - Anna & Tim's

This weekend we headed back down to Taupo to see Anna and Tim, to celebrate her 30th birthday and my birthday next week. Many developments since we last visited, the house is pretty much finished inside now, just the outside decking area to complete. The main additions have been to their animal family. "Compost" the pig being one of them - he is a cross between a wild boar and a farmed pig hence his face shape and ridge of fur along his back. He will be in the freezer early next year :o)


Two other additions are CJ and Jeff the goats. This is going to be one line of farming they pursue in the future and these are the first male goats they will use for breeding.





Finally they have four sheep and four lambs, some of which will be kept (the sheep for another lambing season), some sold and some in the freezer with Compost!





Their pine forest suffered badly in the winter storms and have had to result in having the majority of the trees ripped out and logged ready for sale - a large bulk of the wood is to be shipped to Korea. It has made a mess of one area of the paddock, but once finally cleared will be replanted with trees and prepared for the goat farm.



The day was rounded off with our birthday cake, beautifully made by Anna.

Tauranga

To help celebrate Royston's birthday we treated ourselves to a night at a top hotel in Tauranga. On route we stopped off to see the view back down the valley over to Matamata (otherwise known as Hobbiton as a large part of Lord of the Rings was filmed in this area).





The weather was stunning, so we spent some time walking around the waterfront area - largely dominated by restaurants and bars.




The hotel was certainly a treat after most of our nights away here being in a tent. This is Royston's arty shot from our balcony over to Mount Maunganui. The evening was topped off with a lovely meal at one of the waterfront restaurants.

BBQs At Last!!

The weather is now warm enough to crank up the barbie, so tonight was the first of the season. We made the most of the new season asparagus as well.

Sunset at Ninety Mile Beach

We were fortunate to catch a stunning sunset on Saturday night which wass the end to a great day, I'll leave the photos to tell the story...

Ahipara

This weekend we were invited up to Ahipara by Alistair & Darryl to stay at Alistair's parents bach in Ahipara, about 4 and 1/2 hours north of Auckland and at the start of Ninety Mile Beach.





Saturday morning was mostly spent on Ninety Mile beach with Royston fishing for several hours and catching five fish, all of which were put back on this occasion.





We were very fortunate with the weather, a nice morning turning into a beautiful sunny afternoon, befitting of the name the "Winterless North".





The beach was a scene of activity with plenty of quad bike tours and cars driving up and down.

Army Bay

As we are now a two surfcasting rod family, I was encouraged to have a go at fishing this morning at Army Bay. As the weather was warm I decided to give it a go and surprisingly enjoyed myself. Unfortunately no beginners luck in catching a fish, and no success for Royston with his new rod either, but it looks like I may have limited excuses for not going in the future...

Charlie & The Octopus...

Another Iams pet food free toy for Charlie, this time an Octopus - though quite why it has this name when it is a mouse on a spring with three legs I'm not too sure. The only photo I could get that wasn't blurred when he was playing with it, here he is playing it cool...