Lunar Eclipse

Tonight we got to see the first lunar eclipse in NZ for seven years - managed to get a few photos during the breaks in the cloud.







The effect of the eclipse caused the moon to go an interesting shade of red - difficult to get decent photos though.

Ambury Regional Park & Mangere Mountain

Today we headed south west to Ambury Regional Park on the Manukau Harbour. The main feature of the park is the farm centre where there were several recently born lambs.







They also milk their cows everyday to feed the calves, lambs and piglets.



This is the view from the park over to Mangere Mountain, an extinct volcano, that we were later to climb.








From the original crater rim, you can see down into the crater and the point of eruption. The mound in the middle is a lava mound.





The view also shows the number of extinct volcanos around Auckland - from left to right, Mt Eden, (Sky Tower is then in the distance), One Tree Hill with the obelisk, and to the right in the distance, Rangitoto.

Tawharanui Regional Park

We then headed out down a windy unsealed road to Tawharanui Regional Park. A very quiet and beautiful regional park with a stunning beach.






This a definite place to revisit, camp and do lots of the nice walks around the park.

Parry Kauri Park

Today we headed north to visit the Parry Kauri Park just south of Warkworth. There were a few very impressive kauri trees - and no Royston hasn't shrunk...







There was a walkway through the bush with many native NZ trees and ferns, and several newly planted kauri trees - a little smaller than the one above.

Our First Rugby Match

Well, we have finally made it to our first rugby match, and we thought we would start with a small game between the All Blacks and the Wallabies...this was the deciding match of the Tri Nations and the Bledisloe Cup. The weather at Eden Park was a little damp as you can see from the pre-match entertainment - the Ten Tenors were incredibly professional to keep singing through the torrential rain.



Although they sang the Australian national anthem, they obviously didn't fancy the Maori verse of the New Zealand one so a local singer sang that one.






The rain made the Haka even more atmospheric as there were flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder at the same time.





The weather put pay to any kind of running game so most of the points game from the boot, with Dan Carter proving to be reliable in front of the posts.






After an even first half, the All Blacks pulled away in the second half scoring the only try of the game ending up with an easy win 26-12. The Aussie supporters in the crowd seemed to take it fairly well. All in all a really good night and a good result for the ABs - can they take England's World Cup crown!

In Training

After watching Meet the Parents the other week, we thought we had better start getting Charlie toilet trained... Lifting the seat and pressing the flush are the next stages.





Seems like this is necessary as his drinking habits are getting worse...

New Arrival

After much searching we now have a new member of the family - Charlie, an 8 week old kitten.







He is 3/4 Persian so very fluffy and 1/4 clipper cat so he has 6 toes on his front paws, plus he doesn't have squishy noses that Persians do. He also has a bit of an Adam Ant thing going on over his nose...






It hasn't taken him long to settle in and take over the house.