Author: Morgan Avery

Who can believe it, I added a beer… It seems so long since the last time… It’s not that I haven’t been drinking at all, I guess I just got bored writing about it. Anyway.

Little Red hates my little toy car… She says it sounds like a dentist drill. I quite like it, it spins around, and can do jumps, and stuff… Please don’t make me throw away my little toy car, Little Red!!!

Grading was hard… Very tired. Very relieved to have passed.

Heloise told me off for being slack, and the result is the (better late than never, I say) presence of the pictures we took at her flatwarming.

Nice it was, too.

I’ve put up all the galleries from the trip… Drive down / Flying a kite / Putara / Eve arrives / Castle Point / Dinner / Wedding & Reception / Ohakune & Tawhai Falls / National Park / Taranaki Falls Trail / Huka Falls / Craters of the Moon.

So there you go.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

By the way, for cheap petrol, visit National Park Township, $1.05.9… Cheapest anywhere else was $1.07.9… Not bad for a pokey little out of the way place.

Such a successful little trip, so much fun, so much incredibly good weather… So many photos! Now we have to get them off’a the notebook, and onn’a to the server.

It’s Monday, so we must be in Te Hawera… Mangamaire… Palmerston North… Bulls… Hunterville… Taihape… Waiouru… Ohakune… No, it’s National Park!

What a fantastic day for a drive… Really. The weather on our whole trip has been nothing short of perfect – aside from the few minutes of rain immediately before we arrived at Te Hawera. Stopped in Palmertson North for lunch, nothing flash, Burger King. Now we’re in the Pukenui Lodge – free internet, not bad.

We arrived up here at a bit after 4pm, so with plenty of daylight in hand, we took a quick drive up Mt. Ruapehu, found a walking track – just a quick one, 20 minute round trip – and had a look around at the Whakapapa Village. The plan for tommorrow is to do the Taranaki Falls Trail, which is a couple of hours, and will hopefully include an ICE COLD dip under a waterfall. If I’m not back in Auckland by Wednesday, please alert the authorities. 🙂

Also, realised today that I still hadn’t asked one of my flatmates to feed my fish (that’s not a euphemism)… A bit of an oversight, yes, but they do have a lot of plants and stuff in their tank, so I’m sure a couple of days won’t have killed them.

Went to my Uncle Bill’s wedding in Masterton, it was gorgeous in his back garden, restricted to family… And the weather was simply fantastic… Just like the champagne. Which was only the first of many fine wines we enjoyed, as the reception (and Bill’s b’day party) was held out at the Murdoch James winery, fantastic… So much good food and a really great riesling… Also favoured the cab franc.

We dropped by Penny & Dave’s (my cousin and her partner) place after the party, they own an apple orchard, and make lots of cider, and have started growing olives – they live in a huge barn, it’s really quite wonderful, with an extension made of rammed earth bricks… And delicious sweet juicy apples out the door.

Sunburned heads don’t feel or look nice, but at least my one was earned in a nice way.

After picking up my mother from the airport at Palmerston North, and dropping her back to Te Hawera, we took the drive out to Castle Point today, lots of gravel roads on the way out, as we took the back roads way, it was great… Including little red braking to a halt so she didn’t have to drive over a pair of dead possums strategically placed on the road (I only got a picture of one of them).

Castle Point itself was quite spectacular, it’s a really nice beach – and as its really quite out of the way, it’s not over run by stupid bastards getting in my way. It’s also got a lighthouse up on the point, and very nicely maintained pathways etc for people who want to get up there and check out the views – which we did. YUM!!!

New Zealand Kicks Ass!!!

I love it down here!

The weather is so fantastically amazing… Enourmous blue skies, and so much happy green. We took a walk up the hill and flew my kite, and took some pictures.

In the afternoon, and probably a little bit late, we drove out to Putara, and I (little red wasn’t game) had a very brief dip in the Mangatainoka – if that sounds familiar, just think Tui Brewery.

Other than the incredibly cold swim, points to note were:

• Gravel roads.
• Single lane bridges.
• Bastard Grass.
• High speed piggy-backs.